Customer Reviews

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack (3-User)

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3 star:		(33)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(59)

 

 

Here comes Windows 7, nearly three years after Windows Vista and eight years after Windows XP. By most accounts, Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. Do we finally have a worthy successor to XP?

** CLEAN UPGRADE UPDATE BELOW 10/29/09 **

PROS:
- Fast startup and performance
- Stable
- Nice aesthetic and functional changes to the desktop
- Improved networking, power management & security
- 32-bit & 64-bit versions included
- Windows Media Center
- Windows XP Mode (Professional & Ultimate only)
- Family Pack value

CONS:
- User Account Control still annoying
- Upgrade can be challenging

** CLEAN UPGRADE UPDATE 10/29/09 **
It seems that a lot of upgraders have been complaining about the upgrade process, especially from XP. Most of us expected to be able to format our hard disks and be prompted for either the XP disc or product key. Alas, this is not the case. The upgrade is much more complicated than it should be and some workarounds have been discovered

Method A (simplest)
If you already have an older version of Windows on the hard drive, finish the Custom Install, without entering the product key. After installation, go to your System Properties and click the link to activate Windows. Enter your product key and it should activate. This has worked for me twice.

Method B (hardest)
If Method A doesn't work, try the registry hack.
1. Finish the custom install without entering the product key then click Start and type regedit.exe into the "Search programs and files" box.
2. In the registry, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/. In the pane on the right, you'll see an entry for MediaBootInstall. Double-click on it and change the value from "1" to "0" and click OK.
3. Close regedit and go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories then right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator." You'll get a UAC alert, click Yes.
4. At the command prompt, type: slmgr /rearm and hit Enter. Reboot.
5. Now try to activate. If it fails, make sure there are no pending Windows Updates to install. If there is, install them, reboot and start over from Step 4.

Method C (most time consuming)
Perform the Custom Install and skip the product key. Once completed, run the upgrade again from within Windows 7 but this time, enter the Windows 7 upgrade key and then activate Windows.
** END UPDATE **

I had been running the Windows 7 release candidate for 3 months and the full version 2 weeks before official release date. The experience convinced me to finally upgrade my Windows XP systems to 7. This review briefly touches upon some of the key features and enhancements of Microsoft's latest OS.

PERFORMANCE & STABILITY
One of the welcome enhancements Microsoft made was start-up time. The shutdown time has been improved as well. Also, in my non-benchmarked experience, Windows 7 has been at least as fast as XP if not faster. The kernel changes and ability to run the 64-bit version probably has a lot to do with that. Most benchmarks from around the Internet seem to support my observations.

64-BIT
I am elated to finally upgrade to a 64-bit operating system in order to take advantage of more memory support and modern processors. I have Intel Core 2 Duo processors in both my systems with 4GB of physical RAM but XP only allowed 3.25GB for system use.

DESKTOP
At first login, you'll notice the changes to the taskbar. The taskbar is no longer just a place to store quick launch icons and view open windows. It now provides functionality in the form of Jump Lists, which allow you to select your most frequently opened files or links from the apps you have "pinned" on the taskbar. The clock and calendar are improved and the Show Desktop icon is now integrated in the far right corner. Other desktop enhancements include Aero Peek, Aero Shake, Snap, new themes and wallpapers. You also get gadget support. All of these features combine to create a much improved and enjoyable desktop experience.

LIBRARIES
Windows 7 introduces a new feature called libraries. Previously, your system had shortcuts to My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc. which had files residing in only those specific folders. Files can now reside anywhere on your system and be organized inside libraries. It's similar to how many music and photo applications organize files.

NETWORKING
Even as good as XP was, networking was cumbersome. Windows 7 makes connecting two or more Windows 7 systems together easy, using HomeGroup. This enables easy sharing of files and devices. One downside is that HomeGroup is only supported between Windows 7 systems. File transfer performance between computers has been vastly improved and connecting to a wireless network has never been easier on a Windows machine.

