I have been personally running the 64-bit version of 7 for over a month now (legitimately, of course) and have to say I have been very impressed. While I never personally switched over to Vista and have been running XP 64 instead, Windows 7 is definitely worth the switch, no matter what operating system you are coming from. Think XP functionality and ease-of-use combined with Vista's panache.

Okay, enough hype. Some of my favorite features are the improvements to the UI. The features themselves have various catchy names, but suffice it to say that it is now much easier to find and organize all of your open windows and files and thus improve your productivity. You can use the new taskbar to see thumbnails of your open windows and select the one you want. You can grab the top of any open window and give it a shake to minimize all of the other windows (yes, it's as fun as it sounds). You can hover over the bottom right corner of your screen to peek at your desktop, or click on it to minimize all of your windows. Or, my favorite feature, you can easily arrange your windows however you want them on the screen. By dragging an open window to the right or left of the screen, it will automatically resize to fit that half of the screen. Dragging to the top will maximize the window, and if you want to go back to a smaller version of the window, you can just drag it away from the top. I hated my single, 26-inch widescreen monitor and greatly missed my old 19-inch dual-screen setup until Windows 7 brought me this feature.

Functionally, Microsoft designed Windows 7 from the ground-up to be compatible with everything you throw at it, and it shows. When I installed my copy a month early, I had only one piece of software that wouldn't run on 7, and that issue was fixed prior to its official release. Hardware-wise, I have not had a single issue with device or driver compatibility, which was the biggest problem with Vista. I even have an old Nikon slide and film scanner for which the last supported OS was Windows 98. I had to take one small extra step of telling 7 where to find the driver, and my scanner has worked flawlessly. Networking is a cinch, and supposedly file sharing is excellent between two 7 PC's. When I load it on my laptop in a week or two, I'll update this post on how it went for me. Finally, Vista's UAC (or User Account Control, those annoying pop-up's that asked you if you're sure you want to do whatever you were trying to do multiple times every time you clicked on something) is still present, but much, much, much less intrusive. It only pops up occasionally on default settings, and Microsoft has kindly given us a slider with some options on when we want to see it, based on the user account. Set your kids' slider to max so they have to ask you before they screw anything up, but turn yours almost completely off (assuming you're relatively sure you won't do much damage).

In sum, Windows 7 (unlike Vista) is absolutely worth the upgrade, and may even provide enough flair to bring some Mac boys home too. If you are a twenty-something liberal arts major that likes the Mac trend and only needs to run iTunes, stick with your Leopard. However, if you're like me and occasionally need to get some real work done (without the hassle of a virtual machine or dual partition), Windows 7 just may be the answer you didn't know you were looking for.

Students take note! Microsoft has teamed up with Digital river to offer U.S. college students downloads of Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade or Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for only $30! It is a download only, or you can pay $13 for them to send you a DVD, and it is only available on the upgrade products. This means that you must currently have a valid Windows license (it doesn't matter which version) to upgrade from. To qualify, you need to have a .edu email address, $30, and the ability to prove you're a student if asked. Check it out here.

If you want a second opinion or a more in-depth analysis, check out PCWorld's review here.

Engadget has another in-depth review with a lot of great screencaps here, however, they like their Mac's too much to be impressed and don't have as much good to say about it. Their problem likely stemmed from trying to use a netbook instead of a real computer ("Our worst experiences, however, were with a clean install to a quite modern netbook."), which is much in keeping with their trendy nature. This review is great if you want a much different and more cynical opinion than what is being said out there about 7.

Finally, you can find all of Microsoft's resources on their new OS here. They have some helpful version comparison charts as well as informative tours and lots of screencaps and videos.

Have you tried 7 yet? Was this article helpful? Post a comment and let us know what you think.

(Images courtesy of MyPCReborn.com.)