Running Windows 7 RTM on my LG R200 laptop. Pretty impressed!
There're a bunch of new little UI features that I really like. For example:
- A customizable system tray. No longer do you have to see a ton of icons along the bottom, and no longer will Windows hide the little icons that you want to see. You can choose what shows up, and what remains hidden (until you click the arrow next to the systray).
- The Start button search searches everything. Not just Control Panel items, for example, but every little Task found inside the Control Panel. A search for 'password' shows me where to change my Windows password, my screen saver password, network passwords, whether or not the computer needs a password when it wakes from sleep... It's the Vista search I love... on steroids.
- It feels noticably faster. Firefox loads almost instantly, where on Vista, it still took a few seconds to load.
- Also... Native wallpaper slideshows. Yeah, you could do this earlier with third-party programs, and other operating systems could do this natively before... Well, whatever the case, I don't have to pick one single wallpaper to stare at all the time anymore. Woohoo!
There's a few little nitpicky things I've noticed, though:
- The battery indicator seems to think my battery can hold ten times the charge it actually does... and so a big, flashing, distracting icon in the taskbar tells me that there's something wrong with my battery (since it can only charge to 10% of its capacity) and there's no apparent way to disable it or at least get it to stop flashing (short of tossing it in with the hidden taskbar items). Huh... Chalk it up to a bug, but it's still annoying.
- The new taskbar. It's a cool idea, but it either needs more customization, or I just need to get used to it more. I hated grouped taskbar items in XP and Vista, and Windows 7's taskbar is all about grouped items. The only way to (currently) ungroup similar items, is to go back to the old taskbar. C'est la vie.
- Seems like Windows 7 takes a minute or two to connect to my wireless router on startup, so programs I've got set to connect to something as soon as the system turns on complain that they can't connect. It's more of a minor annoyance than anything else.
Still, despite the little nitpicks, I'm really liking the new system. I'm sure there'll be updates issued to address the bugs and nitpicks, and improve everything I like even more. If you can upgrade, do it.
Okay, there's one thing I was never able to test before that I've fallen in love with: HomeGroups. Think File and Printer Sharing made almost too easy.
Create a Homegroup on one computer. It'll give you a password. Join that Homegroup on the other computer, typing in the password it gives you. Suddenly, both computers are sharing music, movies, documents, pictures, and printers with each other. (You can set each computer to share only certain things, too, like if you've got sensitive documents you don't want your kids to see. I'm sure there's other practical uses, too -- with Parental Controls, I'd assume you could keep an eye on what kind of music your kids are listening to, and make sure they're not collecting any racy pictures...)
Now, there's no more dealing with workgroups, network discovery, password protected sharing, network permissions, or any of that finicky stuff. Set up a homegroup, tell your computers what you want to share, and that's all there is to it.
Wow.
"The only dumb question is the question that never gets asked" 
The RTM (Release to Manufacturing) is the nearly finalized version of Windows 7 that Microsoft sends to computer manufacturers so that they can make any customizations to the OS they want. Prior to the RTM, Microsoft released a Windows 7 Beta and Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) to the public to try out. By having users test the OS, Microsoft gathers data and becomes aware of bugs that need to be worked out before Windows 7 is released as a final version to consumers.
The RTM isn't for the public so you will not be able to get your hands on it. Plus you are better off getting a finished, polished OS that is the Windows 7 you will see in stores on Oct. 22.
Thanks for asking-