SECURITY
Security in Windows 7 is good and comes with Windows Firewall and Defender. Still, you'll probably want to invest in a more comprehensive Internet security suite, like Norton Internet Security 2010 or Kaspersky Internet Security. User Account Control (UAC) has been tweaked in order to give user accounts more flexibility in controlling their own security as well as providing more detailed information so the user can make better decisions about whether to allow certain actions. Coming from XP however, it is still annoying and I choose to turn it off. Also, in Windows 7 Ultimate, you can encrypt entire hard drives as well as external portable storage devices, like USB thumb drives. Though this is a welcome integrated feature, much of the functionality can be found in a popular open-source program called TrueCrypt. If you want encryption but not multi-language support, you could just get Windows 7 Home Premium and use TrueCrypt.

POWER MANAGEMENT
Power management has been improved overall and you should be able to squeeze more battery life out of your laptop, even when using your DVD drive. Sleep and resume has also been improved. XP wasn't always consistent when entering or resuming from sleep mode, but Windows 7 has been perfect.

WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER
I've only briefly played around with WMC but it looks promising. It has some fun options for media, especially when you're connected to the Internet. It may even be an adequate replacement for component DVR's should you choose to use it as the centerpiece to your entertainment center. The biggest advantage for me is that Windows 7 now includes a DVD decoder. This means that I can now watch DVD's natively. WMC is available in all Windows 7 editions except Starter.

WINDOWS XP MODE (Professional & Ultimate Editions ONLY)
For applications that ran in XP, but won't on 7, there is now XP Mode. It isn't perfect and your system has to have virtualization support and turned on. Go to your system BIOS to check. If supported, then install Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode. Check your hardware if you intend to use XP Mode.

RECOMMENDATIONS
If you're an XP holdout, like I was, I recommend upgrading. Vista SP2 users may have less reason to upgrade but might want to just for the changes to the taskbar and the UAC improvements. For users who don't need to use their computers in a corporate environment, then Windows 7 Home Premium edition is a good choice. I'm guessing most power users will choose Professional, which adds XP Mode and Domain Join. Ultimate also adds drive encryption and multi-language support. I suggest a clean install for best results. If you're a Mac OS X user, there is probably nothing in Windows 7 compelling enough for you to consider switching.

SUMMARY
Windows 7 is the premium Microsoft OS that Windows users have been waiting for. It's fast, secure, stable, visually appealing and fun to use. Windows 7 will make your old system feel fresh and new again. New system owners with Windows 7 pre-loaded can feel confident that they're getting the best Windows OS ever produced.

If you're like most people, you have several computers running throughout your house: a desktop, a laptop, a kid's laptop etc. This 3 license package is a great way to upgrade all of your PCs in your home for one low price.

Here's my generic Windows 7 review:
I'll admit, I've been running Windows 7 for six months now: the preproduction version of it and have just upgraded to the gold code. So I have quite a bit of experience with the operating system. Let's get to the nitty gritty:

Should you upgrade from Windows Vista? YES! I mean it - upgrade today.
Windows 7 is quite simply faster, more stable, boots faster, goes to sleep faster, comes back from sleep faster, manages your files better and on top of that it's beautiful to look at and easy to use. Even the preproduction version of Windows 7 was better than my Vista with SP2.

Should you upgrade from Windows XP? Maybe, but for different reasons.
XP is a good operating system and if you don't need to add new hardware or software, XP is good. However, XP is old as an operating system. Also chances are that if you're running XP, you might not meet the minimum requirements for Windows 7 - check the compatibility site at Microsoft to see if your system will support Windows 7. That said, Windows 7 is light years ahead of Windows XP in terms of functionality, ease of use, etc - to me it's worth buying a new system.

64 bit or 32 bit?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's ok skip this section. If you have a core2 duo or core 2 quad or a multi cpu machine, go with the 64 bit OS, it handles memory and the CPUs much better. If you have a single core CPU, one CPU or run special programs that require 32bit, then stick with 32 bit for now.

