I haven’t been around for awhile as I have been watching the political scene and waiting longer than others to comment.
In the mean time, I have been testing Microsoft’s new op sys known as Windows 7.
Testing with the beta went fine. Just the usual missing print drivers, but thats normal. However, all of my machines. except the MAC I’m using to post this are AMD/ATI driven. All drivers, video, tv etc worked great with the Beta, However, somewhere between the Beta and the RC, MS must have cut another deal with INTEL and now all AMD/ATI drivers are failing or running with generic drivers.
I was also a tester for Vista. Vista is somewhat slower than ‘7′, and is more of a resource hog, for those who buy cheap machines, but it has no problems with drivers, crashes, or lock-ups.
My recommendation is to stay with XP, or Vista for at least a year after the final release of ‘7′, and then run a driver compatibility test(if they have one) before you spend the money for the new software.
To be fair to MS, all new systems have problems, but the idea of going from a Beta to an RC is to move forward, not backwards.
May 6, 2009