Microsoft showed an early preview release (think “pre-beat”) of Windows 7 last week.

It is looking more and more like this is really going to be the Vista that should have been shipped – cleaner, faster, smaller, and requires much less hardware to make it run.

Now, if true to Microsoft (or, as us nerd-types think of them, M$) and how they usually handle their operating systems, this will change. By the time it ships it will be bigger, bloated, more expensive, and way,way later than originally planned. But I hate to be cynical…

And I am one of those folks who uses Vista and I like it just fine – but it is a hog. I am able to give it the horsepower it needs, plus I use the 64-bit version, which uses the hardware in the most efficient manner. But there are plenty of compatibility issues with the 64-bit version, so you need a willingness to put up with that, which not everyone has.

And all that being said we are placing very little of Vista – either 32-bit or 64-bit – with our customers, due mostly to compatibility issues. If we’re able to just wait until windows 7, we likely will. Lots of corporate IT types are thinking that way right now, too.

Here are some previews of Windows 7:

PC World

eWeek

InformationWeek