Today is the public launch of Windows 7.
I have had access to the final version of Windows 7 since August and have clocked hundreds of hours of user testing.
I have tested both x64 and x86 and not once encountered any problem or crash.
As I said previously Windows 7 is just Windows Vista with all the annoying things taken out.
This is good because the fundamentals have all been well tested and have matured.
Windows 7 User Scenarios
1) New PC/Laptop: I say go for it, Windows 7 should run fine and you should have a great user experience.
2) Clean install on any PC/Laptop from the last couple of years: I say yes, the key here is the clean install. Backup then rub it out and start again.
3) In place upgrade from an earlier version of Windows. Maybe eventually, but I would wait for 3 or 4 months for a few million people to have tried it first. There are known problems (See below http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975253)
So Can Microsoft Be Trusted Again?
The technical fundamentals are all back in place (thanks to Steven Sinofsky) but their Marketing people are on talking complete rubbish.
Check out the video demonstration from the bbc article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8319083.stm
Leila Martin is showing Multi-Touch something that you need dedicated hardware for. I guarantee someone watching that video is going to assume Windows 7 will add touch to their computer.
The fact is 99.5% of us wont have Multi-Touch capable hardware for some considerable time. Dell did launch a Monitor the other day with this capability but the general public is still 5 years out on Touch.
Next she starts talking about “Taxonomy” an old Greek word for “order or arrangement” just because Windows search found her file. Taxonomy, I mean really.
Conclusion
So Microsoft has managed to recover from the disaster that was Windows Vista. They did the right thing by taking the Vista code base and polishing it.
In some ways Windows 7 is really only what Vista should have been. This means however we are at least 3 years away from any real advances from a Microsoft desktop operating system.