Microsoft’s CES keynote, the first given by Steve Ballmer instead of Bill Gates, announced an open beta version of the Windows 7 operating system, ready for download tomorrow.

I’m not a Microsoft fanboy, but I’m psyched about this.

First, because they’re giving us 24 hours heads-up. Might be a good idea to get that Windows 7 disc image downloaded onto the LAN and direct company geeks to download it from there, rather than having multiple connections to the Internet downloading the same large amounts of data at the same time.

Secondly, there’s a very real feeling that Windows 7, which builds on the Vista Kernel will be an evolution. It would be more like adjusting from Windows 95 to Windows 98 – which both used the DOS kernel. From XP to Vista was more akin to switching from Windows 98 to Windows XP, where you were going from a DOS kernel to an NT-based one.

When I was freelancing for HardOCP, I ended up panning Windows Vista; the dealmaker was that there were major problems with stability, with peripheral connectivity, and with performance. It was because of the stability problems that I deemed the OS “unfit for any user.” Of course, that was last April.

Since then, Vista’s stability problems have been mostly addressed, and the focus of Windows 7 seems to be taking the Vista OS and addressing performance and peripheral connectivity. It’s particularly telling that one of the things that Microsoft emphasizes in this version is hardware driver compatability. As Information Week pointed out:

The company is urging partners to begin work on Windows 7 product development as soon as possible to avoid the sort of compatibility problems that plagued the launch of Windows Vista in January 2007.

Another thing about last April is that in mid 2007, there was no compelling reason to upgrade from Windows XP. Everything you could do on Vista, you could do on XP, only faster and easier. However, with technology finally hitting the era where you can get a quad-core computer with over 4 GB of RAM for under $1000 U.S., suddenly 64-bit support becomes a killer app.

The problem, of course, was that Vista was pushed out as an incomplete product. Had the Vista of today come out a year ago, I think there would have been more of an adoption of it. For better or worse, Windows 7 is Vista, rebranded to avoid association with the “failure” of Vista in the marketplace.

While 2GB seems to be fine for most consumers right now, 4GB workstations will probably become the norm at the workplace, a 64-bit operating system with it, and consumer adoption will follow.

What is particularly compelling is that Vista – and presumably, Windows 7 – has that Compound TCP/IP stack that we’ve written about a couple of times before. The reason it didn’t make more news, perhaps, is because Vista and Windows Server 2008 adoption lagged in the marketplace; if Windows 7 should be a success where Vista hasn’t been, you’re likely to see more impact from Microsoft’s changes to the TCP/IP stack.