I used the RTM version which is the final version sent to all the manufactures before they gay it up with their 30 day free trials shit. Installation was painless. I put the 32-bit Ultimate version on dual boot with a 100GB partition because I wasn't sure how it was going to go. Initial impression was that everything worked fine. No extra drivers needed to be installed. All the applications that worked on Vista works on 7.

On to Firewall/AV. The version of Norton 360 I had been using was several years old so I had to get a new version. I chose nod32 AV and Comodo firewall. That was adequate, but I suspect nod32 is tied to slightly slower performance when using SSL on certain websites. Back to the point, several retailers have optimized versions for 7 so I will switch the moment it is available.

The first things one would notice is there is a new userbar. Every icon can be pinned to the userbar like quick launch was and when you click on it, the same icon then enlarges as a taskbar button. With some tweaking I got the expanded button to look like it did in Vista. The Show Desktop button has been moved to the right side of the clock. You almost don't even notice it because it is a tiny sliver but it's integrated into the taskbar now. All the tray icons got moved to special menu expandable by clicking the arrow next to the clock and you can choose to hide/unhide them. One new feature is the ability to set videos or rotating slideshow as the background. I have not tested this out yet.

Speed and performance is noticeably better but take into consideration this is a fresh install. MS has managed to keep the overall look and feel similar to Vista. One might argue that they are the exact same operating system.

Some sites still have trouble coding for the new system. For example uploading to MegaUpload with firefox in 7 is impossible. Using IE8 is possible but with a few bugs. Overall the look and feel far outweigh the drawbacks.

I took it 1 step further and decided to try out the x64 version since my processor was 64-bit capable. This time I used the Professional x64 version. I formatted the x86 partition and installed x64 version over it and it worked fine also. Again, there were no major problems. I found some x64 optimized programs for it but but there were few available this early on. My biggest gripe is that without the proper video drivers for x64 I can't use the transparency features of the Aero theme and since my laptop is 2 years old, HP has announced it will not be providing support.

All and all I give this new OS a 4.5/5.0 and I encourage you to try it out if you have not. I know MS has special offers for students to get this OS at a discount, or if you are a technology or engineering major, your college's MSDNAA will provide free licenses.