7 days ago I decided to install Windows 7, (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) the next release of a Microsoft Windows operating system. My co-author had told me he was blogging around one day and heard that the new OS was a 25 minute install. I scoffed at him because I have never met a Windows OS install that was under 45 minutes and I’m just talking about the bare bones install. My first suprise was that Microsoft made it “Easy as Dell” to download the ISO from their servers and freely gave me a product code. I burned the ISO to a DVD, popped it into a blank hard drive that I had for my Lenovo ThinkPad T61 and about 27 minutes later my base install was done. Wait, did I really just write that I had installed the latest, post VISTA OS onto a laptop in under 30 minutes? Why yes I did!!! When my T61 booted Windows 7 for the first time I was impressed from the start. The graphic display, boot time and overall ambiance was very nice, smooth and best of all, speedy. The boot time was about 40 seconds. The first thing I did was go to the Device Manager page to see what drivers the OS had not detected. This my friends was quite possibly the greatest part of the entire install; Windows 7 had installed every single driver and they ALL functioned PERFECTLY. My Wireless N driver, display, sound, WAN card, USB; I mean everything folks had been detected and installed. For the first time in my computing history, I had nothing to bitch about when installing a Microsoft operating system. I did a shut down and reboot just to see if I was dreaming but when my T61 loaded like a champ for the second time in a row I was just in awe.

Could this have really just happened? Did I just have a quick and flawless install of a post Vista Windows operating system? Could it really be this simple? What’s the catch? Will any of my software work on this thing? Will my computer spontaneously combust upon the third reboot? Tune in Monday for the second installment of My Wonderful Windows 7 Experience…Really?!?