Windows 7

Recently Microsoft released the Beta version of Windows 7, the next Windows operating system. I got my hands on a copy of said operating system and last night installed it on one of my machines. The PC in question is one that I have recently built up to use for "playing" and studying for Microsoft certifications. It has 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 and GeForce 9500GT. I plan to run up numerous virtual machines on this PC as I study for the above mentions Microsoft certifications.

So, I installed Windows 7. The install was very smooth, there were no problems at all. It looks pretty much the same as the install process for Windows Vista. Afterwards, I was left with some unknown devices, but I was able to quickly and easily install the drivers for these devices from the disk that came with my motherboard. Boot time is very quick.... a lot quicker that Vista on the same PC.

I have only used it briefly as yet, but I must say that it ran flawlessly (this may have to do with the amount of RAM and the speed of my CPU). I had a bit of a look around and the interface and all the settings are very similar to what was in Windows Vista. The taskbar is different and there are icons for Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Media Player that are like the "Quick Launch" toolbar in previous versions of Windows. However, when you open one of these programs, the icon also doubles as the taskbar button for that application, so when you click on it again you get your already opened window. Other applications that are opened get similar looking icons in the taskbar, which then makes it look like there are more icons in your quick launch. If you have an application open, the icon in the taskbar gets a box outlines around it that seems to indicate that the program is running, and when you hover the mouse over the icon, a preview window pops up with an image of what is in the application currently. It is a bit hard to explain, but I will post up some screen shots for those who are interested sometime in the next week when I get more time to explore.

Another thing I have noticed is the absence of the Windows Sidebar that was introduced in Vista. Instead, you can still have your "gadgets", like the clock, CPU meter, Slide show etc, straight on the desktop, and not in the Sidebar.

Internet Explorer 8 is also included in Windows 7. I used it a bit last night and it has some new "interesting" features that I have yet to completely use and understand. Being a Firefox user, I'm sure that it will take a lot of convincing for me to go back to using IE. Also included is Media Player 12. This look rather different, and I don't really like the new look/design of it, so I hope it is a work in progress that will be changed shortly.

Now I know that this is beta software, and there is likely to be bit and pieces that don't function or are missing all together, but still I'm impressed with what I see. I will continue to use Windows 7 and see what I think as I get used to it more. So far I'm liking what I see. I just hope that Microsoft don't screw it up between now and the release to market which is supposedly sometime next year.