I don't always agree with Ed Bott, but I think he gives honest, no-holds barred technical assessments of new Windows releases, and what he has to say about Windows 7 so far lifts my heart.

The features he describes are less important to me (and to most corporate IT managers and CIOs) than the speed and stability with which they run. Both those qualities are evident in Ed's preview. The fact that 7 is already being touted for availability on no-frill, low-end netbooks speaks volumes about its modularity and performance. Tweaks to major support call generators like UAC and the always popular "How the hell do I connect to this wireless network thing?" will also be welcome in enterprise IT departments.

On the whole, everything I am hearing out of the pre-release reviews and from PDC sounds as if 7 will have been worth waiting for, if you are among those who are skipping Vista. This finally sounds like the operating system we deserved after XP.