Last night I installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate on my Dell XPS laptop.

The install did not need much attention from me at all, In fact I was only prompted to enter my key once at the very end. However it took about an hour and a half to install.

To my surprise after the install my computer… well worked! I did not need to download any drivers from Dell as they where already there! I am not sure wether the install sourced them from the diver files on my computer or the current installation or the drivers where in the ISO. I will have to do some research to see if the former was the case. It would be really cool if that was the case! Anyone have any ideas?

One thing I did like is the fact the installation process backed up my old system and moved it to Windows.old making it easy for me to migrate my settings and files to the new version before deleting the old windows folder!

My first impressions of Windows 7 are good. It seems to be a fair bit quicker then Vista and I like the new application bar it un clutters your applications and makes it easier to switch between them as well as the zoom tool.

I also like the new user account control where you have more control over you account. I like to call this the “Annoyance Level”, you can set how annoying you want Windows to be. Very annoying but safe is like Vista at the moment where you are asked for Admin access before doing anything. On the flip side you can set it to “Let me do anything to my computer” mode where Windows does not care what you do – its up to you. I opted for middle ground where it only annoys me if I try to use a program that wants to update system files.

I could go on forever with all the great new features of Windows 7 but I would be here all day! All I can say it is a much needed upgrade from Vista!