Congratulations, Microsoft: Windows 7 is officially on the street. Now comes the hard part: ensuring that the product is the sort of substantial hit that Redmond needs in order to reverse 2009's declining revenue trend, as well as prove to both the tech sector and the public at large that the era of the desktop operating system has not yet passed.

That might be a tall order, but Microsoft took steps during the Windows 7 development process to ensure that the platform wouldn't be Vista, Part 2.

Early signs seem to indicate that they've succeeded in creating something that people find usable, not to mention aesthetically pleasing. Reviews of the operating system have been generally respectful. For what it's worth, Microsoft also conducted its own internal survey of "thousands of people" involved in the Windows 7 beta process. Of those surveyed, they said during a pre-brief before the Microsoft launch, 90 percent of those who tested the operating system thought the system was "good or very good," and 80 percent of "people self-identifying as Mac users" said they would recommend the system.

Some 8 million people participated in the Windows 7 beta process.

Although Microsoft eventually repaired many of Vista's issues with Service Packs, the stigma attached to the release version of the program refused to shake. Criticism focused on higher hardware requirements (and sizable processor requirements), cost, digital-rights management restrictions, and a User Account Control system that peppered constant prompts at the user. During the three years since Vista's 2007 launch, these perceived problems allowed Apple to gain market share, and led companies such as Google to try their own experiments with operating systems.

In an early-morning discussion before the Windows 7 launch, Mark Relph, senior director of the Windows Ecosystem Team, walked media through Microsoft's attempts to create a tight feedback loop during the development process between beta testers, partners and engineers.

"Planning took on a different priority," Relph said, suggesting that feedback between testing groups, engineers and others all provided the data over what would be included--and what wouldn't--in Windows 7. "Any discussions between feature groups and the product team had a better baseline: 'Let's look at what's really going on with our customers.'"

One of the themes that Microsoft is attempting to push during this launch is "simplicity," again an attempt to cut a traditional criticism against Windows as bulky and un-user-friendly off at the proverbial pass. Certain aspects of Windows 7, such as HomeGroup (which allows users to share music, pictures and other data within a network of home computers) and wireless networking and connecting devices, ended up designed to "address pain points of the user" by streamlining the functionality.

"You don't want to be an IT pro at home," Relph said.

To that end, Microsoft asserts that the support experience for Windows 7 will be better than with Vista."

As customers--and we hope people do--opt into the telemetry, if people do have troubles, we'll be able to aggregate those out," Relph said. "We continue to share [that learning] with our partners." Microsoft will theoretically be able to isolate whether hardware or software is the root cause of the issue; tools such as Compatibility Center will be available to partners in addition to Microsoft's own support people.

With regard to compatibility, "the great answer with Windows 7 is that the vast majority of software and hardware built for Vista and even older works great, and partners have gone above and beyond to have their devices supported."

Through the lifecycle of Windows 7, "the same feedback loop from the beta, and the same outreach times will be there," Relph suggested. "Our partners are going to take Windows 7 and innovate on it."

Partners factored big into the creation of Windows 7.

Throughout the development process, Microsoft relied on telemetry in order to collect everything from driver install data to crash data, with some 40,000 hours of user usage time eventually logged and made available to engineers and others for analysis. "That allowed us to get a detailed sense of how people were using the product," Relph said. That feedback from the programs "allowed us to get the message out to partners, where partners should be focusing their time."

According to Relph, Microsoft made an attempt to listen to partners, and then used that data to work on aspects such as speed and performance improvements. That listening also helped with ensuring that Windows 7 would be compatible with a wider ecosystem of products than Windows Vista: "We have more products ready for 7 than we do with previous OS releases."

Now that Windows 7 is in the wild, the time has come to see whether users will find the operating system as compatible, and as simple to use, as Microsoft hopes.