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Windows 7 might be one of Microsoft’s best operating systems, if it fulfills the guarantee shown by the unlicensed test version we’ve been testing for the past couple of days.

Let me preface these fast impressions of Redmond’s latest opus by mentioning that I came to Windows 7 after having happily run the much-maligned Windows Vista on my Intel Core two Duo-based computer for the past eighteen months .

I found Vista to be a deserving upgrade from Windows XP SP2. In spite of its apparent issues ( are you able to say’resource hog’? ) and the acknowlegement that some of its features have to be disabled by default, Vista at heart is a much more stable and usable operating system than XP, which was initially released in 2001.

The release of Service Pack 1 and gradual driver improvements have built on Microsoft’s somewhat-shaky Vista beginning.

Coming from this background, i have been pleased to discover over the last a few days that Microsoft appears to have built on Vista’s strengths and addressed most of its weaknesses with the beta release of Windows 7.

I found the Windows 7 beta a painless install. Out-of-the-box driver support on our test machine was perfect, and it took only half an hour and 2 quick reboots to start running a stable desktop environment, though we questioned why Windows 7 made a 200MB partition in addition to its main partition.

Basic desktop performance was robust ; the reports that Windows 7 is simply faster than Vista appear to be true.

Vista’s most obvious annoyance, User Account Control, has been pared right back on its default setting, and we encountered it only 2 times throughout an entire morning of installing applications.

Windows 7 commended that we install a third party antivirus package ( it suggested Kaspersky and AVG ), but its antispyware package Defender comes preinstalled.

I particularly like the new photo-realistic device icons, and the overhaul of the way Windows handles and ejects USB storage devices. Microsoft seems to have wiped out a lot of the Windows XP-era interface quirks of Vista ; the result is a more simplistic, unified experience for common tasks.

I also loved the overhaul of the Windows taskbar, particularly the slick graphics, but a bug stopped us from being able to use the preview function ( it showed a black rectangle instead ), and you’ll want to play with the taskbar settings to get this piece of the Windows 7 puzzle just right. It’s easy to get minimized windows mixed up with launcher buttons, for example.

For example, we were unable to get Adobe Systems’ Creative Suite three to install on Windows 7 beta ; the installer told us we needed to quit Internet Explorer first.

But maybe the most significant thing to notice about the software is that initially glance, it has much more of that nebulous’Windows XP feel’ than Vista ever did.

To paraphrase, just what the doctor–and the customers–ordered.

To find out more or see my video reviews of Windows 7 please visit my Windows 7 Review Blog.

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