My 1st attempt at 7. About 20 mins for me too. No problems experienced at all. I was surprised about that considering the newest component on my system is 3 years old (a memory stick). Board, graphics, sound and processor are all 2004 vintage, but working strong. Only issue is I cant get any sound.
I never bothered with Vista, choosing to stay with XP. Im almost certain that the same will happen with 7.
The taskbar does not seem as useful and it soon gets clogged up and confusing.

I installed it on a separate partition so I still have my good old XP in tact.

My first try at installing failed as 7 RC said it could not read hard drive configuration. I temporarily disconnected an IDE drive I have which contains my music and it installed in about 20 min.

Reconnecting the drive caused no problems, and I had all my apps installed within 3 hours.

So far everything seems to be working.

Downloaded and installed yesterday on top of Beta. No problems just needed to connect to internet using ethernet cable to download driver for my old wireless card.

Slight cosmetic changes to start-up screen and desktop options but no obvious problems. Action Center reporting issue with latest AVG 8.5 Free apparently but AVG running fine. Looks like an interface problem between the two.

I am using our 26 inch widescreen TV as a monitor and some windows seem too long meaning buttons are not visible at the bottom of the window.

Resolved previous problem with Nero Essentials and Lightscribe on Beta version by installing LightScribe System Software so Nero now recognises LightScribe device.

One outstanding problem is that I cannot get networked HP All-in-One software and drivers to recognise device and allow scanning (using Vista version). Windows 7 installed printer drivers without problem and without needing HP driver software.

"was it smoother than a smooth thing in a smooth shop"

errr a what?

..

Yes it installed fine on my MacBook.