Windows 7 Beta, The TBL Experience.... Part 2

As you would expect this is a follow on from Part 1, which went into the install and hardware details.  But now for the thoughts on user the Windows 7 Beta.

The shiny bits

You may have noticed how much I haven't been writing about the new features of Win 7, like Bitlocker, Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Powershell V2. Well, that is because I don't really use them for day to day. And I guess I don't think you will either, because when this baby drops toward the end of the year, you, like me, are going to be more concerned about whether it will run OK on your existing hardware, or if it will integrate with your exciting online lifestyle.

Paul Thurrott, a man who really annoys me, has a pretty good run down on all the features and changes to Win 7, if you are interested. But for me, I just won't to be able to do the day to day work that I need to do on my PC. And at this time, apart from what has been mentioned above, there isn't much new in the Win 7 that I'm using (keep in mind that I come from OSX). I did, however, download the Live Suite of applications from Microsoft, and this gave me a good iPhoto and Mail program to fill in the gaps in Win 7.

When talking about the shiny bits of an OS, you have to mention its gaming performance. Due to my hardware limitations, I didn't really try gaming, but in my research I came across this article which even has a few benchmarks. The only thing I have to say on gaming and Win 7 is that A - it is a Beta, and B - We have known for a while now that Microsoft has been moving away from PC gaming, because they have this console thing you may have heard about it, the Xbox 360.

In the end

Probably the only reason I have been playing with Win 7 Beta is that I'm looking to upgrade my desktop, and that I'm a sucker for a new OS. As a Mac user, I'm in that Apple holding pattern called "iMac's due to be updated, and Snow Leopard shouldn't be too far away". But as I have mentioned to a number of friends, Win 7 Beta is really making me think of building a modest multi-core system and, like the prodigal son, returning to the big M.

Let's look at the reasons that I switched to Apple in the first place. I moved to Apple to simplify my computing, gain some reliability, and improve hardware support. Like many long term Windows support people, I had seen the destruction caused by the open and vulnerable Windows platform. And I guess I saw the allure of the closed micro-system that is the Apple universe and decided that I wanted some of that. Because as much as we say we want flexibility and freedom, in the end we just want to be able to get our e-mail when we click on the e-mail button.

I have found that over the last couple of weeks that the Win 7 Beta is offering an experience on the level of OSX, in the above regrade. Although it isn't quite as stylish, it does seem to offer good features and integrates well with the way I work online. As long as Microsoft doesn't fill the retail version with too much rubbish and bloat, they should have a good computing platform for the next couple of years.

Jason Remnant

"If it ain't broken, switch for the challenge."