Update: Windows 7

It’s been a month and a half since I installed Windows 7, and if you have been reading regularly you will remember I had some “issues” when I installed it.  Most of those were due to hardware problems mixed with my own “firmware” problem (forgetting I needed a driver disk for the SATA controller card.)

I worked through all of that, then realized I had some other hardware problems, so I went the next “logical” step:  I bought a whole new motherboard/CPU/Memory/Video card/Case combination (yes, I essentially built a new computer.) [1. For the techno-minded, I bought the Asrock X58 Extreme moboard and the Intel i7 processor with 8 virtual cores, running 2.666 Ghz.  I also bought         the nVidia GeForce GTS250 video card which supports two DVI monitors.]  There were some growing pains, but that said, things are running quite smoothly.  [2. My biggest problem once I built the new machine was an annoying set of blue screen of death crashes–turns out I had failed to seat one of the sticks of DDR3 ram firmly in the slot. Silly me. Again.]

I am happy to report that Windows 7 really is the most stable (Windows) operating system I have used.  Others seem to perhaps be more stable, but I don’t stress any other OS as much as I do my Windows machines. So let me list off the greatest successes.

• I have had to reboot my machine very infrequently, placing this quite easily “on par” with one of the more popular “benefits” of the Mac OS-X.  As in, only when I have installed security updates, or new software.  I have worked hard with this new version of Windows to resist the urge to reboot before starting a “big” project.  This has been a change for me since I would always restart my machine to ensure the machine had a clean start.
• I am able (knock on wood) to start Adobe Audition 3.0 (download trial here), and record a full 1 1/2 hour podcast, then edit it, without any hiccups.  Prior to this, I had issues with the recording stopping in the middle of a recording or worse, giving the BSOD.
• I installed the 64 bit version of Win7 (and everyone should.)  I have found no program that will not run in the 64 bit OS.
• As would be expected, there were a flurry of hardware driver updates the first few weeks after the install (mostly video updates) and with each new update the system became more stable.

These are just some of the highlights for me of having Windows 7 installed.

The bottom line: Windows 7 truly is faster, more stable, and thus more reliable.  A joy to use.