Most people are slowing coming round to the idea of upgrading to the latest version of the Micosoft operating systems and this is no bad thing. Lets be honest, Vista was awful. I remember installing this on my laptop and it ground to a halt. I was so disappointed and like so many others downgraded vowing to consider my Redmond choices more carefully. It created damage to Microsofts reputation and I personally feel many poor assumptions where made about the current state of hardware. My quad core PC with 8GB and a dedicated graphics card handled it well, but this is a better than average box.

Windows 7 to the rescue

Thankfully, even though late, Windows 7 has addressed many of the problems that it's predecessor created, and more importantly, it seems to work. Performance has been dramatically improved with a review of the graphic engine, and users have more choice for how much 'eye candy' they need dependant on the hardware running this.

1. The User interface is modern
2. The snapping features for Window placement are useful making it easier to copy files from one place to another
3. The search index is great at finding files either locally or remotely.
4. Automatic driver checking, installing hardware like printers is very easy.
5. User Account control can be graded to be more or less intrusive.

Server 2008 brings further support for Windows 7 in the addition of new Group Policy objects that make this easier to gain consistency across rollouts to the new version. The use of preferences make this even easier to attach elements to start menus and taskbars, organise printing and manage resrouces.

Windows 7 is a step in the right direction and with so much choice (and pressure) coming from Linux this version had to deliver. So far, I have found this a vast improvement on Vista and very rarely have I had any problems. Hopefully, Microsoft are now developing a closer relationship with the customer and the next version will improve on this even further. The days of Blue Screens are few and far between now and things are more stable than the Windows of the past. If you are a Windows user, you would certainly see a marked improvement if you upgraded, and as XP is now slipping into the second phase of it's life, the upgrade would be a wise move.