For more screenshots in high-resolution, visit my Windows 7 flickr set.
The last few days have been spent tinkering with the latest build of Windows 7. With a build number of 7000, this is meant to be the public release version that is due to be given out early January 2009 as Beta 1. This gives a good indication of the progress that Microsoft is making with the development of their next-gen operating system.
Installation
The full ISO comes in at under 3GB and fits nicely on one DVD. Like Vista and XP SP3, you can install Windows 7 without a license key under a 30-day trial.
One of the first things you’ll notice when you run the installation from a cold boot is the animation that forms from the four dots of colours during the start screen, eventually forming a pulsating Windows logo. A nice effect, and much missed when they decided not to include any logo on the start screen for Vista. The installation steps are similar to that of Vista and requires very few steps to get the installation to run. From start to finish, the installation on my desktop machine took less than 30 minutes with a similar time on the Asus netbook.
On finishing the installation, you’re prompted with the user account setup, security and update preferences, time zone and calendar control. Following these standard steps that we’ve all seen in Vista, you are then prompted to select your wireless network. A first for Windows and a nicety that will allow users to get online straight away. This only worked for my Asus netbook but not my PC since it didn’t have the relevant driver for my wireless network card. Once the wireless is setup, you are then given the option to setup a ‘homegroup’. Which is essentially the same as a workgroup however its designed to work with consumers in mind. From here you can select which types of libraries you want to share with your homegroup, and a password is generated so that other machines can be added to your homegroup. That’s the final step in the installation process, from there on it goes through a few scripts to get the rest of your desktop and settings ready for first use.
Aero Peek
One of the newest and perhaps most useful features that will be included in Windows 7 is Aero Peek. This feature will allow you to manage your open windows much more effectively and efficiently than say the trust Alt + Tab or the feature that was introduced in Vista that no one ever used, Flip 3D.
Aero Peek will allow you to view the windows that you want. When you place your cursor over your application in the taskbar, doing this will show thumbnails of all open windows for that application. When you mouse over one of the thumbnails all other windows will turn in to transparent glass, giving the focus on the application you want. Clicking on the window you’re after will bring it to the top level.
The show desktop button has been moved to a non-labelled button on the taskbar next to the clock. When you mouse over this button it will turn all windows transparent, clicking on it will minimise all windows. A useful feature for getting straight to your desktop or having a ‘peek’ at your desktop gadgets.
Taskbar
One of the most dramatic changes in Windows 7, is the new taskbar. Replacing the traditional taskbar buttons, you now get application icons that sit in a ‘dock-like’ format representing your open applications. Application shortcuts can also be docked to the taskbar for quick access.
When you drag an application from your start menu quick launch list, for some odd reason it will dock your icon in your taskbar as it should do, but then it will remove it from your start menu until you unpin it from your taskbar. A minor flaw in the thinking behind that feature but nothing that degrades the user experience significantly.
Right clicking on application icons in your taskbar will provide a context menu specific to the application. For instance, in the example below, you can change your Messenger status without having to open up the application. Right clicking on Internet Explorer provides you with a list of your web site history. The Windows Explorer icon provides you with quick access to specific folders or libraries.
Start Menu
Jump Lists makes its debut in Windows 7 as a fly-out menu for your most recently used items in your start menu. This gives you contextually sensitive items and options depending on the application.
For instance, when you mouse over the Internet Explorer jump list, your browsing history appears. Do the same for Windows Live Messenger and you get the options to set your online status.
Windows Explorer
Simplified and tidied up, the new Windows Explorer offers much better navigation and logical storage locations for your files. It provides direct access to your desktop, downloads and recent places folders as well as a collection of different libraries.
Libraries can be quite a confusing concept. The best way for me to understand how this feature works is to relate it to how Smart Folders work in OS X. In OS X you can create a smart folder that collates files across your system according to your criteria. So for example, you can create a smart folder that contains all of the image files available on your system and is constantly updated as soon as any new images are added. Libraries on Windows 7 will work in the same way, allowing you to collect files and folders from across your system in to one location. This feature was originally introduced in a beta of Vista but was later removed in the final release.
User Account Control
In the list of things that are wrong with Vista, the amount of times that the User Account Control prompt pops up is probably top of the list for most people.
Thankfully, Windows 7 will have a slider bar for specifying how frequently you want these pop ups to appear.
