Windows 7 Ultimate

[Kralik]

...The Release Candidate is out, and Microsoft is giving away free license keys!

The catch is that it expires on March 1st, 2010. But still! A year to try it out, and it's oh-so-much fun. So I spent the greater part of last weekend installing on my Eee 901. Not that it would normally take that amount of time (I hear average is 20-30 minutes), but I had to make some tweaks to deal with a) No DVD drive, b) only 4GB on the main SSD, and c) overall Kralik geekiness, which can't stand to leave anything tweakable alone. I got the installation down to 2.5GB or so and used an SD card.

Coming from XP, it seems to be a great system! Whereas Vista was a marketing flop, the press on Windows 7 has been very positive so far. It's more or less Microsoft trying to get away from the Vista name while adding on a few nice touches. My Eee is not what you'd consider a powerful machine, but in many cases W7 is actually smoother and/or faster than XP. Some of it is subjective, while a few things I know FOR SURE took several seconds (yes, SECONDS of my life, WASTED!) are almost instant in W7. No such luck with Vista.

Also, my battery life has improved:
-5.5 hours browsing the web --> 6.5 hours
-7.5 hours with wireless off --> 9 hours

So I just thought I'd give a brief summary of my experiences so far... even though I've been eying several tablet-style laptops and thinking of upgrading to one (Eee T91, Viliv S7, mmm....), I think I'll wait until I can buy one with Windows 7 later this year.

If you are interested in trying out the RC, a word or two of precaution:
1) Do a clean install, not an upgrade.
2) Know that once the expiration date hits, you'll have to back up your data and reinstall an OS. You get to use the computer for two hours at a time before it automatically reboots.

[SomeRandomDude]

Long live Linux!

In other news, I recently installed Ubuntu on my computer and can now use it for web-surfing and document editing, while using Vista for gaming that's not compatible with Linux (instead of trying to force it through WINE).

[Kralik]

Long live Linux!

Troll! j/k

I ran Linux for about 7 years, and I do agree that it is a great system. I'm stuck with Windows for now because I have some work applications that require it (yes, I know about WINE), as well as a certain software library that costs $1200. And I've learned to love AutoHotKey, which opens up SO many fun possibilities, and I've yet to find a Linux equivalent.

[thewitchhunter]

A little suggestion for anyone who is interested in testing W7 but don't has a spare computer to build a testing environment:

Give VMServer a try. You can download VMServer at http://www.vmware.com/products/server/ for free (you have to register to download). In VMServer you can install a virtualized W7 on your PC without ditching your installed OS.

But be aware that most likely you will experience some problems with a virtual installation of W7:

1) when creating a new virtual machine, you will be asked which  guest OS you will create. There is no option for W7. Choose "Windows Server 2008" as guest (while creating my first W7 vm I had chosen "Vista" as guest, but with that configuration I wasn't able to install VMTools on the guest later...)

2) you can't use "Windows Aero" in a virtualized environment. VMServer does not support an appropriate graphic card virtualization.

3) the new XP compatibility mode in W7 won't run in a virtual machine. This XP mode is available as an additional download from Microsoft and requires the Intel VT-technology (Vanderpool technology, this has to be supported by your CPU an mainboard and has to be activated in your system BIOS). But even if your CPU supports VT, this won't be of any use in a virtual machine. So you can install the XP mode, but when you try to start it, you will receive an error.

Of course you can also install nearly any other OS into a VM (though, as far as I know, there is no support to virtualize a Mac OS) For example you can use it for a virtual Linux on your windows desktop. Or to use a Windows XP on your Vista. You can even realize a whole virtual server environment with 2 or more machines (if your host system has enough power... ;-)

[Kralik]

VMServer is good, I also highly recommend VirtualBox -- it's the easiest and fastest visualization program I've tried.