For a few months now, we have been using the latest iteration of the Windows operating system, called Windows 7. And in all honesty I have to say that in my opinion, this one is a winner.

Does it have all the latest features? No, but it has most of them. It also brings mainstream a few new features that are, in fact, pretty cool, like full support for touchscreens.

Let’s face it – Vista was a bit of a gong show. Yes, we here were acting sort of like boosters for it, but that’s mostly because in our opinion, it wasn’t as bad as most people made it out to be. If you knew how to make it behave properly.

Windows 7 on the other hand is a quantum leap above. Having worked with the beta version since early in the year, I can honestly say that I haven’t run into any of the glitches and gotchas that plagued Vista. And the machine I’ve been using myself is certainly considered to be at the lower end of the minimum hardware requirements (a Pentium M chip at 1.6 GHz with 2 GB of ram and no graphics acceleration).

Windows 7 so far for me has been clean, stable, and noticeably faster than Vista. All of which I’m really good with. This is likely what Microsoft had in mind when they created Vista.

In advance of the scheduled release date in October, we’re going to cover Windows 7 a bit more here. There are lots of general reviews of the OS out there, so I won’t get into that aspect. Instead, I’ll focus on some of the features and explain why this operating system will  be a recommended upgrade/ update for most of my clients.

Of course, as always check with your IT support people before making any significant changes, or before making any big jumps. And stay ready for change.