A Worldwide House Party

Microsoft launches Windows 7 tonight at Midnight.  There are a number of retailers who are holding special Midnight Madness sales.  Why anyone would run out and pick up Windows 7 at Midnight is beyond me but I'm throwing a Windows 7 House Party so what do I know.

There has been a lot of hype around Windows 7.  You can go to a tech blog or website without being inundated with articles about the new OS.  Should you upgrade, how you should upgrade, the top 10 things that make Windows 7 great, the 10 worst things about Windows 7, 10 things it is missing and on it goes.

Speaking of my House Party, we're gearing up for a 10/24 launch of Fiesta Hornesta, a Wild Windows 7 Experience.  I will do some tote bag stuffing in the coming days.  The streamers and balloons will look great.  And everyone will see what the fuss is all about.

So is Windows 7 all that and a can of beans?  Yeah, probably so.  I updated my PC early in the year getting ready for the Windows 7 launch.  I updated the CPU to a Quad Core processor and upgraded the RAM to 8GB.  I received my copy of Windows 7 on the 10th and installed it the same day.  the entire OS install took about 20 minutes.  Much shorter than XP and Vista.  After that it was a matter or reinstalling applications.  I had a list of the programs I needed to reinstall so it was just a matter of loading them from disc or downloaded file and applying teh registration keys.

Like I said, I really like this OS.  It looks great and runs incredibly smooth.  I have yet to experience a Blue Screen of Death.  It used to happen like crazy with XP when I would go to a website that was loading a video or a lot of images and I would quickly try to surf to another website.  This is yet to happen with Windows 7, knock on wood.

Each copy comes with 32 and 64 bit versions.  I went with the 64 bit version so I could take full advantage of the RAM.  So far, I have had only one problem and it is with a Casio label printer that is hooked up to my PC.  Casio did not write 64 bit drivers so it is not recognized by the OS.  I emailed their support team and was told that I should set up a dual boot so the 32 bit version would run the printer.  Um, thanks but no. 

All other programs and hardware runs fine.  The 64 bit OS will load and run 32 bit programs so I haven't had an issue there.  Why should I bother with 64 bit programs?  Mostly for the extra memory they can use.  64 bit programs take full advantage of the power of the machine.  Why would I want to step backwards?

So I wish everyone good luck.  This is a real nice operating system that will run on most machines regardless of age.  Microsoft really did a good job with it.  I'm not sure it will make everyone forget about the nightmare that was Vista but it will go a long way towards that end.