If you ever needed more proof of how awful an operating system Vista was, this is it. The NPD group has just sent out a press release stating that the first few days of Windows 7 sales have been 234% higher than the first few days of Vista sales were. Revenue was also much improved. Total dollar sales are up 82% from Vista to Win 7. The reason for the disparity between sales growth and actual revenue growth is being attributed to the early discounts on pre-sales and Microsoft's failure to heavily promote the Ultimate edition of 7.

I've been using Windows 7 for the last two weeks and, I have to say, it's a solid OS. That said, I think these numbers owe more to the piss-poor nature of Windows Vista than they do to the strengths of Windows 7. I'm beginning to wonder if Microsoft's grand strategy might be to release awful operating systems in order to make their decent releases seem exceptional. But that's probably crazy-talk. Probably.

PC sales are also up as a result of the Win 7 launch. NPD recorded that total Windows PC sales are up 49%, year-over-year, and that sales jumped 95% in the week before launch. Interestingly, PC sales were actually slightly stronger during the Vista launch; 68% year-over-year and 170% in the week before launch. This can likely be attributed to the fact that the economy's taken several big swan dives into the asphalt since Vista's release.