I have moved 90% of my work into the Windows 7 environment and have been enjoying it qutie a bit.  The memory management is top notch thus far, which is important since Ableton 8.0.3 still has some bugs for me and does not like handling my low-fi audio samples (crash, crash, crash s’more).  The only time I need to boot into XP is when I need to adjust the programming of my Korg padKontrol.

Both Korg and M-Audio have not release appropriate drivers and software for Windows 7 support of the products I own.  The midisport 2×2 is absolutely useelss at this point, and I have re-routed my keyboard through my padKontrol.  The padKontrol works with the Vista 32-bit driver no sweat, but as mentioned before the Librarian software doesn’t work so you can’t program the unit from software.  It’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t often change my layout of the padKontrol so it doesn’t affect me too much at the moment.

I am most interested in the viability of a Windows 7 laptop as a performance machine.  I don’t have the money to pick up a laptop to play with yet, but thankfully my fiancee has an old laptop she has let me install Windows 7 on!  I configured the system and installed Reason 4. It chugs along like a champ even with multiple songs open and playing at the same time (using the demo songs that came in the library as my test subjects).  I’m going to hook up the padKontrol and work on some tunes soon to really give it a shot.

As a side note: The resolution of this laptop is 1280×768 or something but since Windows 7 won’t recognize the GPU or monitor and I can’t get the XP GeForce4 440 GO drivers to work, the max resolution is 1024×768 right now.  I’ve been greatly concerned about the usability of lower resolutions so this should answer my questions and dispel or reenforce any of my concerns for future laptop purchaes.

Windows 7 has proven to be more reliable, faster, and all around a positive experience for my audio production needs. I will be sure to post more updates as I continue producing under this OS.