I have more copies of Windows 7 than I can currently use...even putting all my spare stuff together...but yes I did obtain them legally, through student discount, attending a conference, and becoming a Windows 7 launch host. I think I was able to help spread the word fairly well (all students at my university get Pro for free) so with that kind of price there isn't a whole lot keeping them from upgrading. I haven't not liked a Windows OS this well at launch before. I have no dillusions though, there are compatibility issues and bugs to be addressed. There is also always more they could do. Overall I think Microsoft deserves a lot of credit, and they have been receiving it. Even Apple decided to make 2 Windows 7 commercials. Yet they didn't even make one for their own OS release! They must really care *tear

We operate a not-for-profit group and got three copies of W7 Pro for $8 each, which is the best bargain around. I've only installed it to this laptop since we're in a busy time right now and need to keep our desktops fully-functional for a while. I'd used the W7 beta and RC earlier but re-installed Vista because of some stability issues. I'm happy to report that the problems seem to have been addressed. This laptop is my browsing computer and I've had zero crashes since installation five days ago. I still believe this is actually Vista 1.1, but even if we'd have had to pay the $150 for a Home Premium upgrade 3-pack, it still would be worth the money. Improvements to the taskbar and lots of other little things make everyday tasks a lot easier.

I got 7 64bit premium, upgraded from vista. Did a clean install (always do) and it runs great! I love the task bar, mated with the expandable dock app. Yay!

Am still using the release candidate, but hey, where did you got this $8 deal...

About Windows 7, I really like the new taskbar, but still am getting used to it..

To give a frame of reference, I'm a college student in a general engineering program. I have also, like many people, taken advantage of the student deal to get 7 Pro.

One thing that I would like to note is the sensationalism caused by the release of 7. I just installed Vista 32 bit Professional about a week ago(with the purpose of using it for awhile so that I am able to say i've used every windows OS since 3.1) and posted it on my facebook. Within a few hours I had at least 4 different people apologizing to me for my "bad luck", and how I should have upgraded straight to 7, even though they have never even used it before. This kind of bias is interesting when analyzing the differences between the 3 OS's(XP, Vista, and 7) and i would simply like to bring that thought up.
Also, a day later when i went on and did some research for 7 I did like how the successive editions of 7 have the same functions as the previous versions(so Pro has all of Home Premium functions plus added features and Ultimate has more features than Pro). This was one of my issues with vista once I had gotten it installed and realized the Professional version didn't have some of the features I had expected (like Media Center). So the student rate deal is actually amazing being a little less than 1/6 the price for Pro which includes all features of Home Premium along with some additional ones. It's similar to one of those deals too good to be true.
From my research I think this will be a good upgrade and am having issues not installing my download immediately... So when I feel I've used Vista long enough to meet my purpose for installing it I'll click this little Windows 7 upgrade icon on my desktop.

Windows 7 is microsofts crowning glory, as I believe it is the best OS they have ever made. BUT! you need a rig capable of running it. Please check the minimum system requirements to run it before you choose to upgrade. It needs a lot more than vista, and when it starts up you will see why! The attention to detail is epic! And as soon as your system gets use to running it, it actually takes up less resources than vista. Congrats microsoft!

I've upgraded all my PCs and my notebook with Windows 7.

What I like a lot is the much improved boot time and, especially, how stable it is. Then again, Vista was very stable for me as well.
Another neat thing is the improved UI. Sure, some might say it's Vista with a different UI, but that different UI is exactly what makes this OS much easier to use.

The SuperBar (or whatever you want to call it) is terrific as it helps a lot when you're doing heavy multi-tasking.

I also like that going to x64 now is pretty much effortless and 32bit apps work without issues.
Best OS so far IMO! Beats Apple's OSX hands down.

Well , im using Windows 7 right now . It is quite good i should say , very nice actually . When i took in Vista when it came out . It was horrible . Annoying , compatibility issues , slow . Windows 7 has none of that . But still im hopping the Service Pack will come out soon . There is an issue i have , it kinda every now and then when you click on something it says not responding and goes away a few milliseconds later .

I decided to move from Mythbuntu 9.10 to Windows 7 Home Premium for the Media Center functionality (few showstopping bugs with sound in Mythbuntu 9.10) and have been pleasantly surprised after the disaster that Vista was (the reason I moved to Mythbuntu).

Nice and slick, Microsoft have done a great job with this.

I'm running the Win7 RC1 64bit til the freebie license runs out. By then I should have the money available for the upgrade. Money issues are the ONLY issues stopping my upgrade. My wife, however, isn't that thrilled about making the move. She's still likes her XP Pro since she knows her way around it so well.

