If you stuck with XP this long Win 7 does not offer a compelling reason to upgrade until you buy a new computer except for a very few specific applications(laptop battery life being my personal #1). That said- Win 7 is what Vista tried to be and failed. Faster, less junk bloatware, better organized, more secure, and very few bugs for a new release OS from Microsoft.
The downside is no direct upgrade path from XP but you have all your data backed up don’t you? Not a big deal if you don’t but there might be a bit of trial and error. The directions provided by Microsoft and the utilities you will be directed to download actually seem to work for the vast majority of people helping make the upgrade less painful. Just remember that for certain things like Itunes you need to back up your downloads separately from the Microsoft utility. I had a backup from a few months ago but forgot I had purchased a few songs since which I did not have backed up.
Win 7 recognized almost all my drivers and did not have an issue with any. Far different than the Vista I ended up giving away when I went back to XP a couple years ago, though to be fair at this point Vista is a stable OS with a few more features than XP.
Bootup and shutdown times are impressive. I installed Win 7 over XP after backing up to see how it would do recognizing my partitions and dual hard drives. No problems there! In fact the only issue I have had with it so far is getting a few games to work with it. Not because it is 64 bit but due to the user account control security/organizing feature and the limitations of an older game working with my brand new video card(not a Microsoft issue on the video card).
I use duel monitors and a 3 way KVM which works ok. The monitor support in Win 7 is better than XP or Vista but most likely you will want to download some 3rd party software tailored to such setups. I have had absolutely no problems with internet connection that some people have reported in the reviews here on Amazon. I use Firefox so I am not even sure which browser version Microsoft included as the only time I use it is with Windows Update.
If you just can’t wait to get Win 7 included as a part of your next PC then rest assured that this time around Microsoft learned most of what it needed to from the problems Vista had and released a faster, more stable, and more future oriented OS. I wanted it early to be ready for the upgrade at work and had it pre-ordered a year ago to get a decent price. If not for those two reasons I would probably have stuck with XP another year or so until my next PC purchase.
Win 7 is not perfect but it is good enough to ensure Apple and Linux will only nibble at Microsoft’s market share for the next few years.
