Windows 7 and Your Practice Hot
The biggest benefits have come from improved handling of drivers and increased memory and system tray resources management. For example, for this PC my peripherals include a Logitech Webcam 9000, an Epson V100 Photo scanner and an HP DeskJet printer.
All were discovered and accepted the driver software I already had downloaded during the XP Pro days (which were all XP/Vista drivers). The overall system performance and any resources tied up with pre-loaded background applications (the lower right hand system tray) are managed much more efficiently. I even find the response of opening, closing and minimizing/maximizing applications is snappier.
I was even able to load my favorite utilities such as Dropbox, Evernote, RoboForm and Skype. The only issue I have had to date is my existing PC anti-virus suite did not fully support (in August 2009) Windows 7 (CA Security). I opted to load Panda Anti-Virus Pro and have since purchased it.
For those of you leveraging common web-based tools in our industry there are really no major surprises. Some of the tools I use that have worked as expected without issues (using Internet Explorer 8, which is native to Windows 7):
- Albridge Wealth Reporting
- DST Vision
- eMoney Advisor
- Forefield
- Money Guide Pro
- Morningstar Advisor Workstation, enterprise edition (Internet Explorer 8 in Compatibility Mode – a 1-click setting)
- Paper Clip Imaging
- Redtail CRM & Imaging
- Smart Office by EZ Data – being very progressive, already supporting IE 8 and in beta on Windows 7
- I have not yet tried to load Laser App on Windows 7 – but as it supported Windows Vista - it should work
(Windows 7 is in short - a massive service pack to Vista - with a lot of the same underlying structure. Thus if something worked without an issue on Vista - it should in theory work with little or no disruption in Windows 7.)
If you run into an issue with Internet Explorer 8 with a site (i.e. perhaps a custodian or other web-based application) - try using the Compatibility Mode before becoming overly concerned. This shifts the browsers settings back into Internet Explorer 7 mode - which most every online presence has supported for some time.