I cannot say that I have used the new Microsoft Windows operating system yet, but others on my team have. The overall feedback is that it is a step in the right direction. Performance is much better since the hardware specs are lower, it has the look and feel of Vista, and there are a lot less oddities (IE: wireless works fine one day and not the next, printing just stops, suddenly cannot access network files, etc.). Overall it is a much better user experience over Vista.
The current release that can be download and installed is the Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) which will expire June 2010 but will start shutting down after a couple of hours of use in March of 2010. Using Windows 7 RC should be as close the the real things as you can get. I would not however, install it on my primary computer since inevitably there will be some problems and incompatibilities with it.
Windows 7 should be released at the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010. There is still no clearly set date so don’t wait by the phone to get your copy since it could be a very long time yet before it is released.
Windows 7 is coming so we will all need to face an upgrade or new operating system at some point. Whether they like it or not, people cannot hang on to XP forever since Microsoft will be looking to pull the plug as quickly as it can. Time will tell how good or bad Windows 7 will really be, so hold on to your hats since the ride is about to begin.
Check your PC before you install Windows 7 by using the Upgrade Advisor
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1b544e90-7659-4bd9-9e51-2497c146af15
You can download Windows 7 RC here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx
