Win 7

[Undertoad]

It's very good.

My system is home-built. I upgrade it in pieces, so it currently contains a 2006 power supply, hard drives from 2004, 2007 and 2010, a 2008 motherboard, a 2009 video card.

This is the cheapest way to own a good system, for the adventurous; the less adventurous amongst us are encouraged to buy completely-built systems and never crack open the case.

The good news is that Win 7 did find all my hardware on installation, and made it all run out of the box. Well done.

It also discovered my Win XP installation, noticed that I was installing 7 on a different drive, and smoothly installed its own boot loader - so that every time I boot, I'm given the choice between 7 and XP.

The toolbar, which MS is currently touting in ads, is excellent. All the screens and visual effects are tasteful and designer-quality. Shadows and highlights help you navigate.

I had hoped for a miraculous boot time, but that seems too much to ask for; I think I've managed to shave one minute from the 5-minute XP boot.

One hassle seems to be that my mutt system won't go to Sleep properly. Sleep is a great power saving feature when it works; you're turning off 99% of the system. Mine never recovers until it's hard-booted.

Other than that, though, it's been a very good experience and will ensure MS stays in some control of the desktop.