Windows 7 Beta in photos
A couple of days ago Microsoft released a beta of its next operating system, Windows 7, to the masses. Being the computer geek that I am I wanted to try it out so I downloaded the ISO. Below you will find some screenshots I took during the installation process and of some of the applications. Click on the thumbnail for the full resolution.
By the way, Microsoft: Don’t be stupid and make Internet Explorer + Active-X mandatory to download the ISO, also it wouldn’t hurt with a torrent.
I burned the ISO onto a DVD, and booted it up in a virtual machine. I am using VMWare Fusion running on an iMac Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz with 1.5 GB of memory, half of that memory dedicated to the virtual memory (yeah, I think I need to upgrade my memory a bit).
This is the first screen you will see, a loading screen similar to the Windows Vista installation.
The next screen gives you the possibility to choose which edition of Windows 7 to install: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. The difference between these is probably the same as with the Windows Vista equivalents. I went for the Ultimate edition.
After that starts the process of copying over and installing the files. I chose the semi-automated installation option in VMWare, using Windows Vista as the operating system type, so I didn’t have to provide any username etc.
Windows 7 installation is not free of restarts.:-)
Starting up again, doing some post-installation procedures and another reboot.
Finally, the login window!
After you have input your user details it will go through some automated procedures, and a wizard to set up the network will open up. You will also be able to set up a “home group”, which I presume is a way to set up a personal network in your house, sharing files and printers with other machines.
Windows automagically detected my resolution and configured it correctly. Due to limitations in VMWare I am not able to run Aero, so the graphical UI doesn’t run with all features, such as translucency, that a fully accelerated Windows 7 would do. The start menu is equal to Windows Vista. The shutdown button is simpler, but works better than the one in Vista.
Notice the message bubble in the photo above this one. Windows 7 will collect all messages in one place, instead of a dozen of message windows popping up.
It also has a tool to select the network. In this case it can only see the wired network (provided by the virtual machine).
By right clicking on an item in the taskbar it feels much like this is a dock in OS X.:-)
Windows Media Player have a new Pictures option.
Windows Explorer hasn’t changed much from Vista graphically, but Windows 7 got something new called Libraries. Libraries is basically “Smart Folders” that contains items/files of a specific file type. For example, all documents on your local hard drive; and even documents on shares in your local network; will be put in the library folder for Documents. The same goes with Pictures and Videos, probably with the possibility to add more. This is equal to the “Search for” option in the Finder application in Mac OS X Leopard, but more integrated into the system. Time will show how/if people will use this. For me personally, it is a feature I don’t use much; but the Windows OS is indeed more “messy” than Mac OS X so perhaps this will come as a welcome addition for a lot of people.
Internet Explorer 8 has some new features. A “Suggested Sites” window pops up on first launch. A StumbleUpon competitor for Internet Explorer? It also has a “Safe browsing” feature, where data such as history and cache will be deleted after the user session is finished.
A new “Snipping Tool” is now included, that allows you to take screenshots of a specific part of your desktop; much similar to OS X’s Shift+Cmd+4.
Wordpad has received a welcome update, taking interface elements from the newest versions of Office, but Notepad haven’t changed (thankfully).
Paint has also received a facelift similar to Wordpads.
That’s it. Hope you enjoyed these screenshots. If there’s a specific application you would like to see a screenshot of, please voice off in the comments.
January 14th, 2009 at 20:52
It’s nice to read some opinions from a OS X user
I am a Vista user, and though I’m quite happy with it, after trying this beta for a few days, I can see that this is what Vista should have been from the start. The user experience is so much, much better. Maybe Microsoft will catch up to Apple in that regard someday
January 14th, 2009 at 22:55
I second your opinion about Vista and 7. And the best thing, this is just the beta. Some things might even get better in the final version. Also, they are indeed catching up with Apple on this one (that is the way I feel it anyway).
