What a difference a few years makes. When Windows Vista debuted in late 2006, I was full of questions: Windows Vista was a big, messy Windows release, delayed time and again, and suffering from too many features and too little cohesiveness. This time around, things are clearer. Windows 7 is less ambitious than its predecessor, but also a better product. It suffers from none of the aimless feature bloat that plagued Vista upon its release, and none of the aimless uncertainty that followed Vista's five-plus years of development. That the public reaction to Windows 7 has also been universally positive--another sharp contrast with Vista--is also gratifying. Windows 7 deserves the accolades, and it's one of the strongest entries in the Windows family of products ever.

And that makes reviewing Windows 7 difficult. This is a near perfect software release, that rarest of upgrades that improves on virtually everything about its predecessor while losing nothing of serious importance. Yes, there are nits. Sure, I'd have liked to have seen a few components of the OS turn out a bit differently. No software is truly perfect. But you don't have to qualify the successes of Windows 7 as you did with Windows Vista. Windows 7 is just excellent, with no caveats attached. And Windows 7 isn't excellent within the context of its reduced development cycle and the resultant reduced expectations. It's just excellent, plain and simple. No ifs, ands, or buts.