As I write, the RTM version of Windows 7 is being dragged across the Internet from Redmond to our servers and we're all due to be upgraded within the next few weeks. We've been using the release candidate on a few machines here over the past few months and, much to my own surprise, I'm pretty impressed.

I use the word 'surprise' only because of Vista, Microsoft's much-maligned previous iteration of the world's most famous operating system. Was it really that bad? A quick trawl around the Internet reveals almost universally negative opinions about Vista, though this is not perhaps saying an awful lot: a quick trawl around the Internet would reveal almost universally negative opinions about most things.

To be honest, I never really used Vista enough to provide a justifiable reason for why I didn't like it. Maybe it was the fact that it seemed to hog more resources than the 'Active Desktop' used to in Windows '98 (if anybody remembers that). Perhaps it was the numbers of things Microsoft had changed under the hood that they didn't tell you about, causing problems here VPNs and the like. Or maybe it was the UAC, flicking the screen to black then popping up with a message seemingly every single time I clicked on any icon, anywhere, ever.

Yes, actually, I think that was the reason I didn't like it.

In truth, Windows 7 doesn't seem on the face of it to be radically different. It still has the fancy new interface, Microsoft's attempt to beat Apple at their own game. Opinion as ever seems divided on the interface itself, but I quite like it. It certainly has a much more modern sheen than the 'Fisher Price' chunky look of XP. But, though it may look pretty much just like Vista, Windows 7 is actually an impressive evolutionary step.

The key difference is responsiveness. I've used Windows 7 on the exact same laptop as I tried Vista on, and, going against the old adage that the newer the OS the more oomph it requires, Win7 is by far the smoothest. 

Actually, 'smooth' is quite a good word to use to describe Windows 7. Whilst Vista was a jarring crescendo filled with sharp strings and an overly-enthusiastic percussion section, Win7 is more of a mellow jazz solo. Both are actually playing the same tune, though, just in quite different interpretations. The one comment I've seen repeated over and over again across the Internet and in conversation is that Windows 7 is the OS that Vista should've been. That's actually pretty true: everything that was in Vista seems to be in Windows 7, but it just seems to work so much better. Even the dreaded UAC seems less obstrusive and more thoughtfully implemented. Yes, it's still annoying and too many users are likely to turn it off completely as a result, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of Vista's version.

So... would I recommend to anyone who asked me whether an upgrade was worthwhile? If they already owned a copy of Vista then there would be no question; I'd even drive them to PC World to pick up a copy (when it's released to Joe Public, obviously). If they're still XP owners then, well, the answer's a bit more convoluted. It'd depend how powerful their host hardware is, for one; Win7 might be less demanding than Vista, but it'd still struggle on old, low-spec XP-era machines. It'd also depend on how likely they are to get used to the interface: quite a few people I've worked with just don't like the modern Microsoft look-and-feel exemplified by Vista and Office 2007. Their choice of software is also going to be a determining factor. Win7's compatibility with older programmes is at least on a par with Vista and is quite impressive given the huge back catalogue of Windows software, but if someone is still using an old 16-bit application from the dark days of Windows 3 then I'd be wary about telling them it'd still run fine. I guess that's what virtual PCs are for...

Windows 7, then: it's pretty good. It's never going to convert disciples of Linux or Apple, but for the majority of the world who use PCs, it's a big step forward. Hopefully I'll soon get it installed on my production machine, so I'll be able to provide my thoughts on using it in a completely real-world environment...