BEFORE INSTALLATION:
I recommend you have:
-a core 2 duo or core 2 quad machine
-4gig of RAM (That's about $50 in today's market)
-good hard drive with (200 gig - it doesn't need that much but that's another $50)
-back up your files to a USB drive like Western Digital My Passport Essential 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDME5000TN (Midnight Black)
-check to make sure your computer is compatible with Windows 7

INSTALLATION:
Installation was very straight forward. You put in the CD and reboot your machine. You might have to enter your bios and enable the "boot from CD" option. Once the machine reboots a nice screen comes up to guide you through the installation. You have the option to upgrade your PC or do a clean installation. I did an upgrade and it brought in all of my files and settings from my windows Vista system. It worked great.
The upgrade did take about 2 hours for me so definitely consider.
I noticed that early on in the installation the operating system went out to Microsoft's site to look for the latest and greatest updates, so I think this should help Microsoft respond quickly to any hiccups with compatibility.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK:
The driver from my old HP Inkjet printer for 2001 doesn't work on Windows 7 so there are some things that will not transition. I had to use a generic HP driver which doesn't give me the quality that I got from an injet - so overall, I'm up and running with that printer but I'm degraded on the inkjet front. That said, I recently upgraded to a HP CP2025DN Color LaserJet Printer that I love so no real loss there. I'll likely pick up a cheap inkjet for the occasional photo that I might need to print. Everything else upgraded.

BENEFITS
-faster boot time
-faster go to sleep
-faster wakeup
-faster about 20% to 30% faster at running applications than my Vista - seriously (but those are my results without any benchmarks or anything like that, just seeing how fast Adobe Illustrator loads, and how fast all the applications respond)
-joining wireless networks is much easier
-the interface is just plain beautiful
-my wallpapers are now a slideshow that can be set to change every few minutes (I'm not stuck with the same picture)
-Gadgets - these are wonderful little small applications that you can drag onto your desktop. I have a weather gadget and a calendar gadget on my desktop that tell me
-Better taskbar management - hovering over the taskbar icons shows me mini windows of what's running
-Better file management - I can organize my files into Libraries that are sortable not only by type but by folder or other data. It's great! I can browse through my presentations or illustrator files!
-Windows Media appears to be smoother which I love.
-You get some virus protection and firewall with Windows 7 but consider something more comprehensive like McAfee Total Protection 3User 2010. Yes, it'll make your computer run a bit slower but

CONS:
- Some older programs might not work and some drivers might not be available like my inkjet driver.
- Other than that, there aren't too many drawbacks to Windows 7 - it's a great OS.

WHICH VERSION SHOULD I GET?
I got the ultimate version because I have clients who ask, "is your hard drive encrypted?" -- I wanted to be able to say yes and have sensitive data encrypted one of my computer volumes - Bitlocker is only available in the Ultimate version. Ultimate also includes Multilanguage support.

If you're a home user that doesn't do a lot of networking, you might consider just the home premium edition. If you're using a laptop and connect to networks at work, you might want the Professional version of the operating system to help you with domain joining. Also Windows Professional gives you the option to run applications in XP mode so if you have old applications you can use that nifty feature. I already have 1 application running in XP mode - it's nifty to run an old application.

NOTE:
The box contains both the 32 bit and 64 bit OS.

OVERALL:
It's very hard to write a comprehensive review on an entire operating system so I didn't even try - I'm sure magazines will devote entire articles to the operating system and several books will come out. My goal here is just to give everyone a glimpse of what I've found to date with this new OS. I do hope this has helped you in making a decision.

Hats off to Microsoft on Windows 7. It's more of a refined Windows Vista than an entirely new operating system but it was needed. Thank you.