Evaluation
Windows 7 is a massive improvement over Vista. It is the operating system that will inevitably put Microsoft back in to many peoples good books yet again. There is some genuine excitement surrounding the release of this version and one would think that the damage that Vista has caused to the Microsoft brand and reputation could have been avoided had this been the release that came out of Redmond back in 2007.
Tags: 7, Aero Peek, Explorer, Jump Lists, Microsoft, Operating System, OS, Se7en, Seven, Start Menu, Taskbar, UAC, User Account Control, Win7, Windows
51 Comments
You mention that you ran this on your Asus netbook, what were the specs of that and how did it run?
Cool! How’s it running? How’s the new taskbar? I’m not keen on how close it looks to the Mac OS X dock.
Is this the build that’s going to be released in Jan?
Is this the release that will atone for the mistake that is Vista? Like XP was for ME?
I played with the build before this and it was very stable. Looks to me like they’ve stripped out all the bloat in Vista and refined the user experience. I think this will be the release that kills of XP…finally.
Hurrah! You can turn UAC off without getting a red security flag!
I’m going to download it and run it in Parallels. New release looks nice, and I’m getting sick of XP!
The problem with the Windows house not the fancy lights on the roof, it’s down in the foundations. There’s some bad engineering which desperately needs fixing.
The underlying engineering needs work. Stuff like the registry. how system and application files get jumbled-up. How applications leave hooks in the system code. And how apps are allowed to install resource-sucking processes.
Windows has always worked great in the first six weeks. But after six months its a different story.
If MS has patched-up Vista, that’s just fine. But until MS take all the legacy engineering and put it in a virtualized sandbox, they are only papering over the cracks.
C.
The red security flag from turning off UAC can be disabled even more easily than disabling UAC… just go into the security center and click on the left panel where it says something like “Change the way security center alerts me”.
I got this release downloaded and I’m going to install it as soon as I find a drive I don’t care about wiping for it. I’d do an upgrade to the vista install I have, but don’t use, but you can’t upgrade from Vista 64 to 32-bit 7.
What do u know about the drivers; will they run on “user level” or “kernel level”?
Any news from Directx/Direct3d?
Windows 7 is a massive improvement over Vista. I would take the windows 7 beta over Vista ANYDAY.
It’s true that many of the programs will not work (daemon tools for instance), but it doesn’t feel like MS is selling an incomplete system. Vista was like the incomplete version of windows 7.
There is a newer wordpad that looks like ‘07 word, new calculator, paint and many other programs. Can’t wait for the release.
How about posting screenshots that are bigger than thumbnails so we can acutally *see* some of the details?
Microsoft makes good software and vista was not one of them. I don’t know how good this is going to be, but i just downloaded one and i am hoping to test it tonight. I am tired of XP. Hopefully this will be better with less junk and more function. Good luck all testers. but its still beta ( a catch all for all bugs) hahahaaa.
I wonder if it needs as much resources as vista does…
That was vista’s main drawback for me….
XP was not the replacement puppy for the sick ME mutt – two very different beasts under the hood.
Being a mac and win User I don’t find the task bar to look at all like the OSX Dock. Really the idea is similar, but not really all that close of a reproduction. In fact it looks much like the quick launch feature already in XP and vista, but now as the major player on the bar itself.
MS has been promising a re-write of the kernel since NT 4. I had been severely let down with every iteration after that. For once I have a reason to be happy about a new MS OS release.
I have another question that goes along side of the machine spec’s – how is the CPU and memory utilization on boot (no apps running) vs. XP on the same system. Do you have any means to get that information (previous benchmarks)?
Thanks.
i also dled windows7, but i have the version before this one, and i put it on the acer aspire one netbook, and it runs amazingly fast!!
i am very impressed!!! also all vista apps work with w7 that i have tried to install…
also i think they did something were you dl faster from the internet!!! i was dling at 1.1mb using a torrent client… amazing, never seen before…
for shutdown time seriously like 5 seconds. if not faster, and load time about 30-40 seconds.
and windows 7 allows you to install to a different hard drive by running the iso from xp/vista…
i like i like very much
As Chen said, I would love to see larger photos once I click on the thumbnails so that I can actually see more detail.
Thanks for the review, though.
I’ll come back to see if larger images become available. Happy new year!
Ah! I see the Flickr set of photos was added. Excellent!
