Although my recent recitation of Vista system problems has not been altered (and I’ve also lost my ability to interact with my HP MediaSmart Server via the Windows Home Server Connector in the interim), I’m still going to try an upgrade install from Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate on my primary production machine. Everything I know about Windows says that if your registry has problems in the predecessor OS, those problems will be inherited in the successor OS after an upgrade. But I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway, in the expectation that I’ll have to wipe the system drive and do a clean install shortly thereafter. I’m not sure if simple curiosity, sheer cussedness, or outright perversity is driving this action, but I really want to try this and see what happens.

In the four or five months I’ve been working daily with Windows 7, I’ve been impressed by its great stability overall and its improved resilience in the face of problems, issues, and failures as compared to Windows Vista. That’s why I’m going to jump in and try the upgrade install — probably some time later today, in fact. I started downloading the Windows 7 .iso images for Professional and Ultimate x86 and x64 versions yesterday, and am nearing the half-way point on my download of the 32-bit Professional version as I write this, with both versions of Ultimate still ahead as I write this blog. Here’s a screencap from the Microsoft File Transfer Manager that reports on my progress so far:

At my present rate of download progress — which remains much slower than the 1 MBps rates I normally get from MSDN for downloads, even though MS has enlisted Akamai to help handle the severe spike in demand that posting Windows 7 RTM has caused — I will probably be able to conduct this experiment either this evening or some time tomorrow. Count on me to post my results, and share my observations as to issues and problems, as soon as I can. While you’re at it: wish me luck, too! I have a strong feeling I’m going to need it…

[important][Update at 3:22 PM: Finally got to the last item in the download list, and the one I need to update my production machine and transfer rates are an abysmal 20-26 KBps, with estimated transfer times between 27 and 31 hours. Looks like I won’t get to do this one until tomorrow, after all…][/important]