Why you should upgrade to Windows 7

When Vista was released in January of 2007 I decided it was time to upgrade my PC.  At the time I hadn't tried any of the betas and thought that the Microsoft propoganda sounded good.  The result?  I had to buy new versions of a LOT of software AND hardware just to make it work.  The new Vista machine didnt work with the software from my printer, video camera, digital camera, scanner or web cam.  The only external device it worked with out of the box was the keyboard/mouse.  My cd burner software, audio editing software and others just plain didnt work with Vista.  Video card hardware vendors were not ready at the time Vista was released and their drivers were buggy.  Needless to say I was rather disappointed with the Vista deployment.

Fast forward to Windows 7.  My first experience with Windows 7 was with their HUGE beta release to millions of public users.  I installed the beta right away and was ready to start to figure out the overall impact.  Would I need new hardware again or have to wait months to get updated drivers?  No.  Not a single program I have needed to be replaced.  I'm very happy with the improved performance and cool new features.  Go upgrade!

Why you should upgrade:

• Ability to boot off of a VHD.  I consider this the most valuable new feature in Windows 7.  Note that you have to buy the Enterprise or Ultimate editions to get this feature.
• Faster performance.  They have made nice improvements from boot speed to overall computer speed.
• Stability. Win 7 is much more stable.

More on the VHD booting...

VHD booting is cool.  I took that Vista PC that has only 1 hard drive with 1 partition and was able to install Windows 7 Ultimate into a virtual hard drive (VHD).  What this does is allows me to be able to go back to the original Vista installation any time I need to so I can work with programs or configurations that I decided to not install or configure on my Windows 7 install.

So why is VHD booting a big deal?

• I was able to install Windows 7 Ultimate and get it configured in isolation from the Vista installation.  If there was a problem I can always revert back to Vista.  (no problems yet)
• At any time I can boot back to the original Vista and straight copy the virtual hard drive file over to my external backup drive.  What this does for me is makes a full backup of my Windows 7 install and all the files/programs related by simply copying a single file.
• Easily test beta software in isolation.  Simply copy your VHD to a new file, mount the new VHD file and now you have a sandbox where you can play beta software without affecting your main Windows 7 VHD.  When you are done simply delete the VHD you dont want anymore.
• On a single drive with a single partition you can have any number of VHD disks until you fill up the drive.  I have 4 options on my laptop to boot from -- Windows 7, Windows 7 VHD1 (my main workplace), Windows 7 VHD2 (beta playground), Windows 2008 all from a single drive.

I'll have a future post on how to create a VHD and set it up to be bootable. 

References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
• http://blogs.msdn.com/knom/archive/2009/04/07/windows-7-vhd-boot-setup-guideline.aspx  (great post.  thanks Max!)

Questions/comments/thoughts -- feel free to post or email me directly kevin _at_ goffsoft.com