First it was Vista then XP… Then Ubuntu and back to XP… Now here I am removing Windows 7 and going back to XP… After compatibility issues, time intensive configurations, and a multitude of headaches I always find myself going back to XP so I can have the relief of a known stable operating system.

Recently, I had installed the Windows 7 RC on my laptop. My install was great and all the drivers loaded up except wireless and video. After a quick jump on the desktop I loaded up the Internet and the drivers were easily found on Dell’s website. There isn’t much I can say that hasn’t already been said about Windows 7. The operating system is great. It is really fast and I can’t get enough of the little features that are included in the OS. I was ecstatic to see the progress bar on the icon in the taskbar for transfers, downloads, and installs. The task bar has been ramped up and is incredible. Instead of rambling on about Windows 7 features you can check them out yourself. The OS is still publicly available for trial download. Check it out here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

All features aside 7 is going to be a great OS. However, I ended up reverting back to my beloved XP, mainly because several of my applications will not run on Windows 7. Even with XP compatibility turned on I had a few quirks that ultimately made me reinstall. I will look forward to running 7 after an official release and some more updates. According to http://twitter.com/MSWindows the release should be on or around October 22nd, 2009. Hopefully by then the developers of the applications that failed for me will also have updated their software. Below is a small list of some of my highly used applications and how they fared on Windows 7. Let me know how your applications worked for you.

Successfully Ran Applications

Adobe CS3 Suite (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, After Effects…)

Office 2007 Suite (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook)

SharePoint Designer 2007

Firefox

Non-Successful Applications

Camtasia Studio 4

Pro-Tools 7

Lightspeed Security Console

No Hyper Terminal!

I plan on reinstalling Windows 7 onto a virtual machine soon. Maybe I can work out some of the kinks and see what I can figure out. Until then I am going to stick with XP. What can I say, it is a great operating system and runs like a champ. I know one day it will have to eventually retire, but until then I am going to stick with it.

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