Everyone knows that I am not a big fan of Microsoft’s products, though I do use Vista as my primary OS for various reasons (the main reason being I have a licence I paid for in the price of the laptop). But I am a fan of new programs and thus it was a natural choice for me to get new Windows 7 beta which Microsoft so generously gives or gave away to 2.5 million downloaders.

I won’t write about how to get the 7 and the product key because the Internet is full of that information. One just needs patience. I do want to give a little glimpse of what to expect from Microsoft’s latest operating system.

I must say Windows 7 was quite a positive surprise. The install took less than an hour on my Compaq Presario C750ES with 1.67GHz processor and 2GB of memory and was quite Vista-like. I successfully installed it on another partition in addition to Vista and it nicely generated a start-up menu, so that I can choose which OS I want to use.

It did though screw up the partition table so that Vista was a bit amazed, but nothing serious. Another weird thing is, I cannot see the Vista system partition from 7 and vice versa, although they are both formatted with NTFS. But that’s not a big deal, I have all my documents and files in other partitions.

7 ISO file was 2.44GB, “Windows” folder takes up 8.87GB. Pretty much the same amount as Vista, I’d say. But unlike Vista, Windows 7 is actually noticeably faster. It boots up quite quickly, definitely quicker than Vista, and operates faster, too. Usually it’s vice versa with newer Microsoft operating systems.

It really amazed me how fast 7 is. Logging in is faster than in Vista, programs open up and operate considerably faster and connection to Wi-Fi is quicker than in all previous Microsoft operating systems. Also installation of various programs is remarkably faster.

Windows 7 has also more drivers than previous versions of Windows, for example I didn’t have to install any additional drivers on my Compaq, in Vista I needed at least drivers for my Wi-Fi card Atheros AR5007EG and also graphics drivers for Intel 965 Express.

In layout and operation Windows 7 resembles MacOS and a lot. It somewhat looks like a child conceived by Windows and MacOS.

The most Maccy thing about Windows 7 is the “dock”. Or, it’s still “taskbar”, but it behaves like the MacOS dock, icons on the taskbar; if you open a program that is not on the “dock” yet, you can “pin” it there and it will stay there like with MacOS dock. And if the program is already on the “dock”, you can deal with it just like in MacOS. The programs do not open any more besides the “quick launch” bar as they used to in previous Windows, they are just icons on the taskbar:

Firefox is the one that is currently in use, the next icon is Outlook, next is “Windows Explorer” and next Live Messenger. Those are programs that are open, the rest are not… Well, except for Skype – Windows 7 Beta doesn’t understand Skype very well, it is actually running.

As also in Vista, you can remove the Recycle bin from the desktop and have a totally clean desktop, only keeping your programs on the taskbar. “Show desktop” icon has moved from Quick Launch to the extreme right, after the clock.

There is no Sidebar any more, instead you can place “gadgets” anywhere on the desktop. Annoying thing is that for example “sticky notes” run only when you have actually started the program and its icon appears on the taskbar, as “sticky notes” is not a desktop gadget. Clock, CPU meter, weather and some other gadgets don’t open a special program for running.

“Start menu” has changed, too. In the list of recently used programs you can actually directly open files that you last used with those programs.

Regular start menu.

Start menu with program recent items open.

Since it is a beta, there are a few bugs, too. For example, Live Messenger’s icon does not appear in the notification area, which is quite annoying and needs to get used to. An interesting bug is, if you change the name of a file or a folder, and then immediately after that move that file or folder into another folder, it disregards the name change and you have to change the name again.

For some reason this beta does not understand that headphones are plugged in – the sound keeps coming from both speakers and headphones. Sound card is properly installed, maybe I should install sound card drivers provided by HP? Haven’t tried that yet.

I’m sure there are a lot more bugs that I haven’t found yet, and I am sure the common problems with Microsoft’s operating systems – like security – are to come out yet, but the first impression of the new OS is quite positive and I think Windows 7 has all potential to be a very good operating system. People who are still using XP and haven’t upgraded to Vista should wait until the full release of 7 comes out and migrate directly to 7. I am planning to use this 7 beta until August when Microsoft invalidates it. I do suggest you take a look at Windows 7 yourselves.

Similar Posts:

• Windows 7 RC – it can only get better now
• Microsoft to give Win7 for free… to some
• Windows 7 goes on sale tomorrow
• Windows 7 “black screen of death” may be malware
• Windows 7 arrives at 22nd October

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