Current set up at home includes my main DELL XPS upstairs, with a previous computer downstairs, which I was battling with until now, will explain later, and the old faithful laptop!!!
Now to set the scene, on the main computer, my dell xps, I had several previous windows installations lying there, after various updates, basically cause each time I updated I always doubted I did not have everything to continue with the next installation. So basically yesterday I got my copy of windows 7 from MSDN with the intention of doing a clean and fresh install on the Dell. The current operating system on there was Windows Vista Ultimate, and as you may know, you have the facility with windows vista and future versions to create a complete computer backup, which actually creates a virtual hard disk for you, which I was very pleased about.
As sods law would have it, no more than 5 minutes after completing the FULL BACK UP the computer had a severe hardware failure, giving me the blue screen of death (which never gets easier to see) and shortly followed my me switching off the power. I am presuming that the hardware failure was the graphics card, as the view even to the bios was, well, SCREWED!! I was in two minds, one gutted that I am now temporarily without my main computer, the mother ship, but at the same time, relieved that I made that complete computer backup. Normally I simply back up what files and folders are of up most importance to me with the knowledge that the OS can simply be plugged back in , and ok the settings are lost, but I am not picky and I do not really configure the settings that much. Open the box, use, smile, that is currently my state of mind.
Ok, so I have the computer backup VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) on my external hard drive, a laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium, a goosed dell xps desktop and finally another desktop computer downstairs with a screwed up installation of LINUX, which only has a Boot loader in the form of GNU GRUB that loads every time during boot and totally blocks the ability to boot from CD. "BOOTMGR is missing!" is the message I got with it, and I did try, but I will point out, my knowledge of LINUX is severely limited due to the shear fact I DO NOT USE IT! I installed it in the past, specifically CENT OS, due to a continued interest in the pursuit of C++ as I wanted to apply the programming to both windows and Linux. I will feel like that again soon, but not yet. I have a few hard drives which are not being used, so to save headache, I removed the nice 350GB HD from the computer which had the goofed Linux installation and banged in a modest 35 GB one, and hey presto I could boot from CD again. Great back on track.
This is where the Windows 7 comes in as it is that which I booted the computer with. Upon completion of the installation it was straight to superuser.com to ask, I have this VHD, HOW DO I MOUNT IT?!?! No more than 5 minutes later I get this reply:
If you are running Windows 7 this can be done using Disk Management.
•Open Computer Management
•Select Disk Management
•Right Click on Disk Management
•Select Mount a VHD file
However if you are running anything below Windows 7 this is not supported.
http://superuser.com/questions/32913/how-to-mount-a-vhd-which-is-on-an-external-usb-hard-drive
Great stuff, so after a couple of attempts, I was able to attach the VHD and initialize the disk, and recover some files that were not under source control, BUT ARE NOW! 
So I have had to use a nice feature of Windows 7 which I like, is of great benefit, and also is extremely easy to use. It looks great, it seems to be much lighter on the memory than vista, and another first impression is that the task bar is the best laid out I have seen on a windows OS. On to the Windows 7 SDK!!
Windows 7 for me, is a real comfortable OS!!
cheers,
Andrew
P.S. It burns ISO Images to Disc natively!! - This was a last minute find before I published.