I had a difficult time trying to upgrade from Vista. I kept getting "unknown error" or "can't create directory for update files". Eventually I disabled everything running in the system tray - spysweeper, anti virus, and my background backup program. The install also asks you to un-install itunes. After this, I was able to update all three home computers. You would think it would be easy for Microsoft to detect these issues and give a decent error message - or include it in the installation instructions.

An update after using Windows 7 for a couple of days:
* Very good compatibility with programs, and printers. Everything came up and worked well. Even my Western Digital background backup program.
* Taskbar bar icons are bigger - I'd guess that most Microsoft designers are growing old with me and starting to use reading glasses
* Occasionally hangs when shutting down - I think that I have narrowed it to Spysweeper hanging out in the background and not closing. I do have the latest Windows 7 approved version. For now, I'll shut it down before shutting down windows.
* Did not see much of a speed improvement
* I had more disk space at the end of the install

The short story is that Windows 7 is a far, far better OS than Vista. The family pack is the way to go, if like many families, you have multiple computers at home; for just $30 more than a single copy, you're good for three computers.

I have three computers at home. Two were on Vista and one remains on XP for the time being.

Upgrading from Vista is a "no brainer". The installation on both Vista machines went quickly (more below), and my wife and daughter are ecstatic with how much faster their computers are.

I am leaving my XP machine as is for awhile until I see how things shake out. I'll probably wait for the inevitable Service Pack in a few months before I upgrade that machine, as it is working just fine on XP. Windows 7 does appear to be significantly faster than XP, though, especially when you have multiple programs running concurrently, so I do plan to upgrade.

For now, there are two caveats, I'd give with upgrading from Vista:

1. If you used Vista parental controls to filter internet content, that is no longer available. There are controls for games and blocking/allowing specific programs, but not for internet content. You have to find yourself a third party solution. Net Nanny is generally the highest rated 3rd party solution and runs $40 a year. I am trying Norton Online Family ([...]), which is available free on an evaluation basis until January 2010. Licensing after then is not yet determined. But this product seems to do the job well - and the price is right, for now.

2. For people upgrading from Vista, the one common complaint I've seen is on having problems with Wifi after the upgrade. On one of the machines I upgraded I also experienced this issue. Some online forums are indicating that this means you have to buy a new wifi card. That is not necessarily true, and was not true in my case. I went to the vendor site, and downloaded a current version of their wifi driver for Vista, and installed that driver, then all was fine. Initially, the site supplied setup program stopped the install when it recognized that I wasn't running Vista. But Windows 7 prompted me that the install wasn't successful and asked if I wanted to reinstall, which I replied Yes to, then it worked. Of course, you'll need to have the computer wired into your network while you're going through the process of finding/installing the driver. Once you get the wifi going, you can set that laptop free again.

For the installation, I wanted clean machines, so I just backed up the files we needed to save, formatted the primary drive and did a new install from the Windows 7 upgrade disk. Each machine probably took around 45 minutes (guesstimate) to go through these steps. It took me another 20 minutes or so to find the right wifi driver and get the wifi going on the computer that had that problem. These installations were amazingly quick and painless, IMO.

Before doing this upgrade, I recommend that you get the model number of your machine down, and check your vendors tech support download area to verify that there are relatively current drivers available for the main components in your computer, and especially the wifi as that seems to be the common complaint. Then if you have a problem, you're prepared. You may also want to contact tech support directly and ask if they have drivers that are good for Windows 7.

After installing Windows 7, I spent a few more hours installing other software on the two machines - this is where you'll spend some time on a clean install, depending on how much software you have to load on your machines. For Vista, you can also upgrade in place, and you won't have this extra time involved. I really wanted clean machines, so it was worth the extra time to me, to take this step.

As for the rest of the pros and cons on Windows 7, check the other reviews here and from the computer rags, but there is plenty to like - this coming from someone who has cursed Microsoft on many an occasion in the past.

