Most of you might remember a little operating system known as Microsoft Windows Vista… Well, thankfully, its replacement is currently in Beta testing, and should be released by the end of the year. Windows 7 has all the bells and whistles of Vista, but seems very fast and fairly light weight. Despite the fact that the install folder is about twice the size of XP, it will run on a surprising range of hardware. I installed it on an older laptop we had in the office. This computer had a 1Ghz Processor and 512MB of RAM. A pretty bare system by most standards. I was surprised that it ran Windows 7 at all, much less ran it well. It was fast, very stable, and did everything I asked of it. It also detected all the hardware correctly, and I didn’t have to installed any additional drivers. Pretty amazing.Â
I would describe Windows 7 as looking alot like Vista, but running alot like XP Pro. For those of you who are stuck on Vista, I suggest upgrading later this year when 7 is released. For those who are on XP Pro, I suggest you wait until the first service pack is released. Rule #1 in Technology: Never Buy First Generation!