Thread: Windows 7 Beta

One of my colleagues uses it. Looks pretty clean, with some nice UI ideas. Have only looked at it for two minutes, though.

Originally Posted by sean

I've been told by several insiders that since I loved XP and hated Vista - that I shouldn't wait to get my hands on Windows 7. I tried to download it, but it seems that you have to have IE for the download to work. (Now is this the same version of IE that MS was advising people not to use until later this month?)

Anyway - I can probably get it done on my work machine later, but for the time being - who's tried it? What are your thoughts?

Nah, you can use any browser I reckon--certainly works on Firefox--as long as it supports Java.

I am very pleased with Win7 so far. Huge improvement from Vista performance-wise.
Love the new taskbar - the ability to pin applications most of all perhaps.
It can launch a number of programs simultaneously very quickly.
On the other hand, Microsoft seemed to break some things. The ability to send error reports at a later date instead of directly (I always hate how long it takes, so I typically check for errors later). They also buried it deep, hidden, hard to find. The resource monitor was revamped, but still displays bytes per minute, which is practically useless to me.
The new notification feature is nice - being able to hide icons you don't need/use. Plus being able to shut them up.
Love the aero snap feature (I think it's called that?).
Love the new energy tool that finds what bottlenecks are in your computer that sucks power.

Perhaps there is more, but that is all I can think of so far. All in all, it's a very good and stable OS for everyday use.

Is XP's drivers compatible with it?

Yes and no. I have read reports that some XP drivers worked in it.
However, as Windows 7 is an evolution of Vista, it uses Vista drivers.

Originally Posted by sean

I've been told by several insiders that since I loved XP and hated Vista - that I shouldn't wait to get my hands on Windows 7. I tried to download it, but it seems that you have to have IE for the download to work. (Now is this the same version of IE that MS was advising people not to use until later this month?)

Anyway - I can probably get it done on my work machine later, but for the time being - who's tried it? What are your thoughts?

Aside from various eye candy and other pointless changes, the big feature in Win7 I think is the new device management "experience." Notice how Printers and Faxes no longer exists, and has been fused into an overall device management console which collects all attached device-specific functionality.

So manufacturer-specific applications that hang off the device no longer clutter your desktop or Start menu. If it's related to the device, then you access it from the device experience.

An improvement, I think.

Also, Win7 makes lots of enhancements to the XPS print subsystem.

Yes, but unfortunately I don't have many devices to test it with. It does looks promising, however.

Originally Posted by Elysia

Yes, but unfortunately I don't have many devices to test it with. It does looks promising, however.

Yeah, it starts being more useful when you have more devices attached. You see a photographic image of each attached device (assuming the manufacturer provides one, which they are supposed to) which makes it easy to just click the device you want without worrying about its name.

If you had (for example) some new Bluetooth gizmo with special features, you'd access those features through the console instead of digging around for the control application or finding a custom control panel pane.

Indeed. I have seen the demos.
Another improvement I remembered: remember how Vista would display deleting X bytes per second?
Well, Win 7 displays X items per second.

Another:
System restore allows you to see what programs are affected when you choose a restore point.

There is much buzz about this new taskbar.
I am going to try this. Let's hope M$ doesn't disappoint like the previous release.

Clicking on the download button was pretty much a non-starter. So I just had a look at the page source, grabbed the link, and pasted it into a new tab, and it worked like a charm..

Couple of sites are giving direct download links too.