Usually, I'd be the last one to defend Microsoft, but sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. I installed and played with Win7 on my home PC, and it is leaps and bounds better than WinXP and WinVista. Win7 was more responsive than XP on my oldish PC, though it did use more RAM to accomplish this feat. It's much more usable than Vista, and some of the new desktop features are quite nice.

This does not mean I'll give up my MacBook anytime soon for a Windows machine, and neither will Win7 replace Ubuntu as my OS of choice on the PC, but you have to acknowledge the fact that Microsoft is finally getting the hang of this OS business.

The real question is not whether Windows 7 is worth its cost, but if the downgrade-to-XP option is still worth to pay for.

IMHO, Win7 sucks less than Vista - it's snappy, partly because we have much faster computers (at least I do) than when Vista was launched, and is much less of a disruption, even for a XP user. It was inevitable: software designed for XP may have problems with Vista, but programs designed for Vista run well under 7.

Will I drop Ubuntu for it? No way.

Windows 7 has lots of new features which appeals to the corporate market compared to Windows XP. You have more options for locking down workstations with GPOs, you have UAC which improves security. Searching for stuff is miles ahead of Widows XP, which means increased productivty.

Granted, most of those features were added in Vista, but Windows 7 actually runs quite decent on older hardware, something Vista wasn't exactly acclaimed for doing.

Windows 7 also includes lots of features which are handy for portable machines like laptops. Bitlocker anyone? You also have transparent, automatic VPN back into your company's domain, either trough native IPv6 or tunneled connections. In either case IPSec is used to secure communication. In effect, the windows domain model just got network transparent. That's a pretty neat thing in itself.

Again, some things came with Vista, but Windows 7 delivers it all in a much more appealing package.

I'll shut up before I sound like a Microsoft market-droid, but to say Windows 7 adds no features which would make an upgrade worthwhile in the corporate environment is either disingenuous or misinformed.

exactly, I'm sick of the "but XP gets the job done"-attitude. Yes, there's no killer feature, that would absolutely demand an upgrade, but all the minor changes and usability improvements add up. I'm kinda annoyed that I have to use a XP machine at work, since I've been spoiled by W7 beta at home for a while now.

The problem is that most people just see it as another ~$100 they'll have to spend to upgrade, and that isn't worth it to most.

I think it's worth the upgrade, but 90% of my family doesn't and I'll need to upgrade them with a pirated version once it's released + cracked.

> In effect, the windows domain model just got network transparent. That's a pretty neat thing in itself.

Ok, that is a compelling reason. I stand corrected.

MS won't make a mistake of forcing people to adopt WIN7 otherwise the result would be same as IE - there are many, especially in the 3rd world countries where they are just looking for a reason to dump windows but they keep it because it came pre-installed - just 2 countries (china & india) can make windows dead in matter of years (if not months) if they try to force it ...

also who knows??, there are new guys (read Android, WebOS, OS-X) who MIGHT be waiting for the opportunity to jump in ... i dont know why but i feel that eventually google will enter the game by getting android from phones to netbook to notebook....!! if the brand like HTC starts making netbook/notebook then i won't be surprise if it comes pre-installed with android !!