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I do mainly .NET work so I assume that the framework is all fine and that. But have there been reports of various tools like .NET Reflector and the like not working properly with Win 7? This is a company-wide thing so there isn't much I can do about it, but once everything is reinstalled I'm hoping to not find anything shocking.
Cheers.
I've been using Windows 7 since the beta - about two years, I guess. There are two separate issues here - will the apps you like to use still work for you, and will the apps you're writing work? For the first, by now the answer is generally yes, if you're on the latest version. For example, Visual Studio 2010 is UAC-aware and well-integrated with the Windows 7 taskbar. Visual Studio 2008, not so much.
For the apps you're writing, the stackoverflow Windows-7 and UAC tags are going to be your friend. Lots of people have been through this and there are lots of great answers waiting to be read.
I've been developing on Windows 7 for the better part of the year and haven't had any problems. You will need to reinstall your applications, since there is no graceful upgrade from XP to Win7, but your documents (from "My Documents") and such will be preserved.
If you're going from 32-bit to 64-bit at the same time, you might need to watch out for assembly versions. Some things (such as SQLite) have separate 32- and 64-bit builds. Other than that, it's business as usual.
Oh, one more thing: the C: drive is now more protected than it used to be. You can't freely write to Program Files and user permissions are more closely observed. If your application needs administrative rights, you will either need to ensure that it asks for them on startup or disable UAC on your machine for testing, depending on what target platforms you support. I also tend to keep my files and code off of C: just to further avoid potential permission issues.
For me IIS 5+ to IIS7 was a big jump. You might want to consider that. :)
My primary problem has been in upgrading to 64-bit Windows that it does not support the old Windows API's anymore, making some of our legacy software break.
The XP Mode available for download is nice, but does not run Java programs well on multi-monitor computers.
Except for that, Windows 7 has been a very pleasant experience.
Main issue we've encountered is that you can't run visual studio 2003.
This means a couple of our old legacy apps get debugged on an old XP machine.
There may be ways around this, like using an xp virtual machine, or windows 7 xp mode, but we've yet to need it enough to spend time sorting it out.
Three different places, three flavors of Windows 7. All web development.
Computer one was a Core i5 with 4 gigs ram, windows 7 professional. All work development was actually done in a virtual machine running VS2005 which was transfered over to the machine and added under XP mode. With the full screen display and ability to drag and drop across desktops it was actually very difficult to tell when you went from one OS to the other. No issues here.
Computer two was a 64bit version dual core machine with 7 professional. Ran on the bare metal with VS2008. Only issue I had in the beginning was running asp.net web applications off of IIS7 when the application was not in the WWWroot folder. This really just needs a little configuration on permissions. Everything else worked like a charm.
Last computer, 64bit AMD chip with 3gigs ram, 7 Enterprise. Again VS2008 and again just the issue with IIS7.
The second two computers all had a version of source control (SVN or SourceSafe), SQL Express and other utilities. (Downloaded most item with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer).
64bit/multi-core cpu's and lots of ram make a huge difference in feel. I down grade the UAC security of 7 so that it doesn't bug me about everything and the user has to be the admin of the machine (really no different from other OS's).
Good luck and hope this helps you some.
