I have an old DELL notebook (Inspiron 6000 1.6GHz Centrino with 2GB RAM and an 80GB HD) that I had "upgraded" from XP Pro to Vista Business about a year ago.  Boy did I live to regret that....   Of course that same notebook is now happily running Win 7 Pro and just FLYING along!

FYI....I just changed all of my gaming rigs from XP Pro x64 (best most solid gaming OS evah!!!) to Win 7 Pro........thanks to my new favourite game "Shattered Horizon" (www.shatteredhorizon.com) a ZERO-G FPS requiring DX10 for its super awesome graphics!     So far, so good......even my gaming rigs aren't complaining about Win 7 so that says a lot!

the Monk

Windows 7 is too beautiful to me, I cant beleive this is my new operating system its like i bought a new computer all together! Every driver was found and there was no hassle with any of the xp programs I had.

My Windows 7 experience has come in the form of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220605&Tpk=g51j One expensive upgrade but oh so worth it.

Runs beautifully on my netbook.  Snappy and shiny.

Maybe next year i'll upgrade. I hear nothing but positive reviews about 7.

Have been runnin 64-bit win 7 for two weeks now coming from 32-bit vista. Not only it's more stable and faster it is more secure! I scan both of my adware programs every two days and ZERO malwares found most of the time. That was not the case with Vista. Good job microsoft, windows 7 is not just pretty it is fast, secure, and makes life easier!

I tried to upgrade from XP to Win 7 last weekend. Everything worked great, fast install, found drivers right off the bat. One major problem though, couldn't get my USB wireless network card to work. Looked up online, found out netgear hasn't release drivers and the Vista drivers don't work. Went out and bought a new linksys that I was told should work, installed and no luck. After some research found out this also doesn't work. I finally gave up and reinstalled XP.

So, anybody have any luck getting a USB wireless network card to work with the 64 bit version of Win7? I really want to upgrade but the wireless card is a necessity.

I am running Win 7 Home Premium x64 and my Netgear USB drivers were found/installed during the initial OS installation/setup... 2Wire 2701 HGV-W router.  I was connected to the net and downloading Windows Updates at first proper boot, so I'm not sure why yours would not have done so... a possible installation glitch, perhaps? 

I'm not that knowledgeable or experienced with wireless networking, but it may help to try again while connected by ethernet cable, so that Windows Update can search for and install the necessary drivers.  Just a thought!

The missus also upgraded to Win 7 x64 on a very similar machine and was connected straight away also... so I'm guessing mine was no fluke.

It's the same here.  LOVE Windows 7!  It's rock solid, stable, clean, polished and works right out of the box.  Windows 7 is awesome.  I hope we get a new version of the Boot software soon though.  I really like that program.  WB 7 and Skin Studio 7 work beautifully and I've had fun playing around with both of them.  Logon Studio works well too.  I'm glad I ordered Windows 7 while it was half price.  That was a great deal but I would gladly have paid full price for it.  It's truly worth it. 

I was connected by ethernet cable and it wasn't able to find drivers. I did some searching on the forums and others were having the same issue. Some people found some tricks to get it to work, but I was not successful. I see you listed your router, what netgear network card are you using? I'm more than willing to go purchase a new network card if I know for sure that it will work.

Mine/ours is the Netgear WG111v2 54mbs USB network card. However, just because it works on our setups, I can't guarantee that it'd work with yours.... different configurations, etc.

Like I said, ours were installed during the Win 7 setup, and Windows Update updated the drivers after the first proper boot, so I'm wondering if there's something else afoot with your setup.  I've heard that some mobo's and BIOS' have compatability issues with some third-party hardwares/peripherals (not correctly recognising them and etc), so that's a possibility?

I'm running an AMD Phenom II x4 920 on a Gigabyte GA-MA770 UD3 mobo with 8gb Corsair DDR2 800 RAM, if that's any help.  It may be useful to check your motherboard manufacturer's web site to see if there are any issues with your model and various network cards. Could be there's a BIOS update with a fix???

Sorry I can't be of more help and I hope you get it resolved soon.

The funny thing is that is the exact same network card I have. However, in my case Win 7 did not recognize it. I went to the Netgear site and they don't have drivers for it yet and don't have a date listed when they will have them available. I went through the forums and many others were having the same issue as me with this card. I know it's not my mobo because I've been using the same card with XP for a couple years now.

I am installing the 64 bit version of windows so that may be the difference between your setup and mine.

I have Win 7 Home Premium x64, so it's not that.  And if it's not your mobo/BIOS not recognising it, then I'm at a loss as to why yours is not being installed.

I double checked in Device Manager to see if mine was installed correctly, etc, and it is... see below for driver details, etc.

As you can see, my Netgear WG111v2 is installed correctly in Win 7 x64.  It may be the driver version that makes the difference, though the 6.1308. 1226. 2007 ones pictured above were updated/installed by Windows Update after first boot. So obviously my copy of Win 7 detected the card during setup.

This isn't usually within my field of knowledge, but it may be that you need to check the BIOS to ensure the card is still being detected there, and possibly perform a BIOS update if not.  Also, the USB port chosen, was it USB 1.1 or 2.0?   Just guessing here, but Win 7 may require higher (than XP) and may not have been able to detect it on a lower port speed?

The guy who would know best is yrag.  If he doesn't respond here, you might try sending him a PM... just find his nick next to a post he's done (Personal Computing is usually the best place to look) and click the PM option.

Anyway, I hope you get it sorted soon.... Win 7 is like heaven to use, compared to XP.