I have the opportunity to buy a 2007 Canon Powershot G9 camera. My only hesitation it whether it would interface with my laptop which is on W7. At the time the camera was manufactured Vista was what was on new computers.
It doesn't need to. At worst you might have to buy a cheap USB card reader -- pop the card out of the camera and use it as you would any flash drive, access it with Windows Explorer and have your way with the files.
But chances are Windows will find the camera and treat it like an external drive without any intervention (it may or may not ID the camera, but that doesn't matter). In which case -- access it with Windows Explorer as you would any flash drive, and have your way with the files.
I have an old Canon ... G4? (it's packed right now so I can't look) and I didn't bother installing anything, just plugged it in, turned on the camera, and WinXP found its flash card like it was any external drive.
I have two other cameras, same deal -- a very old Fujifilm (rebadged Olympus from ca. 2003) and a newer but extremely primitive Kodak ($20 camera I got a couple years ago to haul around in the truck) ... I don't bother installing the software, just plug 'em in and let XP find 'em for itself. It occasionally has trouble with the Kodak, but that's because the camera is a piece of crap. Restart the camera a couple times and the problem goes away.
Windows later than XP should have better USB support than XP does, so.
In any event, be sure to use "Safely Remove Hardware" or whatever Win7 calls that function, so you don't corrupt the camera's memory card -- it's really just a flash drive that uses the camera as its case. (Unless turning the camera off causes Windows to automatically 'eject' it, as is the case with my Canon and Kodak, but not with the Fuji. But it never hurts to use "Safely Remove Hardware" regardless.)
I use ACDSee to do the file management, and various other software to edit them (mostly Corel PhotoPaint). The software that comes with the cameras is generally a lot more trouble and not as competent, or even downright braindead. ACDSee comes with a lot of cameras, actually.
Since Canons can do "Raw" format (no data compression, which makes for HUGE files), if you shoot in Raw, you'll need a Raw convertor, but there are some freebies floating around, and there's probably one on the Canon's disk, or can be got from Canon. However, there's no real reason to shoot in Raw unless you're doing
serious image editing and want to start with absolutely every pixel intact.
I'd go for it, if the price is reasonable. Canons have typically the best image sensors and overall feature set for the price.
Side note: Some motherboards are a bit stupid about using both front and back USB ports at the same time (one side or the other will play dead if you try to use both at once). My solution was to get a cheap wall-powered USB hub (so it's the only thing plugged into the computer's USB port), and plug everything into that instead. That also ensures that everything gets enough power from the port to work properly.
