I made the the move, last week. If you're a student or at least have a .edu email address, you can get it for $29.99 (download) and another $13 if you want them to, also, mail you the DVD. They're also running an Ultimate Office 2007 promo for students --$59.99 (and $13 for a mailed DVD.) My wife is currently a student, so we took advantage of the deal and got them both. So far, it's great. At first, it bugged me slightly that I couldn't see each instance of Windows Explorer that was open, without having to highlight the "file" icon on the task bar, but I've since gotten used to it. The biggest advantage, though, is that W7 is blazing fast. I was using Vista Business, previously, and this one is WAY faster, and so far, no bugs. It's like an improved Vista that runs as fast as XP. So far, after a week and a few updates, it hasn't slowed down at all.
Even after all the updates, Vista still had some major bugs. For me, the biggest bug was some type of networking/wireless bug that would cause me to lose connection to the Internet and not be able to reconnect, without restarting the whole computer. When I'd go to restart it, it would take about 20 minutes to shut down, and that shut down ALWAYS ended in a blue screen. So far, I've not lost connection at all. Other than that and being really slow, though, Vista was fine, although I actually preferred XP's version of Windows Explorer better, as the way to navigate through the various drives just seemed to be more intuitive.
Another good thing about W7 is that they've finally incorporated all the codex necessary to use Windows Media Player to play other types of files, such as Divx/Xvid w/AC3 audio and .mkv. Perhaps, it has something more to do with a newer version of WMP, but I've not taken notice of any WMP version changes. So, I've been able to watch my camcorder videos and other media files without having to download any additional codex.
Additionally, there are a few gadgets that they've added, like "sticky notes," which are like post it notes you can just stick on your screen. Even after restarts, the post its are still there. I've already used it and it does come it handy. Previously, I'd use the notepad, but this is much handier for quick notes. Also, there's a screen capturing utility that allows you to capture any part of the screen, at any time, so if you're viewing a Flash based website that doesn't allow right click/save for images, you can just use the "Snipping Tool."
Really, though, so far, for me, it's all about the speed. It's so nice to be able to just zip from one thing to the next. I'm using one of the earliest 1.8gz dual core processors, too, so it's not like my computer is a monster or anything. I think, even the most inexpensive computer (not netbook) will come with a processor at least as fast as mine, if not faster.
The only mistake I made was buying the wrong version! They allow students to choose between W7 Home Premium and Professional. I really should have gotten professional, because I was running Vista Business, and you cannot downgrade versions, so I had to do a fresh install. Really, though, that's probably for the better, anyway, as a fresh install always seems to be the cleanest way to put a new OS on a system. Plus, I didn't have too many programs installed and I keep 99.9% of my data on external drives, so getting back up and running was fast and painless. Professional might have come in handy, some time in the future (though, maybe not), because you can somehow, with an additional download, access something called "XP Mode," which allows you to run older programs that won't run on Vista or W7.
For me, this has been an absolutely worthwhile upgrade from Vista. BTW, Firefox works flawlessly with W7. I do, however, have the same camera incompatibility issue that I had with Vista, so I still have to use a SD card adapter to use my old Pentax Optio S4. Not sure why they couldn't fix that, but maybe, in the future, they will. I guess, Pentax should do something about that, but I think the camera is so old that they don't want to throw money into writing drivers for what many might consider to be an obsolete camera (it's only 4 megapixels, but it still tastes great photos.)
