Yesterday, I un-installed Microsoft Office 2007 from my Vista installation. Wow, did that take a time to complete or what. The purpose was to install the newly released Office 2010 Beta.

First attempt – please uninstall FrontPage 2003 and Access server database. More time passed.

Second attempt – it is installing but when will it finish?

It finally did finish, after which I had this unswerving desire to get back to Windows 7. After a few months of using Windows 7, notwithstanding aspects I do not overly like, Windows 7 booted quickly, responded quickly, and was/is a real pleasure. Users with fancy dual core and quad core machines may not notice so much of a difference, but for me and my trusty single core machine, Windows 7 has proved itself to be manna from the skies.

I can see very little reason why, on the right machine, users would not like Windows 7. It looks better and is more secure than XP, and it works faster than Vista. It will breathe new life into the PC market, and anybody who thinks that Mac and Ubuntu will grow in the future are barking up the wrong tree.

Windows 7 is no niche, cutesy or geeky operating system. It carries forward the versatility that Microsoft Windows has always had, and adds stability and speed to the equation. I have said in the not-so-distant past that I would not go back to XP. Well, apart from doing my bit for the Office 2010 Beta, I will not be returning to Vista as an everyday OS.

Footnote - To be honest, I could run the Office 2010 Beta in Windows 7 but would have to use the 32-bit variant because I also run FrontPage 2003, and I want to commit my time to the 64-bit Office 2010..