I don't know why I do this. It's an early-adopter, obsessive compulsive thing, I guess. I promised myself I wouldn't, but I like to keep our system up-to-date and was enticed by the reviews claiming that Windows 7 offers a lighter touch over Vista. My system could benefit from that at the moment. That, and the 3-pack price deal (brilliant!) "until supplies run out," brought me in.

Let me say, since the days of DOS there has never been an upgrade that went smoothly (keep your MAC comments to yourself, please, I've heard nasty things about Leopard, too). Each upgrade seems worse than the one before, not surprising as our home systems are more complicated and expected to do more than ever before. When it came to upgrading to Vista, I shared a blistering meltdown on Amazon about my experience, although I will say, once the problems resolved I enjoyed using Vista very much.

Here it is -- I inserted the Win7 disc, it let me know where I might run into trouble, upon their recommendation I uninstalled a couple of programs and reboot, et voila, no DVD drive. Gone. Panicked. How can I install a program by DVD if the system doesn't recognize that there is a DVD? A quick search on the internet revealed an easy resolution through the "registry edit," whereupon the drive magically reappeared.

Forward motion. Restart the install. To be fair, the process does warn that it could take several hours -- not several hours of you staring at the screen and having to participate, but several to complete. It did take several hours to install on my system. I did the laundry, watched a movie, it didn't require my involvement. I checked in occcasionally. At a couple of points I thought the operation had jammed up and worried that I would have to start all over.

Nope. Patience and just let it do its thing.

I've never had an upgrade go so smoothly. In three days I won't remember how to use Vista. I liked it, but I'm feeling that this upgrade is better than the last (as it should be).

Zero stars for horrid install experience, 4 or 5 stars for the OS once installed.

I've been using Windows since v3. Twenty years. and this is by far the worst installation experience ever, entirely due to the idiotic decisions made by Microsoft regarding the activation process. This is not a software problem, it was a business decision. If you buy a Windows 7 Upgrade, and you are upgrading from XP, your Product Key will be declared invalid every time (the various MS tech support people I had to talk to confirmed this). This is if you follow the directions in the box! If you have XP, you MUST do a "Custom" (clean) install. If you do a clean install, then the activation process does not consider it an upgrade. You cannot get there from here. I'm not saying I object to doing a clean install (it is a wiser method), only that I was doing what Microsoft SAID TO DO.

I spent 6 phone calls totaling some 3 hours with MS Support, which is not available 24/7 even though everyone I spoke with was probably on the other side of the planet. I purchased the Family Pack. On the first computer, I ran into the rejected product key during the install. I did some digging online with another computer and learned that I could just leave the product key field blank and complete the install (no hint of this option was given by the install screens). I completed the install and called MS the next morning. After about 45 minutes on the phone I finally had a new product key that worked, and was assured that the same new key would work on the two other XP machines I was upgrading.

I did the install on my wife's computer next, and you'll never guess: the new key was rejected. But not right away! It was ok for several days, and then Win 7 announced there was a problem with the product key. Oh, I am loving this experience.

Next day, after several calls and the tech support people having me install code to let them have access to my desktop, twice (and getting cut off on another call), I still had no successful activation. In the evening I reinstalled Win 7 on that computer, now able to use the upgrade option (from Win 7 to Win 7), because they thought that would fix the problem. It did not. Next morning, they called back in a 2-hour window as arranged, and giving them desktop access once again, the problem was finally resolved and I finally have a machine that says it is properly activated.

On my son's computer (he's a computer tech support pro), the (new) key was also rejected. By now, I had some better clues from the tech support, and he was able to get it sorted out after only 2 calls to MS support.

What is so mind-boggling about this to me is that we all represented a primary scenario for Microsoft: getting people who never bothered with Vista to finally upgrade from XP. How could they not have anticipated this? In the past, I've always been prepared to insert my old OS install disk to confirm that I was a legit upgrade. That process pretty much always worked fine, but it is not an option with Win 7. So, there is no way to upgrade from XP to Win 7 without making at least one phone phone call to MS support. Brilliant.

