Having used the Beta (testing) version for a week now I’m happy to report it’s a considerable improvement on Vista – though that is not difficult.

Although it is essentially Vista revamped, it is much quicker, has some nice touches, and above all actually seems to work. I still find it a little difficult to navigate around Windows 7 , but it’s a bit more intuitive than Vista and I didn’t find myself constantly switching back to XP out of frustration.

If the final version is like the Beta, it will be a no-brainer for current Vista users to upgrade – those using XP may have more of a dilemma – there still is no ‘must have’ feature in Windows 7 that would entice hardened XP
users to change – they will probably be gradually forced over as they buy new computers and XP drivers are no longer available.

But in the current credit climate, I find it hard to imagine that companies who resisted the change to Vista will be queueing up to swap to Windows 7 in a hurry.

There is no official release date for Windows 7 yet, but it will probably be in time for Christmas.

As a sop to the millions of people who have shunned Vista and prefer XP, Microsoft decided to allow manufacturers to offer XP as a ‘downgrade right’ – Dell have rebadged this and are offering Vista as a ‘Bonus Disk’, implying (quite correctly) that it doesn’t see XP as a downgrade at all.

In fact, Dell’s blog is fullsome in its praise of XP and calls Vista ‘its harshly debated successor’.

Looking for a new computer? Get a Dell.

It claims that it wants to show a clear timeline in the release of its products – it seems more likely that its desperately trying to dig itself out of a hole.

Windows Vista has hardly been greeted with acclaim, not least by corporate customers who can, quite rightly, see little benefit in ‘upgrading’ from XP, so in order to encourage sales Microsoft have tried the carrot and stick approach – withdrawing XP from the market and promising Windows 7 in 2009 with an easy transition from Vista to Windows 7.

Unfortunately for them it isn’t working – on the one hand customer demand has meant that they have vacillated over the withdrawal of XP and although it is being officially withdrawn from sale at the end of this month, there are so many ‘exceptions’ – system builders that will still be able to install it – that effectively anyone will be able to get hold of  a copy if they want to, and on the other many companies are just skipping the Vista step completely and waiting for Windows 7.

So, a little more time for them to get Windows 7 right, and in a few years time Vista will be seen for what it is – a poor bloated operating system with few advantages over XP,  badly implemented, and for most people a totally unnecessary expense.

SP1 was completed in February, only for Microsoft to discover problems with a number of third party device drivers. The company tweaked Windows Update to ensure that systems running these drivers do not install the Vista update.

SP1 will reduce the time it takes Vista to copy large files, although it is still slower than XP.

Other advantages? Er..