Microsoft is, if anything, tenacious.

After nearly three years trying to get people to buy Vista, the company decided to put that operating system in its rearview mirror.

On Thursday, Microsoft will introduce Windows 7 to the general public.

I’ve been using various test versions of Windows 7 for nearly a year, and the final version since August. As I said in my review of the final version, Windows 7 is a worthy upgrade.

While the improvements over Vista and even Windows XP aren’t dramatic, they are significant.

Having said that, I don’t think everyone should upgrade existing machines, but those who are willing to spend the time and money for an upgrade will notice improvements.

Before you spend anywhere between $120 to $220 for a Windows 7 upgrade, think about instead buying it with a new PC. With prices at near-record lows, you may be better off replacing your PC (with Windows 7 installed) rather than upgrading.

For example, Dell’s $399 Inspiron 546 comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, along with a pretty fast processor, 3 gigabytes of memory and a 320 GB hard drive. Many Windows 7-equipped laptops will also be on the market for a low price. If you bought your machine recently, check with your PC maker or microsoft.com to see if you qualify for a free upgrade.

If you do buy an upgrade, I recommend the $120 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium version for most users. It has the

features most consumers and professionals will care about, including an easy-to-use home networking setup, an improved user interface and the ability to watch, pause, rewind and record TV programs on tuner-equipped PCs.My favorite feature is the new task bar that shows you thumbnails of windows of all running programs, making it easier to manage running several programs at a time. The $200 Professional edition adds company networking connectivit and the ability to back up to a home or business network. There is also a $220 Ultimate edition, but most home users and small businesses will do fine with Home Premium.

There is also the issue of whether to install the 32-bit or 64-bit version. In brief, the 64-bit version — in theory — is faster and allows you to address more memory, which can be great for people who play heavy duty games, edit video or run many programs at a time.

However, 64-bit software won’t work on older hardware, and there maybe some software and drivers that won’t work on a 64-bit system.

While we all will eventually use 64-bit software, the safest bet s to stick with a 32-bit Windows 7 OS for now.

The upgrade software will allow you to upgrade a Windows XP or a Windows Vista machine to Windows 7, but it won’t work with older operating systems such as Windows 98. If you upgrade from XP, you will have to do a “clean install,” which copies your old Windows installation to a backup directory on your hard drive and gives you an entirely new installation of Windows 7. Once that’s done you’ll have to reinstall your software.

If you’re upgrading from Vista Service Pack 2, you have the option to doing what Microsoft calls an “upgrade,” which keeps you existing software.

Personally, I think a clean install is a better choice because it gives you a brand-new installation with none of the problems that typically plague Windows machines after a few months of use.

Remember to always back up your data before installing any new operating system.

Get all of your installation CDs or DVDs handy, as you will need to reinstall your software. For free programs, like the Firefox browser, you can just download the latest version after you install Windows 7. Microsoft has a Web page (http://tinyurl.com/technetwindows7files) with instructions on how to migrate files and settings.

Allow plenty of time for the installation process — about one to two hours. Fortunately, once you start the process you can walk away. Laptop users should keep their laptop plugged into the wall during the install.

It’s fashionable these days to refer to Microsoft as a dinosaur whose products and thinking are stuck in the 20th century. The company that was convicted of being an illegal monopoly not all that long ago is today thought of as relatively tame. The momentum these days seems to be with Google, Apple and newcomers such as Facebook and Twitter. But the fact is, Microsoft continues to be a mighty force.

Indeed, based on what I saw at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad last week, there is still plenty of tread on Microsoft’s tires.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was one of the speaker’s at D, where he responded to questions from conference co-host and Wall Street Journal Personal Technology columnist Walt Mossberg. Although upbeat on Microsoft, Ballmer was not optimistic about a quick economic turnaround, saying “to think that things would be back in a year seems naive to me.” He went on to say that it could be a very long recovery and “maybe today is normal and yesterday was a blooper.”

