Just like any new OS install, you have to install the motherboard drivers, even though Windows will install many of them for you. If something like the sound or NIC isn't functioning just right, it is always good to install drivers separately. This goes for 3rd party video drivers all the time, doesn't it?

That is partially true, but you will likely need Win 7 Ultimate and its XP Mode or whatever its called, and its pretty similar to running Windows XP in a virtual machine.

As for the monitor, you really shouldn't need monitor drivers unless you do photo manipulation for a living.

I apologize, but I must know: For those of you who have hated Vista, are you satisfied with Windows 7?

I can't imagine that it is much different that Vista in many ways.

So far, Win7 is far superior to Vista in many ways. It's faster, lighter, and looks better too. It's not really a stripped down version of Vista but a much better OS overall. I have to say I like it because it uses far less resources than Vista did on my PC and it's a little more user-friendly. It's definitely worth the DL to try I think anyone who likes Vista would like 7 even more. Even XP users are impressed, for the most part.

...and Windows 7 is still very similar to Vista in many ways. But as EXCellR8 points out Windows 7 is superior to Vista. It really surprized me

Eiger,,,i tried all the betas and release candidates for Vista. I would load them, say this sucks and uninstall them. One after another and I hated everyone. I was hooked on Win7 from the first install. Like EXCellR8 says it's faster and lighter and it just feels good. A lot of crap was uninstalled and changed around to suit my tastes though.One or two things are bothering me but it's small parts, nothing major. I hate the all programs menu! I'm using the 64bit version and have little or no problem finding the drivers. Only my Canon scanner won't upgrade but thats Canons fault. I definitely give it a thumbs up so far.

Yah, Windows 7 really is like a more polish version of Vista much faster, efficient and powerful. So no more saying no when its said to be release this october...

I have disabled my dual boot Vista 64bit, and I run Windows 7 64 bit alone now. I can do everything under Windows 7, that I used to run under Vista. Now I just have to be prepared for the "sticker shock" when Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit retail version is available

I went to the Windows website i guess its due to launch in October. The upgrade look likes a very reasonable price.

Couldn't agree with you more.

I'm a big believer that a lot of people who didn't like Vista were either a) not on a high end machine b) not very tech savvy c) developers that know more than I : ). I installed Vista as soon as it came out and really enjoyed the graphics but noticed a lot of lag time and went right to work switching things around. I will admit it sucked anytime I did a new install and had to go back through all my Vista tweaks to get it running at the pace I wanted but it was worth it. I was/am happy with Vista.

I dl'd 7 about a week ago and all I can say is wow. Right from the get go this thing was running like a scalded dog. Sure there are a few bugs I have noticed but other than that I have been excited to get on my desktop all the time. It's hard not to just want to make this my main OS for all my computers.

Windows 7 is in the Release Candidate stage, no longer considered a "beta". I run it alone now doing everything I did with Vista plus more...

The only big issue I'm having right now is the sound. The volume is really weak. I need to go to 35 on my receiver to get the same volume I get on XP at 25. And I can't get audacity to work when I'm recording my poetry. The Realtek HD doesn't want to play nice and the interface sucks. I need to borrow a sound card from someone and try it with that. Until I get that working I'm still running dual boot mode with XP. And no virtual XP doesn't work.

So this just came to me... if I want to use DX11 w/ Win7 I'm going to need new graphics cards... aren't I?

In a word... YES

So...what's the difference between Windows 7 and Vista? I haven't really done my research.

Windows 7 is a lot "lighter" than Vista which means faster loading and faster shutdowns. Also, it is better organized and much easier to customize. Networking is simpler to accomplish between platforms... Lastly Windows 7 is pretty. The themes and sounds can be custom built or modified

Well I guess that's not too big of a deal... I will most likely upgrade the cards near the end of the year anyways. I finally got around to installing the Win7 RC (build 7100 i think) and I'm loving it, maybe even more so than the beta since it's less quirky. Definitely planning on purchasing the Ultimate edition come October but I'm really not sure if I can completely do w/o XP yet.

On a side note, did anyone else have have performance issues when installing the RC? I burned the 64-bit ISO onto a DVD+R and it just took forever to get started for some reason. The installation would hang for a bit... DVD would spin up and do it's thing... and then it would hang again for a few minutes. It installed fine overall but I thought it was weird that it did that.

Takes me just under 15 minutes to install. I've been having a lot of BSOD's lately while gaming. With both the 186.18 and 185.81 drivers. Rolled back to the 181.71's and it seems to be working now. That's the 64 bit versions and build 7229. All the beta and RC builds have been pretty smooth and trouble free.

My Windows 7 is evaluation copy build 7100, and it installed on a second hard drive in under 15 minutes. I downloaded my video driver directly fom Nvidia for Windows 7 64 bit for my 9600GT video card

I have XP Pro installed on a "C" partition, Vista on a "F" partition and I then installed Windows 7 on a "H" partition. Windows 7 ran fine. I was on the internet, etc.

Then I rebooted to Vista because I had to get some work done and while there I looked in windows explorer and all of the drives were labeled correctly. XP on C, Vista on F, Windows 7 on H.

BUT THEN I booted back to Windows 7 and found that Windows 7 was not a "C" partition and all the others were scrambled! I can't get Windows 7 to stay a "H" Drive. I have reset it from Vista but it keeps going back to "C".

Any answers?