Microsoft Windows 7 x64

Today I was brought a gift from a friend of mine, that works at a big name in PC manufacturers (The name of the company has been kept private).
He presented me with an OEM copy of Microsoft Windows 7 x64 sealed and untouched.

I decided to install the new OS on my Alienware Area-51 m9750 laptop.
My laptop has a pretty good spec, featuring an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 CPU @ 2.00ghz, 4gb Kingston HyperX DDR2 RAM, Nvidia 8700M GT graphics and a Seagate 320gb  7200rpm hard drive to boot.

The installation of the OS was very fast. From format to desktop using only the supplied OEM disk, the system was up with about 30min.
In regards to drivers for my hardware, the only real device not detected by Windows 7 was my Bison integrated webcam. However the drivers for all my hardware where readily available from the manufacturers website for each of the components as required.
It looks like most manufacturers are getting prepped for Windows 7. Keeping in mind, that I have just installed the 64bit version of the OS, in comparison with Vista x64, finding drivers was no work at all..

Windows 7 once up, quickly found my Canon IP3000 printer and got connected to my wireless without any real help from me. The only thing I had to do was supply the password for my WiFi.

The boot time for the new OS from cold on my system is about 20 seconds without any additions from the clean installation. So to test the new system, the first thing I added once I made sure everything was OK, was anti virus.
For Windows 7, I chose to use Kaspersky 2010 Internet Security. The installation was a breeze, no errors, no messing, just in an done. The whole process seemed to take all of about 2 minutes to complete.
Once installed I rebooted the system and retested the boot speed. I was happy to find that the boot time remained unchanged and Windows was active and ready in no time at all.

More to come once I have time to fully play with the system.