Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, announced that Windows 7 beta is available from today to MSDN and Technet subscribers. A public preview version will be available on Friday January 9th 2009. Over the next few weeks we will be looking into Windows 7 features, so far we have published the following overviews:Over the new few weeks we will be adding many more focus items on Windows 7 including Touch, Internet Explorer 8, Windows 7 networking and media enhancements. Stay tuned for the ultimate Windows 7 focus from Neowin.net. Here is a quick review of Windows 7 Beta.
My PC Configuration
- Intel Quad Core Q9400 @ 2.66GHz
- 8GB RAM
- nVidia GeForce 9800 GT
- 24" Monitor - LG246WH Flatron Display
Installation
The installation was very simple and it just took 20 minutes. It was a hassle free installation. The thing which surprised me was that Windows 7 had installed most of the drivers for my PC, unlike in Vista where I had to insert manufacturer's disc to install drivers. This saved a lot of time to get started with Windows 7!
Windows 7 Desktop
Below is the screenshot of the default Windows 7 desktop. Nothing fancy, pretty neat and tidy:
Superbar
And the quite famous Superbar looks fabulous:
Microsoft introduced thumbnail previews of applications in the Taskbar in Windows Vista, and this has been improved a lot with the new Superbar. It becomes much easier now to look what applications are running and switch between them. You might have probably seen the demo at CES or PDC.
Start Menu
The Start Menu has also undergone some changes:
The default behavior of the Shutdown button is now indeed Shutdown and you can easily change that by accessing the Superbar properties:
Desktop (right-click) Menu
The next immediate change I noticed is the desktop right-click menu. You can change your screen resolution very easily with this menu unlike in Vista. How simple is that?
Appearance and Personalization
The Personalize option in the desktop menu now takes you directly to change your desktop background, themes, window color and screensaver. It is more informative than in Vista. Windows 7 also lets you create personalized Themes, which I think is in its initial stage:
With Windows 7 desktop you can select multiple pictures for your desktop background. Users had to use 3rd party applications to have a slideshow in their desktop background in previous versions of Windows, and now Windows 7 does the job for you:
Aero Peek
The 'Show Desktop' button is now shifted to the right end of the superbar. The right end corner of your desktop is very useful in the sense that if you hover your mouse to the right end corner, Windows 7 gives you a sneak peek of the open windows in your desktop:
Superbar Notifications
With Windows 7, the user is in total control of the notifications that pop-up occasionally(and sometimes always). These notifications can be very easily customized now in Windows 7:
Games
Has anything changed in Games? Yes, indeed. The first time the user opens Games, the user is presented with game updates and options:
I also noticed somethig new - Game Providers:
Devices and Printers
This is an interesting location in your Windows 7 desktop which shows all of your connected devices and printers. It also provides the ability to troubleshoot if there is anything wrong. When I say connected devices, it not only refers to external devices connected, but also the other internal devices like the monitor and internal hard disk:
In my screenshot above, you can notice a yellow icon near my hard disk device. This indicates that there is some trouble with my device. The details pane of the window shows more information about the problem:
How easy is this to troubleshoot? Just right click the device and choose the Troubleshoot option to troubleshoot. The troubleshoot wizard tries to identify the problem and provides options if any. Below was the option provided for me:
The installer tries to resolve the problem by applying the fix:
And finally, the wizard fixed my problem..
Connecting to a Wireless Network
Connecting to a wireless network has never been so easy. Just click on the wireless network icon to see what networks are available and choose to connect:
You can also choose to connect to the selected network automatically:
Enter security key if its required for your network and you are connected:
Windows Homegroup
Windows Homegroup is a new feature introduced in Windows 7 wherein you can share your music, pictures, documents, videos and printers with other machines in your home network. This is a feature that is one you should just use and see it working, rather than reading a blog post. Anyways, visit here to learn more about Windows Homegroup.
Windows 7 seems to be much improved than Windows Vista in lots of areas and the beta clearly shows that Microsoft has indeed taken users feedback on Vista seriously. I would recommend everyone to try Windows 7 Beta atleast once if you haven't yet, especially if you dislike Vista!
The superbar is not that great, and when you think about it is just the regular taskbar, with a giant sized "quick launch". Windows are still goruped the same way, etc. Only this time it lets you move things around, which is great.
