I have been running Windows 7 beta than RC for many months now. Despite all the warnings against using it as my main machine, I have done so, and have had little to any issues. The few things, such as the Bluetooth driver for my laptop, I have chalked it up to the standard driver delays for 64 bit drivers.
The RC has been reasonably rock solid. Yes, I still crashed once in a while, but much less than under Vista. In both Vista and Win 7, I have been running the 64 bit versions, and was surprised at how much better the Win 7 experience has been.
But now is the time to move up to the final version of Windows 7. I spent a few weeks convincing 
{: .float_right }myself that my old laptop just wasn’t quite right for this job, and besides – it was time to pass it down to my wife – so I picked up a new laptop.
The new laptop is the HP dv7-2185dx, and it has two key characteristics I was interested in: the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 / 2 GHz and 6 GB RAM (expandable up to 8). I do realize that few applications can leverage four cores, however, that does not stop me from wanted to develop against them. As for more memory (I am capped at 4gb right now), who can ever complain about more memory.
Of course, no store bought computer could ever live up to my needs out of the box. So a pair of 7400 RPM 500 GB hard drives were needed as well. That is all the changes I am going to do for now – budgets and all that.
So, now begins the happy ritual of migration, replacing the dreaded ritual of upgrading. I will be installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit on my new machine, plus all my standard applications, and I plan on trying out the new VHD boot mechanics as well. Over the next few days I will try and blog about my journey from RC to RTM, Toshiba to HP, 2 cores to 4, and 4gb to 6gb. Follow along and enjoy the ride.