[DUG] D2009 + Windows 7: awesome!

[Trevor]

Hi all,
  I may be preaching to the choir here, but hey....

  I've been given a new project which is essentially an update of something
that I originally wrote with the field test version of Delphi 1.

  This time, we're going to be using decent machines and a decent
environment.  I had requested an upgrade to D2009 before starting, but was
told that I had to do a reasonable evaluation before the company would spend
the money.  I've started doing that.

  My first step was to install an evaluation version of D2009 (from a
suspiciously flowery USB stick) into a pre-built XP VM that I had handy.  It
didn't work.  

  D2009 wanted MDAC2.8 service pack 1 which I downloaded from MS.  The MDAC
installer just told me that "this software does not work on the this OS".  I
wonder which OS MDAC is supposed to work on.  VMS maybe?

  I changed tack, and did a bit of sweet-talking to the infra-structure
guys.  They gave me a Windows 7 RC1 iso to use for building my VM.  That
went swimmingly well.  The 7 VM was even able to get internet access from
within our horrendously locked down corporate network.

  Next, I tried the D2009 installer on this VM.  It wanted a license key.
Using my host machine, I tried to get one from the Embarcadero web site.  No
luck.  I tried several browsers (opera, IE6 etc) but none worked.

  Back within the Windows 7 VM, I tried using IE8 to get a key from
Embarcadero.  Success!  D2009 installed and now runs.

  So now I am astonished.  My Windows 7 VM lives on a 1TB USB drive plugged
into the host machine.  D2009 is installed in that VM.  I cannot believe how
fast it all is.

  Starting D2006 in my host (XP) machine takes about 2 minutes.  Starting my
Windows 7 VM, then starting D2009 in the VM takes about 30 seconds all up.

  I'll do some more evaluation, but so far I am extremely impressed with the
improvements that both MS have achieved with 7, and Embarcadero (CodeGear)
have achieved with D2009.  I'm still flabbergasted that the VM is soooo much
faster than the host, especially since the VM is actually running on the
host.

Trevor