Bottom line, Windows need something like exposé. Call it "show windows side by side for a second" if you please, but exposé is very useful.
Wait, so you said Aero Peek is useless, then went and described you much you like Aero Peek? That's... strange. Were you referring to something else when you said Aero Peek? Maybe you were referring to peeking at the desktop?
You know what he meant. Don't be an ass.
So sorry for getting it wrong. If aero peek is the thing I described was useful, then so be it. The hovering over the 'show desktop' button to show the desktop and JUST the window borders: useless.
And the actual aero peek would be the ONLY thing that is remotely useful. That and the 'x' button in the "previews", that means one less click to close a window.
Not really.
So sorry for getting it wrong. If aero peek is the thing I described was useful, then so be it. The hovering over the 'show desktop' button to show the desktop and JUST the window borders: useless.
And the actual aero peek would be the ONLY thing that is remotely useful. That and the 'x' button in the "previews", that means one less click to close a window.
Ah, yeah the Desktop Peek is something some people don't find useful. I do, though, it makes it very easy to glance at my gadgets.
remember: DONT PUT THIS ANYWHERE NEAR YOUR MP3 COLLECTION until you've installed the Update to Windows 7 Beta (KB961367)
has anyone managed to get a key from the msdn site? key generation doesn't appear to be working.
An Error Has Occurred
There was an error error while trying to retrieve requsted key information and we cannot process your request.
Last edited by ZombieFly on 08 Jan 2009 - 13:36
Lets just make this abundently clear. It's an issue with auto updating meta data with media player 12 or when you edit in windows explorer and the tag is odd. Other then that MP3's are fine. If you hardly use explorer to check your collection and use other software it will not effect you.
if you follow the express configuration settings when you first start media player, it will automatically update your metadata and screw the files. Given as most users will blindly accept the defaults and press next, I think many people will be affected? It's hardly a "niche" bug when the OS's default player and default config destroy files now is it? The same warning is printed on the details page of every Win7 ISO download on MSDN, want to call Microsoft and tell them that it's overkill too?
some people just like complaining for the sake of it
What i would like is a setting that allows me to select a group of folders/icons and have them fixed there so the next time i sort my icons they stay fixed BUT sort into name order on the desktop.
FINALLY!
i was never a fan of the vista style, and am actually surprised - from the screenshots above, the visual style doesn't seem to have been changed AT ALL? :/
isn't it important for 7's release that they try to make it look different to vista?
just asking here cos i thought this sort of thing would have been dealt with by beta... obviously not :/
+1
It was time for Windows XP to go to bed on January 30th 2007...
But Vista was making so much noise Windows XP couldn't sleep properly.
Try this instead: https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
Which Windows 7 actually does it quite well...
Look, it's not Windows version 7.0, it's version 6.1, so it's only upgrade
of Vista (which was 6.0), like XP was for 2000 (5.1 and 5.0)...
As for the comment about Windows 7 being an upgrade for Vista, I know. I am just not sure what the hype is about. One can argue that it is Vista reloaded or done right... a point release with new features sold as a full version. In truth it does have enough full features to be consider a full version like Windows 95 was to Windows 98... I'm just not excited about it.
I am really just basically saying I am going to take the wait and see approach with this one. Microsoft is going to have to do a lot to convince me to move from Windows Vista to Windows 7.
Look, it's not Windows version 7.0, it's version 6.1, so it's only upgrade
of Vista (which was 6.0), like XP was for 2000 (5.1 and 5.0)...
Windows 7 is Windows 7. The GetVersion APIs were going to return 7.0 but it caused too many compatibility problems, so we changed it to return 6.1 to reduce the number of compatibility issues.
I assume I can use all the Vista drivers for this but not sure, some stupid drivers may only install on the OS it is designed for...
Thankfully all Vista drivers work, but most have installers that need to be run in Vista compatibility mode because otherwise they may not run or may give an invalid OS error message. I got all my devices running just fine in the end though, but had to boot back to Vista to download network drivers.
I hope that the final version will at least know how to download drivers for the Soundblaster X-Fi since those are pretty common. I wouldn't expect it to have drivers for my Echo AudioFire 4 or Wacom Intuos though.
