Users of Microsoft's Windows 7 are generally "very satisfied" with the new operating system.

A report from Forrester Research said that most of the great unwashed know the product is there if they want it. Writing in its blog Forrester said a "strong majority" of US consumers knew about Windows 7 by the end of 2009. Microsoft released the operating system in October to favourable reviews and while punters still love Windows XP, Forrester said, particularly for their notebooks.

However what Forrester has noticed is that people have been buying the Operating system without splashing out on new PC. Forty-three percent of Windows 7 early adopters bought an upgrade, according to Forrester. Another 45 percent got it on a new computer. It was the first time that upgrade purchasing matched replacement-cycle purchasing among OS owners, the firm said.

This is because Windows 7 was a thinner client program than was Windows Vista, meaning that it works well on older hardware configurations.
In the past, OSes were designed with Moore's Law as an underlying assumption – that is, that newer PC hardware would be significantly faster and more powerful than the previous generation's hardware.