A few months back, I wiped one of my laptops clean and did a fresh install of Windows 7 Beta. It went without a hitch, perfect install.

Everything seems to do what it should, and there are somethings that are just so much faster than Vista. An example of this is deleting multiple nested folders. The PPSGen software I wrote creates folder trees containing thousands of folders and files. If you select the root folder and press delete, Vista would think about it for a while before eventually removing the contents to the recycle bin, Win7Beta on the other hand, press delete and it, well, just disappears, as it should. Now, how couldn't they [Microsoft] have got something so basic and simple right in Vista?

Now, along comes Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate), and not being the one for doing upgrades, wiped the same laptop and did a fresh install. Again, perfect no problems, everything just seems to be where it should, does what it should, if it were a wood stain, it would be Ronseal.

I am not going to do a review, there are plenty professionals that can do that, Paul Thurrott over at WinSupersite is just one example. Go check out Paul's reviews there.

And the countdown to release begins. Looks like Win7 will release to manufacturing in August and be available in the shops (either standalone or on PC's) in October this year. So here is hoping there are no major problems encountered to delay the release, and hope the Microsofts stock price starts to go back up seeing as I have just bought some!

Go visit Microsoft's Windows 7 pages here.