So, here are my thoughts on Windows 7, if anyone is interested:
The Quick And Dirty Summary: The best Windows operating system I've set up to date. Fast, simple, and incredibly intuitive, it'll take you an hour to figure out the new UI at most and you'll be converted. Rock solid stable, and very user friendly without "dumbing it down."
TL;DR Version
-Gone is the quick launch bar and traditional method of tracking open Windows on the taskbar. Gone too is the ability to turn on a Classic Start menu, and even the Classic theme retains the new UI features. You can't run this as a Windows 98 clone, and let me just say that despite my doing this even on Vista, the change is nothing but a good thing.
-The new taskbar interface allows any program to be "pinned" to the Taskbar. While all open programs display their window listing on the taskbar, pinning a program allows you to retain that icon as a shortcut as well. It's an integration of the old quicklaunch bar with the window itself, allowing it to act as both a shortcut and a Window identifier, should you so choose.
-Jump lists are "recent history" for shortcuts on the Start Menu and pinned Taskbar items. If you go to a particular website often, or open particular folders, you can pin that into a jump list for the program icon itself. Thus, I now right-click on my Windows explorer taskbar icon and have all of my regularly used folders at my fingertips. Jump lists can be set to create automatically based on recent history, or you can pin particular items yourself.
-The notification area has been largely re-worked and we know have complete control over what icons are displayed and when. Only want to see your antivirus if there's an notification? Three clicks and done. This is a long-overdue change in Windows 7, and it works great.
-File organization: In addition to the standard OS-created document folders, we now have the option of Libraries. You can still move the location of My Documents, etc, but a Library allows you to add multiple different directory locations into a single collection. It's a unique implementation that a lot of us may have little use for at first because we've gotten accustomed to hyper-organizing everything in previous Windows OS', but for a new or basic user they will be a great tool.
-File sharing: I'm still of mixed emotions about the File sharing scheme in 7. We now have a "Homegroup" option that allows you to very quickly and very easily share particular folders with other computers on your home network, and password protect those should you so choose. Think "Domain implementation in a workgroup." The only trouble I'm seeing with it, which may or may not go away once I've migrated our laptop to Windows 7 as well, is that it doesn't appear I can share the root of a partition, which is a rather annoying problem I'm going to have to get around in order to sync the data partitions on our two computers. Fortunately, advanced, permissions-based file sharing is still available if you want to shut off the new Homegroup feature.
-Program compatibility: I haven't had anything that worked in Vista stop working in Windows 7. I've now finished installing pretty much everything. The only program I had even the slightest hiccup with was Borderlands, through Steam. For whatever reason, if I tried to copy in my settings folder from Vista, Borderlands would over-write it on launch every single time. I finally had to manually re-tweak the INIs and then the game didn't over-write them. I still have no idea why this happened.
-Drivers: This will be your most hassle-free installation of Windows yet. When I installed it, the drivers for literally everything (including the RAID drivers, which were a ***** with Vista) installed themselves. The only drivers I added manually were the latest nVidia video drivers, the latest Auzentech sound drivers, and the printer driver (which, despite being designed for Windows XP, works flawlessly).
-The dreaded UAC: I shut this off within about 5 minutes of installing Vista, but no more on Windows 7. This OS does UAC right - it's unobtrusive, configurable, and it only shows up during a major change by default. And unlike the Vista one, which was slow as hell and drove you crazy, this is nothing more than a quick dialogue box that gets your attention and then goes away the second you authorize it. Finally.
So that's it for the big changes I've noticed. It's very customizeable, so it will fit the needs of new users and people who've been using Windows since 3.1 and cursing it every step of the way. Microsoft finally did this one right, and I think it was money well spent. If anyone is still using XP and Vista and hedging their bets to wait and see how 7 pans out, my advice to you is to find it at the cheapest price you can and buy it immediately. You won't regret it.
Incidentally, I bought an upgrade edition and performed a clean install by booting to the DVD. For anyone repeating that procedure, a few additional comments:
-You don't require another Windows disc to insert when you perform a clean install.
-Make sure you have a lot of time. On my system, it took a good 10 minutes just to boot to the DVD. Don't restart thinking it's frozen, even if the access lights stop blinking - it's just very very slow.
-The only way to make partition changes during an upgrade is to clean install after booting to DVD.
-DO NOT enter your license key during the installation. After the OS finishes installing, put it into Windows and then verify it online.
-Windows will auto-update if left to connect to the Internet during the install process. I recommend doing it.
