I'm using my blog, rather than the Prestwood knowledge base, because any information that follows may be inaccurate, there may be better ways to accomplish some of the things that I do, and everything is probably subject to updates.

Right from the start, I want to point out a major improvement in Win7, the installation experience.

For years, Mac users have rightly pointed out the simplicity of installing and configuring a Mac operating system compared to doing the same for Windows. And they were right.  With Win7, though, it appears that Microsoft has eliminated that Mac advantage.

If Win7 setup could be any easier, I don't know how, unless it could read your mind.  You start the setup, answer a few questions (darned few) and, when setup is finished, your machine is up and running.

In my case, setup even detected my hardware gateway/router/switch and added a link to that device's web-hosted administration panel.  I'm impressed.

Even this early into configuring the new machine, I'm ready to go out on a limb and say that Win7 is the OS that Vista should have been - a worthy successor to Windows XP.

Before I go farther, I should give you some specifics about this new machine. It has:

• 64-bit, 2.8Ghz, quad-core Pentium processor on an Intel DP45SG motherboard.
• 8 Gigabytes of RAM
• Two, Western Digital one-terabyte SATA hard drives, configured as a RAID Level I array (mirrored).
• Two LG DVD/CD readers/burners
• A video card with Nvidia chipset that supports two monitors.
• An Antec Sonata case and power supply (500 watts).  Love this case.
• The motherboard has it all: Gobs of USB ports, E-SATA port, Firewire port, serious-looking sound support, gigabit Ethernet, and probably some other goodies I've yet to discover.
• Front-accessible universal card reader wtih USB port.
• 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate. 

Attached are two wide-screen monitors.  One is a Samsung Synchmaster 2233 (22-inch, 1920 x 1080) flat panel.  The other is an Acer AL2216W (22-inch 1680 x 1050). The monitors are configured to extend my desktop across both.

Sound is delivered through a pair of Bose "MediaMate" speakers.  I found these a couple years ago at Sam's Club for about $60, and I love them.  They don't have (or need) a big subwoofer and, to my ear, they sound great.  They are so good that, when attached to my XP machine, I actually used them as near-field monitors for audio mixing.

You might wonder why, when I have a perfectly good development machine at Prestwood, I'd want such a "hot rod" machine for my home office.  The answer is pretty simple: I do software development, developers are notorious hardware geeks, and I sometimes work from home. But there's more to it: I also do a lot of digital image work, plus sound recording and editing.

There's an old saying, "The computer you want is always $5,000." It seems to hold, but I don't spend that kind of money on personal machines.  This one came to a hair under $1,500 (sans monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers).

The next few blog topics will continue my adventures with this personal Win7 machine.