1. Where is your product that you developed and released?
2. Have you sent an email to Microsoft that not only tells them you think it's ugly, but what they can do to improve it?
3. What else looks better than this right now?
http://www.apple.com/macosx/guidedtour/
http://www.kde.org/announcements/announce-4.2-beta2.php ... Vista ripoff
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/default.aspx ...
They could have added the extra whiz bang features to the standard Vista UI. It is nice they finally plan to remove the classic UI, though I am not so sure that Windows admins are going to be happy.
I think you're in the minority, though. Personally I think Win7 looks fantastic.
What looks "amateurish?" You keep posting that in different threads but everything looks super professional and really polished to me.
I will admit I have been playing around with it a bit more after getting flamed a couple of times by a few die hard Win7 supporters. I will say that it is growing on me. I just expected more (I guess). I've only had it for about a week. It is plenty fast though (so far).
I will admit I have been playing around with it a bit more after getting flamed a couple of times by a few die hard Win7 supporters. I will say that it is growing on me. I just expected more (I guess). I've only had it for about a week. It is plenty fast though (so far).
If you took the time to check the "Windows History" posts out on the Interweb, you'd see that taskbars for KDE & Gnome were acutally used by Microsoft Windows 1.0 & 2.0. I hate to be such a fact-checker, but if one does not take the time to check their own facts that they should be prepared to have others check their facts for them.
There are some things broken by 7 which worked in Vista but yes it initially starts up a little faster.
What will determine its future will be pricing. Some reviews claim 7 has the same hardware demands as Vista - not less as some seem to be claiming without evidence. 7 may penetrate corporate environments by accident as by then many will be using hardware which is beyond its use by and new hardware will include 7
There are some things broken by 7 which worked in Vista but yes it initially starts up a little faster.
What will determine its future will be pricing. Some reviews claim 7 has the same hardware demands as Vista - not less as some seem to be claiming without evidence. 7 may penetrate corporate environments by accident as by then many will be using hardware which is beyond its use by and new hardware will include 7
Did Microsoft give ME users XP for free??? No.
Of course, that was not what you were trying to say. It would be a bit hard to compare Windows ME to XP though considering that ME was based on a really pathetic 9x kernel.
Finally, I don't think it would hurt Microsoft to release a free upgrade to individuals that had significant problems with Vista. I wasn't one of these individuals so I would not qualify, but they do have records of bugs submitted and incident reports.
At the very least they could reduce the number of versions available to a more sane Home and Professional editions. Though you have to give them credit for a least removing Home Basic.
It is nice and fast though. Without tweaking anything it starts faster than XP or Vista and shuts down quickly too.
I'll be filing a lot of usability quirks for this though. There are lots of things that have unnecessary steps (like the first screen in the Troubleshoot compatibility feature) and some that need more (like the Troubleshoot Devices should have the option to choose the driver yourself).
It's not an as huge update as Vista was, but it does a lot of good things to Vista.
And this is coming from an Apple user.
i'm having the same problem too,
have to manually mount the Vista partition so it can be seen in explorer
I had this problem too. Just go to Disk Management, find the Vista partition, and assign it a letter. It should show up in Explorer after that. :-)
I get code78 from microsoft update and the standalone installer will also not work.
I've read the knowledge base article about code78 but none of that works.
It's neither 7 by version number or by count (there was more versions than 7 both in desktop ("DOS"
I heard some time ago that Windows 7 was to leave everything behind, together with what most people call "backward compatibility" - thing that forces MS OSes to gather all APIs, quirks and shortcomings of all previous versions. Well, I see now that this "feature" was left behind - sad, but easy to predict... And I don't remember any problems for Vista caused by being version 6.0!
Sorry to see you're having issues. This is a worthwhile beta to try out. Hope you have luck in the next release with yours.
Also, I too do not like their icon artwork from XP, Vista, or windows 7 ( But this does look better than my mac w/ 10.5 and a lot more usable). Id like to see more 2d abstract/clean icons rather than these isometric/cartoonish network/home/printer/drive representations ms has now.
I only hope that they dont stay on this and the only "improvements" that would be from here till the final release would be just bug fixes...
Would I be able to run Win7 on AMD 4200, 2 GB RAM with 150 GB HDD ?
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