Since we started beta testing Windows Vista (then codename "Longhorn") back in 2005, we have not seen an operating system as stable or nice to play with as Windows 7. To some extent, I am reminded of the final phases of the "Whistler" beta test, which turned out Windows XP.
Suffice to say, Windows Vista was a painful migration. We were hounded by the need to painstakingly upgrade virtually every piece of hardware and install memory in amounts usually reserved for servers. While Windows XP cruised along very well with 1 Gig of RAM, Windows Vista barely made the cut, causing us to sacrifice the very essentials that made Vista what it was.
Admittedly we were impressed once we stuck 3.5 Gigs of RAM into our test machine, but that did not last. We were faced with a bevy of hardware and software incompatibilities that rendered the operating system relatively useless, though it was nice to look at.
We moved forward in apprehension when we discovered the Windows 7 beta test, but there was something about it that made us feel a bit more confident. When I initially saw it installed in a VMWare environment Iwas immediately impressed. Due to the limited amount of memory we had in our test machine (because it was running Vista,) we had to install Windows 7 with only 750MB of RAM.
This is why we were impressed: A virtual machine, running with only 750MB of RAM was running an operating system that seemed to perform just like Windows XP. What we saw was an OS that ran like XP and looked like Vista. Once we were confident with its capabilities, we rolled out officially to our test machine, and said our final goodbye to Windows Vista.
Next.. Test Machine results. Stay tuned!
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