Windows 7 finally has a release date set.  Microsoft is gearing up to capture the holiday sales and has confirmed a release date of Oct 22 for it’s next Operating System.

Windows Vista, Microsoft’s current Operating System, hasn’t been a winner for Redmond.  Since it’s release, it hasn’t faired well, being plagued with bugs, heavy hardware requirements, and slowness.  It has caused Microsoft to struggle in selling to the general population.

After software patches, updates, and even rebranding attempts from their marketing departing, Vista has continued to be a dud.  Corporations have all but rejected using it in the Enterprise environment and home consumers haven’t been thrilled with the extra expenses required from buying hardware that runs with Vista. The future of Vista has been bleak at best.

Enter Windows 7, Microsoft’s next Operating System that will replace Windows Vista.  Sporting a similar look to Vista it doesn’t look like much has changed.  However,

Windows 7 has been rebuilt under the hood, and promises to perform much better than Vista.  There have been many code changes where Microsoft has taken the things that plagued Vista and removed or optimized them in Windows 7.  Windows 7 is not a “name change” marketing effort aimed at causing the masses to forget it’s really Vista all over again. Rather, Windows 7 is really poised to set the solid standard of stability and efficiency in a Windows OS.  More good news is that it will run on older, legacy machines where Vista wouldn’t. This is sure to raise the eyes of the corporate folks.

We’ve been using and testing Windows 7 for over a month now and have been impressed with it’s performance.  It has less RAM requirements and every application we’ve thrown at it has installed and worked without error.

If you’re in the market for a new computer, you might want to wait a few more weeks as like all past releases, there will likely be offers where you can buy a Vista PC that will comes with a Windows 7 Upgrade for free.

Is Windows 7 enough to become our next dependable OS? Stay tuned as we cover this and other topics around this Operating System.

Tags: Windows 7, Windows 7 Release Date, Windows Vista