Resume from standby is noticeably faster in Windows 7, and general system usage is also a lot snappier than Vista on this underpowered device. It is now the official operating system on my netbook. I warned her that I'd been 'messing about' with the laptop - but she logged in, checked her mail (using the shortcut to the Windows Live Mail application in the fancy new taskbar) and did her online banking using IE8 (again from the pinned shortcut in the new taskbar). Then I was up and running, and ready for the ultimate test - leaving the laptop on the kitchen table for my wife to pick up and use. Note that after running the hack, I had to manually set the security permissions on the following files that the tool modifies to grant the 'Users' group read permissions - but this was just because of my hackery and because I want the device to support multiple users, not something that a normal user would have to do. I then ran the 'blue-badge' unlock hack from Rafael Rivera Jr because I wanted some of the shiny eye-candy showed off on stage at PDC2008 that is not active in the standard 6801 build. Everything on the device appears to be working, including bluetooth and the built in webcam. But once I had an internet connection, Windows Update found updated drivers for the graphics card, Wifi, Ethernet and even the SD card reader. To get them I first had to install the Realtek WiFi driver for Vista by changing the compatibility settings to trick the installer into thinking I was running Vista RTM. For a start stable drivers for the Wind were all available from Windows Update. Remembering the early days of the Vista beta program, I had to contrast this with the absolute delight that installing and running the PDC build (build 6801) of Windows 7 has been on this diminutive device. One of the many things I like about the Wind is that it is end-user upgradeable, but the only addition I have made was to upgrade it to 2Gb RAM as the stock Western Digital Scorpio 120GB hard drive is a pretty good one for a budget netbook. As part of the initial batch of Winds, mine happily has the Synaptics touchpad. The stock Wind runs a 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom processor on the Intel 945GSE chipset. That said, XP didn't last long on my Wind before Vista replaced it. I remember when I picked up my Wind from the local computer store the salesman tried to sell me on the fact that it came with XP rather than Vista which is not a good sign of Vista's reputation with consumers. When I purchased my MSI Wind (OEM rebadged as an Advent 4211 here in the UK) XP was pre-installed.

However, for those of us who remember the Vista beta program and even early days of running Windows Vista it wasn't always fun - largely due to the driver support but there were plenty of bugs to avoid even in the later betas.

Windows 7 build 6801