I imagine this process will lead to a lot of people in India being able to afford a new Tata Nano or whatever, so it's not ALL bad. But that's the only upside I can see, no matter how hard I look. Microsoft: the relentless pursuit of failure.

I am liking a lot about Win 7, once past the install nightmare. But that was SO unnecessary, and SO AVOIDABLE! oy...

I had my share of problems with Vista, and was excited for the Windows 7 release (which may seem unbelievable). Surprisingly, the upgrade went smoothly on two Vista machines I have. I have yet to upgrade my XP machine, but hope to do so soon.

A couple of brief thoughts:

+ Windows 7 is faster (boot time, login, opening programs, etc). The windows+tab program switcher on Vista was so slow, I hardly ever used it. Now, on the same machine but with 7, it's fast.

+ The upgrade was super smooth. I recommend using the Compatibility checker that it recommends on the first screen. You'll need to de-authorize your iTunes account and then re-authorize after the update. I guess they recommend this because Apple may see your upgraded machine as a new computer (and you can only register 5 I think to one iTunes Account).

+ Calculator got an update and so did Wordpad. It looks almost like Word 2007.

+ The wireless network management is easier and faster to connect to my network coming out of hibernation.

+ The network sharing is easier between Windows 7 machines

+ There are multiple improvements to the user interface to make programs more accessible

A few negatives:

- The upgrade takes a number of hours to (not bad, but be prepared).

- Good old Windows Movie Maker is gone, you can install the Windows Live version, but if you want the older version, you have to do some hunting to find it.

- The task bar is slightly larger and takes up more screen real estate

- I did have to reinstall a shared printer and uninstall one old arcsoft program that I didn't need anymore that the compatibility checker said would cause problems.

Other than than, it's been a great OS so far and the upgrade has definitely been worth it!

Microsoft has belatedly done a family pack for their OS copying an idea that Apple has done for some time now. While Microsoft's family pack isn't quite as impressive of deal as Apple's family pack this is still by far the best deal for home users of Windows to date, which I think many users will appreciate.

The most obvious changes in Windows 7 come in the taskbar, which makes the most dramatic change since Windows 95. Taskbar items can now be moved much like Dock items in OS X, which is a long overdue feature addition to the Windows UI. Furthermore, one can pin programs to the taskbar a la OS X's dock.

As for non-UI additions, Windows 7 is the first version of Windows to include built in support for burning ISO images. While the features are limited to verification of the burn (no MD5 checksum creation) it is still an overdue addition.

Relative to past versions of Windows, Microsoft has really cut down on the arguably mediocre bundled applications. Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Photo Gallery, and Windows Calendar are all excluded from the OS in favor of letting users optionally download the newer Windows Live versions. For users who prefer a minimalist set of functions and let the user select their preferred applications for these tasks I think that this is a good change for Microsoft. Particularly Windows Movie Maker was a infrequently used application. In this era where increasingly most computers have broadband internet access it isn't very onerous to expect someone to simply download whatever their favorite picture editor, video editing program, etc. One reduces the install time by a bit for little or no inconvenience for the vast majority of people who didn't use said applications. Some people don't even use a local calendar or mail program in favor of their favorite cloud application suite(eg. Google appls) that takes care of mail or calendar functions. Therefore, I think dropping said applications is probably a good move on Microsoft's part.


For Vista users I think that Windows 7 is clearly *far* more polished, but I think that Windows 7 doesn't have enough changes under the hood to make it a must have upgrade. Generally speaking one upgrades an OS for the things under the hood, not a better UI, which third party applications and replacement shells can resolve. At full OEM list price nevermind retail price Windows 7 would be a hard sale for Vista users, but for people with multiple machines this family pack makes an upgrade a bit of a toss up based upon your hardware and your opinion of the changes with Windows 7. For the moment Vista is still fully support by Microsoft and will continue to receive patches and support virtually every piece of hardware and software for years to come. From both my experience and numerous reviews of Windows 7 generally speaking Windows 7 will run faster all other things being equal than Vista. For low end machines Windows 7 might be worth the upgrade because the performance advantages along may be worth the cost for some users, but adding more memory is likely to take less time and will likely be cheaper as well. An OS upgrade is typically never a small task.

