I made some compatibility tests today and found no problems so far. If there's some spare time this weekend, I'll install my most used apps under Windows 7 and check if there are any problems.

The system itself runs quite smoothly and the only issue i encountered is an unavailable 64-bit hardware driver for the Ricoh Memory Stick Host of my notebook. But since I don't use it anyway, I don't care about this.

BTW, this blog entry is written with Windows Live Essentials Writer. I normally use the native web interface of my blog, but since Writer was here anyway I thought I give it a try.

Edit: it worked ;-)

Edit2: Second try worked also :-)

Today I received Windows 7 Ultimate for my notebook and immediately gave it a try. I haven't used the betas and release candidates before (intentionally), so this was my very first contact with Windows 7.

The predecessor of Windows 7, Windows Vista, isn't worth any further discussion. As most of you know it sucks/sucked ass and after using it for a couple of weeks on my laptop I tried to avoid any further contact with it. Unfortunately, if you have - like me - a job as system administrator, you can not totally get around it. And so I had to deal with a lot of Vista's annoyances, even if I hadn't used it personally.

Anyway, after using Windows 7 for a couple of hours there are already a few things I can say:

• On the surface it looks and feels almost the same like Vista
• It definitely runs a lot faster and smoother than Vista
• It lacks a bunch of drivers (at least in the 64-bit version I use)
• There a quite some enhancements to the user interface over Vista

This is just my VERY first impression. Before I delve any deeper into it, I need to make a more extended test. I'm especially interested in the application compatibility and the virtual XP mode.
Since I use a LOT of applications, this might turn out quite interesting...