Thank you for paying attention to the comments.
Happy New Year!
I’ve just uploaded a few of the high-res screenshots that I saved. Enjoy!
Se parece un poquito a kde4 o son impresiones mias?
This looks great but I’m still skeptical of how it will turn out in the end. Looks aren’t everything!
I’m on it right now and I’m digging it so far. I’m quad booting XP x64, Ubuntu, Leopard, and this with no problems. I have to say that it is very fast and the features I have discovered so far are all pretty cool. It reminds me a lot of Vista, but without the headaches that came with it. Oh did I mention it was fast, it can stand its ground with XP x64. Leaves one to wonder how quick it’ll be and what new features will be added in a year or so when the final product is released.
Specs:
Q6600 @ 3.6
Asus P5K-E
2 GB DDR2
8800gt
After using *nix for the better part of ten years, it is time i make change. After taking this bad boy for a test run was completely gobsmacked!
Im running this on my standard Eee PC 900HA, 160GB HDD, 1GB Ram and is more responsive than Mint which was installed as soon as I got it home.
One question I have is, since I didn’t enter a serial number, this is actually going to stop working eventually?
The specs of that netbook please? I’ll really like to give this beta a try on my Centrino 1.5GHZ laptop with 512 MB RAM on which I had been running Vista for the past two years until I finally gave up and headed back to XP.
WOW! So Microsoft is running KDE full-fledged now, instead of just Konfabulator?! I KNEW this would happen! Jason, Mike, and Brian…look! My prediction came true!
Actually there’s 4 dots not 3. And there are already many timebomb fixes out there already that work just fine.
@Ashwin: The Netbook I’m currently reviewing is running an Atom 1.6GHz with 2GB RAM. The PC I am testing it on is running on less powerful spec, Athlon 64 2800 1.8GHz with 1GB RAM. Vista runs ok on it, but 7 runs much better.
@glogzy: With no serial, the installation will expire in 30 days unless you activate with a valid serial.
@icr8stf: Don’t have any means to currently do this unfortunately. Win 7 uses smarter memory management by loading processes on demand, as and when they are requird. This is the reason why the clean boot RAM consumption is sub-450MB.
I liked this report so much, I went and loaded Win7 on a virtual machine. I didn’t get the Aero-like UI, though — possibly because I’m letting Win7 use only 1 processor and less than 1/2 my 4GB of RAM.
Is there something special I have to do to get the Aero-like UI?
And, what’s the best way to get a serial for Win7? I’d love it if I didn’t have to re-install every 30 days.
Thanks!
This can’t replace xp
xp is so easy and windows explorer of xp has standard button bar which we can customized like refresh, cut, copy, paste, there is no such bar in vista and windows 7
and also information bar at bottom this doesn’t make sense as most displays are HD so it reduces vertical height. i like in xp on left side.
people now compare xp with other os as benchmark
nice!
this news is very good. windows 7 is a good product. and it’s a good business model.
@TBolt: I’ve not used Win 7 in a VM. Purely because you don’t get to exprience the full performance and hardware utilisation than running it natively. You might not be getting Aero UI if it doesn’t think your graphics card is up to scratch. May also need to activate it in the personalisation settings or your VM won’t allow for it.
Serial for Win 7 are supposed to be released to the ‘public’ this month. What public actually means I’m not sure of.
@oni:
Thank you, oni. I can use Aero on the host machine; so, the computer can handle it. I’ll try to adjust settings in the VM software. Will also be looking for another machine to load this on.
And, oni, if you find out how to get a legal serial key, I kindly ask that you e-mail me if you wouldn’t mind. I’d be happy to beta test Win7 until the computer goes up in smoke. lol.
Looking forward to future reports…
不错很好什么时候在中国上市， 贵不贵？超过￥100就买不起了
i find this a great OS, but i moved up to vista and that runs fine for me, i currently have a triple boot system xp/vista/win7.
on a
athlon 1800
1.5gig memory
asus x7 mobo
ati 9550 128mb video card
with all OS’s i can use all features including aero, all systems run very well, vista has given only 1 bsod in 3yrs, xp has been stable for so long i cant remember, and win7 is going to be a major upgrade for everyone, it will bring MS a great deal of new street crd and will be the biggest OS out there within a yaer of official release, I have also tried out mandiva, ubuntu, and solaris 10, all of which have some appeal, BUT, win7 is the way to go!!!!! and im not really a MS fan, i am a system engineer for a long time so i need to use and abuse Ms all the time…in the bast that has been a lot of abuse…but i am impressed with 7.
the fish is so cool!!! where can i download the wallpaper?
