Gather ‘round, don’t be shy. Let’s all take a look at Windows 7 booting up in about ten seconds. How is this possible? Well, turn Aero off, strip out all the bloatware, and make sure you’re using an ultra fast solid state drive. That, and trim the BIOS start time down to a little over one second.

If you’re thinking of upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 later this fall, set aside some time – especially if you’ve got a lower-end machine with a bunch of applications already installed and a hard drive full of files. One of Microsoft’s own engineers clocked in a 1220-minute upgrade time on just such a machine.

Hey, guys. If you haven’t downloaded the Windows 7 RC yet, you better do it soon. The free offer expires on August 20, 2009 – tomorrow. Sure, it’s not free forever as this release will turn off by itself every two hours starting March 1, 2010, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Vista. I have been running it as my main OS on two systems since it was released and it’s pretty much bulletproof.

Friends, you cannot go anywhere on the Internet without running into the OEM version of Windows 7. This is the same version of the operating system that’ll be loaded onto your Dells, your HPs, your Lenovos, etc.

Looks like Microsft may well have a hit on its hands in Windows 7. In just eight hours, Windows 7 pre-orders outpaced the total number of pre-orders for Vista on Amazon UK. Vista was available for pre-order for a full 17 weeks, so this is something of an accomplishment for Microsoft.

Microsoft has an interesting problem on the horizon in trying to persuade netbook owners to upgrade to Windows 7 when said netbook owners’ netbooks don’t have optical drives. What’s a giant software company to do?

Gather ’round the campfire, children, as we look at the Windows 7 boxes. There’s Home Premium… there’s Professional… and is that… yes! Yes, it’s Windows 7 Ultimate! Three cheers for life!

So there’s this leaked Best Buy memo that shows the store that I’ll never visit again selling Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrades for $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional Upgrades for $99.99. Does that mean that Microsoft will sell said Windows 7 upgrades for said prices across the boards? Eh, not really. I seem to recall Best Buy selling Vista upgrades for one price, then, when Vista actually comes out, it was going for a different price.

A leaked memo has outed June 26 as the starting date when Best Buy (and possibly other places, if this is a Microsoft-blessed program) will guarantee a free copy of Windows 7 at its launch if you buy a Vista-based system immediately. The memo itself is actually a bit catty, saying that Windows 7 isn’t just a “Vista that works” — cold as ice, Best Buy. But the point of that little crack is more that Best Buy employees should really be pushing this as a major update, to allay the fears of people who might be afraid 7 is just an updated Vista. Still, ouch.

A couple weeks ago we got an early demo of the Surface SP1 update, and saw that one of the goals of which was to improve Windows-Surface cross-compatibility and encourage developers to make their apps touch-compatible. Looks like that work goes both ways, as it appears that Surface content and functionality is going to be kicking it with Windows 7.

Check out the video inside. Everyone loves videos.

Last week, Acer let the cat out of the bag by revealing the expected launch date for Windows 7. There was no real reason to doubt it, but now we’re pretty much sure it’ll be October 23rd or thereabouts. A Microsoft press release has made it all very clear:

I’m down with Windows 7. I really am. It’s going to be a good, solid OS that will take us well into the next decade. Microsoft does this kind of thing every few years – they dump out a clinker (Windows ME) then amaze us all with something great (Windows XP). They’re not the richest company in the world because they’re dumb. They know what they’re doing.

The folks at DownloadSquad, however, note that XP mode isn’t just an admission of defeat by Microsoft. It is, instead, it is a way to allow folks to run POS systems on new hardware. Fair enough. But it is a cop out. It’s a cop out on the part of IT departments, just as it should be, in that it allows them to sit on tested – but old – software while updating their junky old hardware.

Windows 7 is a speedy little bastard, even on an Asus Eee PC 1000HA as this video shows. Spoiler: it’s quick but not OMG fast.