It’s free except your time and frustration if you have to go back to Vista or XP
Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, September 3, 2009 with story from PC World
PC Magazine is giving readers of its Business Centre the dubious advice to download Microsoft Windows 7 RTM which is activated for 90 days.
That would assume businesses have nothing better to do than play with almost ready operating systems on their computers and then spend the time it takes to re-install the old operating system and programs if things don’t work.
My earlier experiment with Windows 7 Release Candidate still applies Windows 7 RC does not uninstall.
Drivers for devices on older computers may or may not be available for the first year of Windows 7 release. In some cases the drivers may never appear. M-Audio not ready for Windows 7
I am moving to Windows 7 but only on one machine that does nothing but web browser work. Right now none of my printers, scanner, video and photo editing software, sound cards and Firewire devices support Windows 7.
Corporate It managers have indicated a go slow approach for the same reason. Experience has taught them the first solid version of a Microsoft operating system is Service Pack 1 or 2.
Here’s the download link.
Here are PC World’s Top 5 reasons to download the free trial version:
1. Judge for yourself. Some have said that Windows 7 is little more than Windows Vista SP3. Even those who feel Windows 7 is Microsoft’s apology to the world for Windows Vista seem to admit that Windows 7 is a pretty good apology.
2. Figure out what works. One of the headaches of upgrading operating systems is finding out that the applications and peripherals you rely on no longer work.
3. See what you’re missing. There are a variety of versions of Windows 7. The lower end Windows 7 Home versions and even the Windows 7 Professional version are lacking some of the features and functionality found in Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate.
4. Is it worth it? Windows 7 has a lot of new features and functionality: Jump Lists, AeroPeek, AeroSnap, automatic driver installation, BitLocker-to-Go, and more. Critics will say that the Aero UI is useless eye candy, or perhaps that Microsoft just ‘borrowed’ the interface from Mac OS X (while some think that egg came before the chicken).
5. Supplies are Limited. Act Quickly. According to this blog announcement of the free trial from Microsoft “A limited number of licenses are available, so the download will only be available while supplies last.”
PC World sounds like the spin from Microsoft’s marketing machine. The process will be interesting, educational and chew up time.
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