Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

I purchased this full version so I could load it on my Macbook via bootcamp and it worked flawlessly. All of the drivers for my computer peripherals were loaded correctly. The At&T Uverse wireless internet was configured in a snap. Bootcamp is a great utility. I was only able to load 32 bit version because my mac was just on the outside of the requirements for 64 bit. But it still works great! I really like this version of windows. We use XP at work and it was great for a while especially after win 95 but Win 7 is incredible. We skipped Vista so this upgrade was long overdue. Everything seems to work better. The Adobe CS 5 suite is amazing on Win 7. I wish there were better font management options. All in good time I assume. *update* 7-23-2012 I have finally upgraded my Mac to lion and Win 7 still runs perfectly on the bootcamp drive. I had waited longer than I usually would to upgrade Mac OS X because I was reading that there was some issues with the bootcamp partition and OS X lion. Well, I had no issues whatsoever. I wish I would have upgraded earlier. This dual boot machine is the best thing that I have ever done. It's like have 2 computers with you at all times! I can't wait to get my hands on Win 8. It looks great!

After using Windows Vista for a couple of years it was time to finally change to Window 7. Windows 7 works extremely fast, smooth, and crash free compared to Windows Vista. Installation was easy with the Win 7 DVD just installing itself on my new hard drive in about 20 minutes. On the initial start up there were a few configurations including language and internet to click through. Before installation was complete I was already connected to my home wireless internet. Connecting to wireless is easy with Win 7. Vista sometimes had issues connecting to wireless internets, wireless printers, home networks etc, all of those problems are gone with Win 7. Vista always had a knack for crashing and I would usually find my computer crashing a few times a month. Windows 7 has not crashed yet and I've been using it for a few months now. Start up with Vista could take up to 7 minutes at it's worst. Win 7 startup is just over 1 minute. Shut down with Vista usually was at least 2 minutes. Win 7 shuts down in about 12 seconds. Overall, I am very please with my transition to Win 7 and I highly recommend it, especially if you are using Vista right now.

Overall, I feel my Windows 7 experience over the past year has been decent. It is a far cry from the pre-SP1 version of Vista that couldn't copy files from one internal hard drive to another without crashing. If you're looking to upgrade from XP, might as will do it now with Windows 7. I much prefer my Windows 7 machine at home to the XP box I have at work. For most users it's a no-brainer decision to upgrade if you have the opportunity and appropriate hardware. That said, Windows 7 has some annoying faults with it. First the networking situation is a mess. Sharing files between Windows 7 machines on a network, in theory, is a piece of cake. In practice it can be unreliable. The Homegroup/ Workgroup and the myriad of other networking options seem superfluous. There should be one standard way of networking machines together. I spent the better part of an evening trying to get my home theater PC to communicate with two Windows 7 boxes and a Windows 7 laptop sharing one router with mixed success. All the other machines communicate flawlessly but adding a new machine into the mix was needlessly complicated. Another networking fault is the insistence of locking down your machine's network connection (public network) tighter than Fort Knox by default, then periodically reverting your machine back to these settings for no apparent reason. I have a home network and it is reasonably secure, I don't need Microsoft second guessing my privacy decisions unilaterally. The User Account Control scheme, introduced in Vista, is well meaning but makes certain instances of operating your computer a nightmare. Coupled with Microsoft's renewed mission to protect people from themselves, it becomes a scavenger hunt of epic proportions to disable every single pop-up notification possible concerning security. It looks absolutely great when you're showing off a sleek home theater setup and sit down to watch a movie with friends only to have a white pop-up bubble intrude and remind you that you need to re-enable your firewall (despite the fact that the machine isn't even connected to the open web). There are so many things you have to disable to have a nag-free user experience that I almost think Microsoft is intentionally trying to grief their customers. Despite the negatives above, Windows 7 IS a relatively solid OS. I don't regret upgrading, I just wish Microsoft would focus more on usability in areas other than the task bar. Did I mention the new task bar? It is excellent! Extremely customizable. You literally have everything you need a mouse click away all the time, and if your needs change, just pin new documents and applications as needed. This alone is worth the upgrade. Windows 7 gets 4 stars because of the flaws I outlined above, otherwise I'd give it a 5/5.

This was my second purchase of Windows 7 Home Premium, as the first one had a scratched disc. 7 is definitely an improvement over XP. I recommend buying if you've still using XP SP3. Going into the clean install, there was one problem I was expecting to have. I hadn't gotten all of the drivers for 7. One driver in particular that I thought I wouldn't be able to get was for the SoundMax integrated audio, as SoundMax doesn't publicly release their drivers. I was able to easily find it in Windows Update (which is not dependent on Internet Explorer, for those still using XP), download and install, and then it worked like a charm. However, I did notice that the system sounds in 7 are quieter than in XP (at least, for me), so you may need to turn up the volume. One of the video games I installed was Portal. Portal ran fine on the first start, however when it was reloading after I changed the graphics settings, it wasn't starting properly. I found disabling DEP (Data Execution Prevention) on its executable (hl2.exe) solved the problem. The only problem I still have on 7 is possibly not 7's fault. It seems that iTunes 10 doesn't interact like it should when it's running, and I plug in my iPod Nano 5G. I know what the effects are (in Device Manager, a USB driver uninstall is in progress), from a little research, but I have no idea how to solve it. Annoying. Overall, Windows 7 is worth the money. This review was written on my main OS on that machine, Ubuntu Linux 10.10

My specs: HP DV6000 2.4 ghz Intel core duo T2450 2gb of Ram My laptop use to have a Vista pre install thru OEM. Im tired of bloated and sluggish of Vista even when the aero and the eye candy was turn off. I decided to buy Windows 7 full install not the upgrade. Why the full install? because Im not planning to install windows 7 on top of my vista. And I want to change the stock hard drive that come with my HP. So that way I can have a bigger storage a fresh install no OEM bloatware. Just plain and straight forward Windows 7. What can I say this is the best windows so far. I tried them all windows 3.0 thru Vista definitely Windows 7 is the real deal OS. Everything just work no slowdown, start up and shutdown was vastly improve. I don't need to turn off aero and eye candy just like I did with my Vista because of performance hit. My laptop is better than I got it brand new 2 years ago, Its like I have a reborn laptop. Enough said, just install that OS if you are XP person its time to move on. If you are using Vista just upgrade that PC don't think twice it will be straight forward, If you still use Windows ME you need to see a doctor there is something wrong with you.