The new Windows 7 operating system won’t be released until Oct. 22, but already the system has received good marks from Ohio high school students, reports the Newark Advocate. "It’s essentially what Windows Vista was supposed to be," said senior Montie Mortine, 18, who is in the computer information systems program at the Career and Technology Education Centers of Licking County’s Satellite School. "It’s the little things that make an operating system useful." Students in instructor Ernie Drumm’s computer program, housed at Central Ohio Technical College, have been working with Windows 7 for almost the entire school year. "I was just amazed at how easy it was to use," he said. "Vista was a nightmare; it wouldn’t work on these laptops." Drumm was introduced to Windows 7 through the Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance, which allows academic organizations access to licensed software. The class’s reviews mostly focused on the ease of use and overall performance of Windows 7, which includes stellar backwards compatibility and more efficiency, students say. "It [works] better with fewer resources," Mortine said, comparing Windows 7 to Vista. "[And] I haven’t found a Windows XP application that doesn’t work on 7."