Our colleagues studied the work of Thunderbolt in a system running Windows 7 as an example- PC motherboard MSI Z77A-GD80 .
In general, the new interface worked well, providing the ability to connect one cable from the monitor DisplayPort interface and an external drive with an Thunderbolt interface. As the last device were Pegasus R6, LaCie 2big and Little Big Disk SSD, Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter and Elgato Thunderbolt SSD). All of them except Pegasus R6 due to lack of drivers work properly.
Unfortunately, Windows does not detect the connected device to Thunderbolt port . All of them must be connected before turning on the PC and load the OS. Since Mac OS X do not have such problem, we can assume that the problem is software related. It is fair to say also that the PC with Mac OS X, too, may need to reboot if a chain of connected devices, while Apple is constantly improving the system behavior in this part.
The assumption that the problem concerns drivers was confirmed by Intel. The developer of Thunderbolt interface promised to release updated drivers for certified devices with Thunderbolt, which will provide the function of hot connection in the systems with Windows. Intel notes that the motherboard MSI Z77A-GD80 it not certified for compatibility with Thunderbolt.