Windows 7 public beta:
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the public availability of the Windows 7 beta release on Thursday 8th January 2009. I have listed some of the impressions culled from reviewers and the net.
Interface enhancements
First thing you notice is that Windows 7,is even glassier than Vista. So if you're not a fan of Aero, you may feel disappointed right at the start. The new glassy Taskbar uses an icon to represent each application up and running, which should be a boon to people who like to have a lot of stuff on their screens. The System Tray is as unhelpful as ever, unfortunately, but having the option to hide some icons and turn off notifications from apps and utilities does cut down the aggro factor to tolerable levels.
The Sidebar, widely criticised as a resource hog has gone and this may mean slightly better performance.
Paint and WordPad apps, both of now have a ribbon interface à la Office 2007, which may be clever or stupid depending on how fond you were of the thing in the first place.
Fully functional in the public beta, 'jump lists' add a submenu to many applications, so you can see items that you recently worked with in a given app, or look at further options for accessing often-used features. Another improvement in Windows 7's interface compared to Vista's is the simplified Shutdown control on the Start menu you no longer have to reconfigure your Start menu to determine whether your PC will shut down entirely or merely go into hibernation when you click the button.
Action center
A new addition to Windows 7 is the Action. Though it's unlikely to wow many advanced users, the Action Center's clearly labeled options should make it easier for beginners and intermediate users to set their system security preferences with confidence, manage backups, and troubleshoot minor performance problems or return to a previous restore point if things go awry.
User Account Control
UAC is probably the feature that has most users up in arms and perhaps unsurprisingly this has been changed in the public beta. Windows 7 offers four levels of protection: always notify, notify only when programs try to make changes (this is the default), notify when programs try to make changes but don't dim the screen and never notify.
Networking improvements
Windows 7 adds HomeGroups, which give structure to the process of sharing devices and media files over a home network. Setting up a HomeGroup between two or more Windows 7 PCs automates the sharing of Libraries (collections of pictures, music files, movies, or documents), printers, and storage devices. Windows 7 also increases the number of SMB network connections that you can have in a single network. Windows generates a secure passkey that you must enter on every system that you add to the HomeGroup, which should help keep interlopers from reaching your shared files and devices, even if they manage to get onto your wireless network.
Performance
Its difficult to say if 7 will offer a performance boost but first signs are good. Startup 74 seconds from cold which is around 10 seconds ahead of Vista.
Conclusions
All the indicators suggest that Windows 7 will be an improvement on Vista and Microsoft seem to have moved to rectify some of the mistakes and bad publicity that the previous OS created. One of the areas they will have to take on board is the need to produce an OS that works on the sort of PC that you can find in PC World or Dixons rather than requiring a powerful rig and dedicated graphics card. They will also need to ensure that there is plenty of driver support since not being able to use your scanner or printer is the kiss of death for a new OS. If they can build it bigger, brighter and better than they could have a winner on their hands.
Stayed tune...
