Do you see windows7 as an improvement over vista and xp

Compared to XP:
7 is just as fast if not faster.
It's also a huge upgrade in the user interface and experience department.

Out of the box support for devices is also vastly superior.
I'd like to see you install XP and immediately after, open world of warcraft.
You can't. You must first install motherboard chipset drivers, Graphics card drivers, and most likely sound and wireless drivers as well.

Both:
The underlying core of the OS being coded for better multi-cpu awareness provides speed improvements to multitasking or multi-threaded applications.

The new taskbar is awesome.

Vista:
Tweaks have been made to the user interface to make those hard to find options; easier to get to.

Better device support.

The aero desktop effect is much less likely to disable itself at any given time.
This is most apparent when playing a video game.
This greatly improves UI consistency going from task to task.

Due to the improved aero code, Multi-Media-Tasking also has much better support.
On vista; Play a video on your second monitor, then load a game on the main. Aero is kicked down to basic, screwing up the playback of the video on your second screen. It's not very pretty and is the main cause of me not using vista.

Vista is still slow.
The service packs did fix a some bugs, but when it came to speed, they were more a placebo then an improvement.
7 is FAST FAST FAST FAST FAST FAST FAST.

General perception.
Vista was viewed as bloated, slow, incompatible, headache inducing piece of garbage. And still is today.
When 7 reached public beta, It was already viewed as being worlds better in every department. The public perception on 7 is highly favorable.

5 "No" votes?

Who does that?

Over Vista? Absolutely. Over XP? Eh, it's a wash. There are things that I really like about NT6.1 (the new task bar) and things that I can't stand (like the removal of the advanced search builder).

Lol. For me it performs no better than Vista SP2 - in fact 7 boots slower.

For others - especially those with yer average laptop - I expect 7 will perform better - that is what it was built for.

They will now be able to able to experience all the great things about Vista - which previously required a certain level of competence from the hardware and the user.

That has to be a good thing.

I voted no also. I do like Windows 7 don't get me wrong, but it's not a huge improvement over Vista. Basically it's just tweaks and such.

I'm disappointed that the OS is just as bloated as Vista. I realise hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, but the size difference between Vista/7 versus XP is huge. Whatever happened to lean and mean....