My Experience with Windows 7 Using the Beta Version

Today, October 22nd 2009, Microsoft celebrates the official sales launch of Windows 7, with the hope that the new system will erase the marketing failure of Windows Vista. Early praises are everywhere for the new windows suggesting that Microsoft's hopes might be true. However, it is too early to find any serious unknown problems. Many retailers certainly seem to expect an onslaught from which the y wish to Profit.

The Vista successor arrives today in various versions on the shelves of the distributors. They are available in various versions and with different licensing options. There are three versions of Windows 7: Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. All contain, among other things, the new taskbar (finally sliding). For each program, the context menu in the taskbar provides a ("jump list") along with the most recently opened documents. Also, the "home network groups" are in all versions. The networking is done with a simple mouse click.

The real highlight is found in all versions of Windows 7, the operating system is faster. While Microsoft constantly thought up new features in the development of Windows Vista, it focused on a different question with Windows 7, how do users use Windows and do everything with ease. Windows 7 feels faster than the pervious versions, although applications themselves usually do not run faster than under Windows Vista with SP2, or XP with SP3.

While Windows 7 Home Premium is designed for home users, Professional and Ultimate provide additional support for large networks, domain integration, group policy editor, etc. Two other Windows-7-versions are not available at retail distributors. Home Basic is not available in neither Europe nor in the U.S., but only in developing countries, where the stripped-starter version is designed only for OEMs that can tend to be in very cheap computers. All versions are available as 32-bit and 64-bit. Everyone must decide which is the correct one for themselves. For most applications it does not matter which Windows version is running.

The cheapest way to get the new Windows is to get it acquired along with a new PC. Windows 7 will be installed at many Universities, so for the students it is going to be free to use. A cheaper solution is the Family Pack: Included are three Home Premium licenses at a price of $149 dollars (Amazon). However, this offer is "limited" and included in the advertising campaign.

My experience with Windows 7 using the beta version:

Windows 7 is very similar in appearance to Windows Vista. Windows 7 installed, like Vista, with a fully friendly graphical interface with less user requirements, which allows a novice to do this process easier.

This is the best version of Microsoft's operating system ready-to-out-of-the-box. Windows 7 appears to have the simplicity needed to succeed the Windows series. With Windows 7, I installed MS Office 2007 Enterprise, MS Visual Studio 2008, MS SQL Server 2005, BitTorrent, Adobe Creative Suite 3 and McAfee AntiVirus + AntiSpyware 8.7, including other programs. The PC did not change the loading time after all the above were installed. Internet Explorer 8 comes already installed. The PC did not seem to be running all these programs with a lag. By mistake I opened an instance of MS Visual Studio 2005 and tried to install a SQL Server and Windows gave me a notice for lack of compatibility with the program, and it froze into a white screen, but did not affect other programs. Excellent, because I could keep working.

On another occasion I was running Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player, while playing a game of chess against Windows and after having won the second game, I went to start the third, and out of the blue, came the blue screen, which quickly (~ 3 seconds) gave a memory dump to disk and restarted my PC. Windows sent Microsoft a report, but did not inform me that might cause the error, but I am sure that the video card might be the cause: I have little capacity for 3D rendering.

My conclusion:

The tests were made during a week, with an average usage of 9 hours of work. Apparently Microsoft has taken this operating system very seriously, and tried to address the issues that Apple used against Microsoft in its commercials. "Hi, Mac!".

Microsoft is maturing the concept of a good operating system. I had a good experience with Windows 7.