He also said that Microsoft has flattened out its research and development spending. It’s not that it has stopped investing in new products; it’s just that it is no longer continuing to increase the level of spending at a steady rate.

Still, the company has been productive in recent months. For one thing, it’s only a few months away from releasing Windows 7, which Ballmer confirmed should be ready in time for the holidays.

I’ve been testing Windows 7 for months and, based on my experience, it’s the best and most stable operating system Microsoft has ever created. My PC that runs a Windows 7 “release candidate” still occasionally slows down and even crashes but far less often than with Vista or XP.

And the user interface — especially the ability to peer into the windows of running programs by clicking on their icon on the task bar — makes using Windows a lot easier.

But the big news at D was about search. Ballmer officially unveiled the company’s new search engine, which it is calling Bing. Bing.com will go live on June 3, but if you go to the site now, you’ll see a preview video. Before unveiling Bing, Ballmer showed a video about all the different brands that Microsoft has applied to its search efforts, including MSN Search and Live Search. Ballmer thinks that Bing is more likely to resonate with users. “Brand doesn’t substitute for innovation, but innovation doesn’t substitute for a brand consumers can get their mind around,” he said.

It would be a gross exaggeration to call Bing a Google killer, but that’s OK. Google doesn’t have to die for Microsoft to succeed in search. Besides, Ballmer made it very clear that he doesn’t expect Bing to overtake Google in the foreseeable future. Microsoft, if anything, is persistent. It took three tries before Microsoft Word was worthy of becoming the dominant word processing program, and it wasn’t until version 3.0 that Windows began to get serious traction.

To differentiate itself from Google, Bing is not only visually more attractive, it’s also more informative. Functioning as what Microsoft is calling a “decision engine,” rather than simply linking you to sites, Bing searches often end with information directly from Bing. For example, if you type in the name of a city you get local weather, hotel prices and other information without having to click anywhere. And, depending on the content licensing rules of sites that Bing draws from, it can sometimes display content directly — from Wikipedia for example — without the user having to click through. It even has a built-in shopping engine that, when you search for a product, shows you images, offerings from multiple merchants as well as product information, customer reviews and expert reviews.

The search engine also helps you find travel deals and lets you book travel without having to leave the site. I’m not sure how well it works, but it includes a “price predictor” that helps determine if the price of the ticket you’re thinking of buying is likely to go up or down.

Despite Google’s current dominance, search doesn’t have to be a winner-takes-all business. If Microsoft can increase its market share gradually over time, it stands to take in billions in additional revenue. In the meantime, Google isn’t standing still. Just as Ballmer was in Carlsbad talking about Microsoft’s foray into search, Google executives were in San Francisco talking about how they are beefing up their offerings, including some that will compete head-on with Microsoft’s core applications.

The economy may be in a recession, but tech isn’t in a slowdown. Thanks to startups and innovative thinking from big companies like Google and Microsoft, 2009 might be remembered as a banner year for innovation.

I don’t know why it took so long, but Microsoft has finally fixed Vista. Only it isn’t calling it Vista. Instead the company is working on what it’s calling a new version of Windows, Windows 7. The operating system isn’t commercially available, but is likely to be out by the end of the year.

I don’t know how much Microsoft plans to charge for the upgrade once it’s officially available, but the company should give it away free to anyone who bought Vista or a PC with Vista preinstalled. Even though there are some new features, Windows 7 strikes me mostly as a bug fix. It speeds up Windows and fixes one of its most annoying “features” and makes one particularly useful change to the user interface. It seems to me that anyone who paid for Vista is entitled to this upgrade.

Microsoft has launched a free, public, beta test of the software, but to participate you must download it by Feb. 10. It’s not for everyone. Microsoft strongly recommends that “only experienced computer users sign up” for the beta program. Displayed on the screen is the caveat, “For testing purposes only.” The beta will expire in August, but should be replaced by a newer beta or the real product. If you’re game, you can download the beta test of Windows 7 at Microsoft’s Web site › Continue reading…