I’m going to be joining a lot of people around the world in forging ahead with Windows 7 in a production environment, along with the technical preview of Office 2010.
As of yesterday, I have both bits of software set up on a machine that I intend to use as my main work machine for the next few months.
I was prompted to do this by a few different reports I have read in IT the media lately, where ordinary users were questioning the stance of reviewers on Windows 7.
Reviewers (amongst whom I do not count myself as I have not had any hands on experience before now) have bee criticised for the warm reception that has been given to Windows 7 in certain areas, as it is eerily reminiscent of the Windows Vista coverage when it was at a similar stage.
It has led some to criticise early praise, while other reviewers have been criticised for sitting on the fence and waiting for broader user feedback.
Now, from what I have seen of Windows 7, I have been impressed. Despite a common code base with Vista, 7 has had a far better run through the beta and testing programmes and many Microsoft partners, some of whom I spoke to at the World Partner Conference this year, have already deployed it in production environments, with success.
Now, one might argue that this is coming from a biased source, and that criticism may be justified, but it can also be taken in the light of those same partners doing early deployments for customers who report similar success.
So, I am going to be taking the plunge and using Windows 7 for my workhorse machine. As an attendee of the partner conference, I was also able to get access to the technical preview of Office 2010. This has also been installed, to get the full effect of two of Microsoft’s biggest releases of the coming months.
I will not, however, be able to get the “Better Together” benefits of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, as taking our entire organisation on a beta jaunt is simply not possible. However, I’ll be keeping an eye on developments with Server 2008 R2 as well, it it bears the same designation as Windows 7, NT6.1.
I have accepted the feedback agreements to report on bugs and issues, should they arise and I’d hope to keep a rough track of the interesting or important ones via these pages as I perform and extended road test to tackle the criticisms that have been levelled at the IT media.
All I have to report so far, in installing applications to prepare the machine is that I have no issue with drivers or compatibility save for the security application we use internally, the personal firewall component of which reported a problem. The solution centre suggested disabling it and enabling the native firewall, while offering suggested alternatives on-line.
One for our IT support people, as I am no longer allowed to get my hands dirty with such things! 🙂
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