Since it's release Windows 7 has gotten off to a great start for Microsoft, surpassing even their expectations for the Operating System. After just three months on the shelves it had already sold more than 60 million copies and gained more than 10 percent market share.

What's also interesting though is that according to Steam, gamers are buying into the 64-bit versions of Windows 7 more than they are for the 32-bit version. Every month Steam conducts a hardware survey to help developers learn what kinds of systems people have, which can help them to fine tune their products for the types of hardware people tend to use.

This month it has emerged that just over 19 percent of Steam users are running Windows 7 64-bit, compared to 9 percent for the 32-bit version. Overall though Windows 7 lags behind Windows XP by quite a margin. With the now ancient OS still taking up over 40 percent of the user base. Despite this Windows 7 is chipping away at the pie, as it's the only Windows version to see growth, all others are slowly ebbing away as the adoption rate to Windows 7 increases.

Other noteworthy stats suggest that:

• 65 percent of Steam use Nvidia graphics cards, 29 percent run ATI hardware.
• 59 percent have dual core systems and 23.9 percent run quad core systems. This quad core figure is up 15 percent in the last 18 months.
• 69 percent use Intel processors.
• 76 percent have a DirectX 10 capable graphics card. Of all the DX10 capable systems, 48.94 percent are running either Vista or Windows 7. Officially, Windows XP does not support DX10.
• Surprisingly 1280 x 1024 is the most popular display resolution with 19.9 percent of gamers using this resolution. This is very closely followed by 1600 x 1200 which accounts for 19.19 percent of users.
• 30 percent use 2GB of system memory, followed by 3GB which makes up 29 percent of the total.
• The average Steam user is only connected to the net with a 2Mb connection (34.37 percent).

Infinity Ward have announced through ShackNews the system specs you will need in order to play Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 2 on Windows XP, Vista and the recently released Windows 7.  Most systems today should be able to handle the specs as the system requirements are very low indeed compared to what many people have running in their boxes these days. If you want all the bells and whistles turned on you will obviously require more modern hardware, say from the last 12-18 months or so, but anyway here are the minimum system requirements needed.

• Processor: Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.2GHz or AMD 64 3200+ or better
• Video Card: Shader Model 3.0 compatible, with 256MB RAM - GeForce 6600GT or ATI Radeon 1600XT or better
• RAM: 1GB
• Directx: 9.0c
• Hard Drive Space: 12GB free
• OS: Windows XP, Vista or 7 only - all previous versions of windows are unsupported
• Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
• Internet: required for activation and broadband is required for Multiplayer

However Activision have angered a lot of fans as MW2 will not have any dedicated servers, community mods or LAN matches. Those looking to spend hours fighting online with their favourite servers and mods applied will have to look to another game as MW2 will on PC will be making use of a matchmaking service that's to replace dedicated game servers. The system is called IWNet and will run alongside Steam which is needed to run the Valve Anti-Cheat system (VAC) that will be used in Multiplayer mode for the game.

Modern Warfare 2 Wallpaper - see Infinity Ward for larger images