1. The ability to scale the display without changing the resolution. In all the years that I have touched other people's computers one common theme seems to emerge. No one can read the letters on the screen when the video adapter is set at the monitor's native (and best looking) resolution. To me, nothing looks worse than a 22" widescreen set on 1024x768. Now with Windows 7 we can have the best of both worlds, because the ability to scale the desktop is built in. This feature is especially handy if you are using your high definition television as your display. From my couch, websites are too hard to read and icons look tiny compared to the huge amounts of white space when browsing the internet. Scale that screen size and fonts are not only large and readable, but now they are crisp and clear as well.

2. I love the wallpapers and sounds included with Windows 7. I also really like the icon sets. My webcam icon is actually a picture of the webcam (I don't know why this impresses me, but it does). The taskbar and window manager can be colored to match any wallpaper you throw at it as well, if you are into that sort of thing.

3. Speed! Windows 7 is super fast. I was expecting something slightly faster than Vista, but nothing like this. My first experiment with Windows 7 was on an older laptop. Nothing special, just a basic single core Centrino 1.6 ghz, 512MB RAM Thinkpad. Vista would have made this computer move like honey on a 33 degree day. Not Windows 7, it was running like I had installed XP except every piece of hardware in the thing worked from the first startup. If you currently own Vista, you will want Windows 7 because of reason 3 alone.

4. Everything works. Granted there are going to be those users out there with special devices, manufactured by small companies that help you embroider shirts or operate some other rare device that Windows 7 will not support out of the box. You should call the manufacturer and ask prior to installing a new operating system (or any other update for that matter). For the everyday surfer and e-mailer you should be able to perform an installation of Windows 7 yourself or with the help of your teenage nephew that would love to try for you. Just make sure you backup anything important first to a CD or a USB flash drive, and verify that your files are on it using another computer to be extra sure. I installed Windows 7 on my newer laptop and everything worked on it from the first startup. Even the fingerprint reader worked, something that Vista failed at. I didn't have to insert driver disks or install third party software that may be buried in a restore CD that I refuse to use. My point is that Windows 7 works.

5. Compatibility was no trouble. This is always a major worry when you change to a new operating system (especially on Macs). Does this mean you should go and upgrade all of your computers in your office to Windows 7? No, I would not recommend it. Buy one new PC, configure it for your work environment and test it for a while. If you are running Vista at work, you should think about upgrading soon. I have yet to find any program, excluding antivirus software, that refused to work on Windows 7. I am sure that there are programs that I do not use that are not compatible, but I have not found any myself. If you know of some, please share them if you have time.

Ok, so that should just about do it. I would love to hear your experiences with Windows 7 and your Vista horror stories. :) Next time I might talk about what I don't like about Windows 7 and perhaps what version of Windows 7 is right for you.