Well, i think we can ignore Vista, just wait for the 7
MS should make this OS available for free to those of us who got burned with Vista. This is what Vista should have been from the beginning without a couple of hundred “updates”. MS should show loyalty to those who bought Vista in the last 2 years ago or sooner. If MS chooses to play hardball they stand to lose a lot of customers who will switch to Mac if MS does not do the right thing. I will be waiting to see what MS does, if they play hardball and make all of us Vista users pay through the nose for what Vista should have been all along my choice will be Mac. Think about it MS, is that what you want?
@TBolt: If you’re an MSDN subscriber, you can now get a hold of a ‘proper’ copy of Windows 7, although they don’t seem to be issuing keys yet so you’ll have to do a no-key install which will allow you to use 7 for 30 days.
General public release is going to be made for 2.5 million downloads on Friday 9th Jan, so head on over then to get your copy of this shiny new Beta.
looks like Vista to me
My comments are along the same line as Larry’s comments he left on 1-8-09. Vista was very expensive and then you have add the ultimate upgrade which was like another couple hundred dolllars. I guess my question is when will MS cut us all a break?
How much more do we have to pay for their fix? And his comment about going to Mac OS made me even think of that option too.
vista also has me thinking…(mac)
Bring back the Mellinium ME. That was the best OS. I have bought 6 Vista OSs, not one really worked as good as my Mellinium. I do mostly Digital Photos and Videos. which worked great with the Melinium without having to import Quick Time from Apple. For some strange reason Microsoft does not use the .MOV application.
OH Also! Do I have to buy a new Printer and Scanner. Will HP be able to make them work with Windows 7. They never were able to fix the Vista version. Please bring back the Melinium ME. Please…
lol u man give me jokes im using windows 7 as i type its faster than vista any day this is the first Os from MS where i haven’t even had to install a single driver for any hardware its great
System Spec
Intel core 2 2.33GHz
2Gb Ram
On Board Graphics and i can still run it with full pretty looks
Dual booting with Vista 64 Bit Ultimate.
@Otto: With regards to the printer drivers, Microsoft hasn’t changed much/any of the driver side of the OS, so all Vista drivers will work on Windows 7.
I love how idiots like Carniphage throw their 2 cents in without actually knowing what they’re talking about. You morons need to be aware that by going back and reworking the guts of the kernel and other basic functionality that they’ll likely destroy the cornerstone on which Windows was made popular: THE BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY. Yeah, you can be a total fuckwit and jab about how Vista wasn’t backwards compatible, but then you’d only be proving what a moron you are because it really wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be: All my stuff worked with vista pre-SP1 and many others I know have had no problems with backwards compatibility, no more so than they’ve had when transitioning between windows 98 to Windows 2000 or even 2000 to XP. In fact, for me, the transition between XP and Vista was by far the least painful out of all the version switches.
Read Raymond Chen’s blog for some real eye opening stuff on just how much work goes into making sure your pathetic software is working with the latest and greatest. Learn to appreciate the work we programmers put into our products. When idiots like Carniphage (who’ve likely never seen, let alone written, a line of code in their lives) vomit forth stupidity like “There’s some bad engineering which desperately needs fixing” as if THEY can do better, it makes me sick.
Please all of you brilliant armchair developers: Make an Operating System that’ll be problem free, have 0 design compromises, have the ultimate in backwards compatibility and be 100% stable and secure no matter what. Until then, just shut it. You’re not qualified to give your opinion.
@IamMyOwnAlterEgo
Idiot. They’ve been ripping off Windows for years, it’s about time they contributed something back. After all, aren’t you linux twerps all about sharing?
Maybe some of you code writing morons should learn a little something about quality control! Get all of the bugs out before before releasing it to the public! For all of your claimed brilliance, something so simple should come so easy.
I never had any problems nor bugs encountered using the Windows 7 beta version. To think that I am running it using a super slow VIA C 7 processor. The performance of Windows 7 is way a lot better than Vista using the same processor. I don’t know what you RAge227 is talking about.
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