I bit the bullet!
Spurred on by the promise of actually using all the RAM I paid for, I backed up my 32-bit Vista system, downloaded the 64-bit Windows 7 RC and gave it a whirl.
Imagine my surprise! It works!
I like the way that al the files from my previous installation was kept. This REALLY helped. I pretty much just moved my cygwin and Java DEVTOOLS directory back into place (no installers/registry entries required, thank you) and was ready to go back to work. All my project files were still on disk, too. In fact, this has been so effective that so far I haven’t gone back to my backup to retrieve anything; it’s all still in my filesystem.
Most (not all: I’m looking at YOU, HP…) drivers and other bits and pieces have re-installed happily…many vendors now have developed 64-bit versions of their product for Vista and these seem to be perfectly acceptable.
It seems quite stable.
It boots quite quickly.
It feels snappier than Vista.
Copying files no longer takes an age.
Look at all that RAM :-)
I LIKE the new “Libraries” feature in Explorer.
On the whole, a positive experience. I’m looking forward to the real product release.
Now, if only M$ would do something about getting rid of all the draconian DRM rubbish…sadly, the epithet “Defective By Design” still applies to this aspect of the OS :-(
