Right now, I’m running Windows 7 RC (release candidate) on my desktop, in a virtual PC (I use VirtualBox). Away from my day job I’m the sort-of tech support for several old, el cheapo PC’s for assorted family and friends. I’ve built most of the PC’s by cannibalising even older ones. All run Windows XP, I didn’t want anything to do with Vista. Recently one was replaced and the new machine (wish it were mine) came with Vista, which forced the issue on me. So I set up Win 7, and I’m quite impressed. No crashes so far, and all my hardware worked without needing to hunt down drivers. Under VirtualBox you can’t run the full Aero interface, but the look and feel is still there.
Two of the PC’s I care for aren’t up to running 7, so they’ll stay with XP. Whether the others change depends largely on price, and whether Microsoft brings the family pack to Australia at a reasonable price and with good availability. But there is no doubt I’ll swap most of the PC’s to Windows 7 eventually. I predict what I’ll end up supporting is a few old PC’s running XP until they get upgraded, and the remainder with assorted varieties of 7, and I’ll put Ubuntu on my desktop and run XP under VirtualBox. The latest Ubuntu is looking just as impressive as 7, so unless you are running software which only runs under Windows, it too is worth thinking about.
And if you do trial Ubuntu under VirtualBox, don’t set the video RAM to the 128 mb maximum, the login screen gets garbled. Once you log in all is well, but it’s interesting trying to log in without anything intelligible on screen. Set video RAM to 64 and all is well.
