Overly Positive

So yesterday my usual multiple updates to the blog were interrupted by a desire to be adventurous and spend the last day of my wisdom tooth extraction recovery wiping and re-installing my main machine. Geeks will typically get the itch to do this every few months or so. The wiping and re-installing of a box is somewhat of a religious obligation of sorts, with old cached and forgotten files and downloads being shuffled off in favor of a brand new clean slate. Trust me- if you used the internet as much as we did, you’d definitely agree with me.

But I decided to do a double whammy and not just clean off my system, but put a new coat of paint on it as well. There’ve been a lot of comparisons of Windows Vista to Windows 7 being like Windows Me to Windows XP, and with the final version before publishing recently released, I had to  see what all the insanity was about. Released a mere couple of years after Vista, Windows 7 hits stores and machines this fall and promises greater stability and fixes, along with a sleek look and feel that looks decidedly more current.

I do have to say, that even though my machine does chug along sometimes (especially on startup) that so far, I am liking Windows 7, especially since my TechNet subscription gives me a peek at any of the new versions that are slated to come out. The installation was easy and straightforward, the configuration doesn’t seem so cryptic to non-tech users, and improvements in the Aero desktop suite mean that taskbar previews and neat things like seeing behind to the desktop at a glance look good and work well. Moving to the 64-bit architecture didn’t hurt either, so now my machine can take full advantage of the 4 GB of RAM I’ve got going inside of it. While Vista gave me a bit of driver grief, Windows 7 was totally fine, except for a couple of minor updates to get the vendor’s latest drivers instead of the built-in Microsoft ones.  Most of my applications, even if they usually run in 32-bit environments, run just fine in Windows 7. Considering my space is at a premium with such a small hard drive, the fact that I don’t have to install anything extra or bloated is a godsend.

Sure, wiping your machine and installing a brand new OS may not be for the faint of heart. But trust me – it’s as liberating as a spring cleaning and just as fun – especially when there’s new hotness to try out. If you ever get the urge, don’t be afraid to take the plunge – just make sure you have the geek friends on hand just in case things don’t quite go your way.

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