A few minor things that I disliked were that the Office 2007 ribbon has now been added to Paint and Wordpad. For users who dislike the ribbon concept from Office 2007 this seems bothersome.

For most XP users, I think that most users would probably be better off simply buying a new machine with Windows 7 and move their files onto their new machine. Most XP machines are 3+ years old since Vista has been out for nearly 3 years now and a new entry level machine may be better than their computer in virtually every way. One must reinstall their applications going from XP to Windows 7 so it isn't like one is avoiding reinstalling applications by buying this upgrade. For people going from XP to Windows 7 the changes will be rather dramatic. The learning curve is nearly the same as going from XP to Vista. While Windows 7 did make a few changes to make it less jarring of a change for XP users, Windows 7 still far more in common with Vista than XP in both in UI and under the hood (eg. drivers, directory structure, etc.)

Overall I think it is a solid piece of software albeit I am not blown away by the improvements either. Windows 7 is more evolutionary than revolutionary in that respect.

No, I am not a Microsoft fanboy. I have had my issues with Microsoft in the past, and even have a Mac Mini and an iMac on my home network. Even Vista presented significant problems out of the gate, and did not become stable for me until after Service Pack 1. But that said, I am really impressed with this latest incarnation of Windows.

This Family Pack is three Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade licenses for not much more than the price of a single license. It is quite a good deal if you have multiple XP and/or Vista PCs in your household to upgrade. My package arrived on October 21, the day before the general release date. There are 32 bit and 64 bit upgrade disks in the package. I did an in-place upgrade of my fully loaded 64 bit Vista Intel i7 920 system with 6gb system memory and 9800GTX nVidia video (yes, I know that clean install is the preferred method, and I will be getting around to it when I have the time). I had run the Microsoft upgrade advisor ahead of time and it informed me that my old version of Acronis True Image would not work, so I had uninstalled it ahead of time. The upgrade advisor was good with everything else, so I was confident the upgrade would work well, and indeed it did. In fact it worked perfectly, despite the fact that the system had a complex configuration of many diverse applications, including Lotus Notes, a number of multimedia applications, including Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom, and the system is an integral part of my home network running Windows Home Server. The upgrade took about ninety minutes and several reboots. But no hiccups. This was by far the cleanest new OS install that I have ever experienced with Microsoft, and I have done them all since the DOS days. I cannot say that the system is significantly faster, or that boot or shutdown times are significantly improved, but I did not expect that. It does "feel" more responsive. The code is much tighter I am sure, and the new taskbar and other goodies are very nice. Based on my initial experience, Microsoft has done a great job with Windows 7 and proven that, yes, even elephants can dance.

NOTE: This product is available at the Microsoft Store for $149.99!


I installed Windows 7 on a separate partition so I could conduct side-by-side analysis with Vista. Frankly, I was skeptical of the Windows 7 hype. I wanted to determine for myself whether this OS would be worth the upgrade. And it was.

The installation took merely 20 minutes. Immediately, I noticed a significantly improved startup time over Vista. Windows 7 fires up to the logon screen in 30 seconds. Web pages, such as ESPN's home site, load quicker. Programs run appreciably faster. I ran a C# program I created that times an entire process. This application ran twice as fast on Windows 7 compared to Vista. The memory footprint is also reduced measurably. Vista always felt a bit heavy.

I've experienced zero driver compatibility issues. It installed the requisite drivers for my HP Printer, network card, video card, etc.

I encourage an upgrade to Windows 7. I highly recommend that you do a clean install however. You don't want to migrate any settings or systems files from Vista.

Kudos to Microsoft!