My favourite features are:
Aero snap - I always used to resize my firefox windows and place them side by side, this saves a lot of time and is great for the widescreen monitors nowadays
Desktop peek - I have the CPU and network usage gadgets on my desktop and now I can look at them without minimizing all the windows
Superbar green progress bar thingy - so far I've only seen this on explorer, IE and imgburn... but this would be really great if firefox, vuze, winamp, etc. also implemented this
Networking - It's really easy to stream media to other computers

The biggest negative I've found so far is the explorer superbar icon - there should be a straightforward option for which folder it should open on default (rather than libraries, which I find useless). Also it's a bit annoying to use if you have a lot of explorer windows open, maybe a solution would be to have an icon on the superbar for each window

Lets quit kidding ourselves. When windows 95 came out, college of dupage didn't upgrade till '97, and they were TEACHING this stuff. Last Saturday I installed windows virtual pc and DOWNGRADED to windows 95 to get some old games to run.

Whilst I am happy for so many home users to find themselves (at last) with a better OS from Microsoft, as a professional IT developer I am distinctly underwhelmed by Win7.

To me, it is simply the case that MS is dumbing down the OS to the point where they are designing virtually exclusively for the 'clueless majority', and ignoring the needs of professionals to be able to use an efficient, highly secure and configurable OS for business purposes. Professionals need to be in control of the OS, not the other way round.

In my opinion, MS need to produce an incorruptible, cast-iron secure and efficient kernel OS, on top of which they can market as many 'shell' front-ends as they like. There could be one for games, one for communications, one for graphic manipulation, one for an entertainment centre, one to be a client for a server OS, and so on ad infinitem almost.

Most importantly, MS completely ignores the huge cost to industry of retraining all users for every new OS, just because they choose to make virtually everything work differently. With the 'kernel + front-end' methodology, it would be possible to run 'legacy' front-ends for as long as necessary to support legacy applications.

There is no reason why several of these front-ends could not co-exist on the same PC, much as many people dual-boot today, but with more-or-less instant switching of course. That MS tries to do all these things in one OS is neither efficient, safe nor sensible. Enjoy your patch-tuesdays colleagues, because once win7 really gets going, there will probably be one every week......

I've been using Windows 7 since the beta and rc releases and have recently updated my computers to the final release. I'm one of those people who was happy with Vista. It had major driver problems for the first yr or so, but after that it was fine as long as you had recent hardware. Never understood why people hated it so much. Windows 7 is really just a refinement of Vista. It feels faster, has a better UI, and has been totally stable. What's not to like? I hope it's good enough to convince those XP luddites that forward progress is a good thing.

i,m going run xp sp3 for a year or so. so all the M$ bugs are worked out of windows 7.

My advise is : Do NOT upgrade. make a fresh install... if you can...
If you can not, ask a friend to do it for you.
You will really see the difference if you make a fresh install.
Doing that you will probably install the last version of all the tools you use and you will know which one will be a compatibility problem.
Trust me, make a backup of all you data, emails, bookmarks, ... Check if you know all the passwords you saved in your browsers. Change them if you don't. And go...
You will find a lot a good articles on the web who explain everything to make a fresh install.

Mac OS X is better than Windows 7 and all the other Windows operating systems.

Ubuntu ftw...uses 256 MB of memory compared to Vista's 1 GB on my hp dv9700
Does everything I need it to, it's free to download, and easy to install...going to put it on my acer desktop today as well.

Windows 7 is just a stripped down version of Vista with a few tweaks and some new eye candy. I'll keep Vista and wait for Windows 8.

Upgraded from Vista Home Premium 64-bit to Win 7 HP 64.

Slightly funny story: Received the package in the mail (I always want the hard copy), opened it, and read on the disk: 32-bit Version. Having pre-ordered it some time ago I'd forgotten the "both versions included" part of the deal, I thought I'd been given the wrong version! Oh no! I searched MS help, found a phone number, called and explained my dilemma, the guy apparently was going to send me a new package when I found the one teensy box on the package that said, "Includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions." Oh yeah, I sorta remember that -- The 64-bit disk was UNDER the 32-bit one. Uh, sir, uh ... nevermind.

The install didn't go perfectly, 7 found some items that weren't compatible but didn't make it entirely clear that those items had to be manually disabled before the install could proceed (I didn't need those items anyway so, no big deal). Once I figured that out it went swimmingly, but took longer than I expected. Not longer than they SAID it would take, but I didn't believe it would take as long as that. It did.

Works great (as did Vista). Vista would occasionally choke on one program or another, but always recovered gracefully, haven't had any glitches yet in 7. 7 uses FAR less memory, from 36% at idle in Vista to ~25% in 7. I never ran low with Vista (I have more than 4 Gig, hence the 64-bit version), now I KNOW I won't run low with 7.

Nitpicks; SO much faster in some regards it's unmanageable. For example, if the cursor so much as glances on another window, that window comes immediately to the forefront, whether that was my intent or not (is there a workaround, like menu-delay in past versions?). Had to change my decade-old Alt+Tab habit to WindowsKey+Tab because Alt+Tab is entirely unuseable; Changing another habit, the Start menu, to using the task bar instead was easy enough, but I LIKED the Start menu.

Otherwise, works as well as Vista (again, I never had issues with Vista), uses less memory, changes are easy to learn -- What's NOT to like?