I'm quite fortunate to have a copy the Retail Windows 7 Ultimate 2 months before the release date due to msdn subscription. My review is based on personal experience and preferance and may not be the same opinion as everyone else.

Firstly, the installation took just over 25 minutes, an improvement on Vista. Boot time is very slightly slower but shutdown is almost instant - 5 seconds!!

After installing Windows 7 Ultimate, I decided to explore some of the new features and changes before attempting any software installations. The graphics seemed extremely impressive, but I was viewing it on a 42" HD TV, but still, this is the same set up I used Vista on and the visual aspect was nothing compared to 7.

A few things have moved around, like show desktop, there isn't a default sidebar and paint has had a major overhall!! The taskbar has turned into a Apple Dock....you can now 'Pin' programs to the taskbar for faster access. This is a direct copy of Apple OSX, but works very well. So well I've only used the start menu a few times.

Things seem a bit quicker than Vista, certain tasks require less memory and performance however the aero desktop is still very demanding. The performance rating now goes beyond 5.9, this is due to Windows now being able to make more use of more memory and faster processors.

Other items I use which have become more user friendly include remote desktop, the search function, network configuration and more. A large amount has remained the same which is a relief however some of the options like Swithc to Classic View in the Control Panel seems to have gone which I find very annoying.

Microsoft have managed to rid most the bugs via the release candidate however people will still complain that software won't work with it. This is a vendor issue as much as it is a Microsoft issue. All Vista software will work on Windows 7, but if it fails because it verifies it's a Vista install, that is the issue with the vendor not Microsoft.

e.g. software designed for all OS's will search for which OS it is and if iti isn't on the list it will fail, even though if it chose Vista it would work perfectly.

I personally think it's a great OS, a vast improvement on Vista and a pleasure to use....but just wait untill the new Apple OS comes out next month...