Who knows, when Windows 7 get released I might by a Windows laptop to run it myself.;-)
Another thing that I didn’t mention in this blog post is that they have vastly improved the UAC (the “grayed out background” messages popping up now and then)…which is a really good thing.
January 15th, 2009 at 16:08
It is starting to become a bit sad when people are drooling over what is in fact one of the biggest copy-cat actions in the entire computer industry. All the supposedly new features/improvements have been directly lifted from OSX (now most noticeably the OSX dock, which to me is highly ironic, considering how much this has been ridiculed by Windows enthusiasts since it first appeared in OS X 10.0). The silent agreement that Apple and Microsoft had not to sue each other is definitely benefitting the latter. Vista was already a big push to become more like OSX, and Windows 7 appears to continue where Vista left off. The funny thing of it all is to read messages from so-called “Mac users”, who all of a sudden have seen the light and are heaping praise on this new version of Windows. There is NOTHING I have seen so far that is NOT included in 10.5. The only strength (and at the same time weakness) that Windows ever had that it was a mass market OS (with larger amount of software and supported hardware), that due to shrewd marketing of the early versions of DOS and Windows achieved a market dominance that it never deserved. The first time that Microsoft will come up with an innovative new feature that is not directly lifted of Mac OSX, Linux or any other software development will be a remarkable day in business. Till that day, lets keep this entire thing in perspective. I have not tried Windows 7 (currently keeping a OSX 10.5/Windows XP dual boot nice and stable), but I honestly hope that they did manage to finally close some holes in the security of this product. The entire scourge of spam and malware would not be upon us without the “great innovative” products of Microsoft. I am reminded of that every day when at my work I have to remove dozens of spam mails. Also, I am definitely not against Microsoft coming up with a good OS for a change (the Vista jokes were getting old anyhow), but not at the expense of someone else’s hard work. If I was a programmer at Apple I would be pretty pissed if they copied my work, and then passed it off with minor “adjustments” to avoid copying it directly as “innovation”. That is not innovation, it’s theft. I hope that the people at Apple feel the same way and are very motivated to building truly innovative features in 10.6 and beyond. Waiting for Microsoft to come up with something nice takes me a bit too long. In that case, some competition that is not easily blown away with funny ads could be a good thing. Though it is not extremely hard to copy interface designs (it only took Microsoft 7 years) , the underlying processes are much harder to duplicate. And in that respect, unless I see proof otherwise, Windows will still be held hostage by its own legacy code. The time it took to throw Windows 7 to the masses can’t possibly be enough to fix the fundamental flaws of Windows. But if together with this new paintjob, they improved security somewhat, than I am already happy. They were at least in this case smart enough to release a public beta (and thus dodging the criticism of not-working software, hardware or other problems by pointing to the beta status). Probably also because the Vista fiasco left them little choice but to release something and take the spotlight of what is arguably one of the worst software developments since Windows ME. Maybe you should keep the above in mind when having another urge to heap praise where none is deserved.
January 16th, 2009 at 09:35
Don’t get me wrong. I am a die-hard Mac user (with a big love for Linux and BSD’s as well); and it will take a lot for me to change my main platform away from Mac OS X. I have personally been using a Mac (with OS X) exclusively for 5 years, before that I used Linux (since 2001). I haven’t used Windows as my main OS since 2001. OS X is another world compared to Windows, and always at the forefront of innovation and new features when it comes to both the UI and underlying software and OS code. If I refer to innovation when it comes to Windows I mostly think of it as “innovations in Windows land”, not necessarily in the whole software world or among the closest competitors.
However, I believe Microsoft catching up to Apple is just a good thing for us, the consumers. This will just make the great engineers at Apple make even better features and UI’s. Also, it makes the pain a little less worse on the occasions where you have to use a Windows machine (at work, public places and so on).
Of course, being a programmer myself I do not think it is funny when other people copy my work – or more generally when big corporations basically photocopy the innovation and great new features made by smaller companies, basically destroying their software ecosystem. When it comes to operating systems, however, the market got 2-3 main “competitors”. That being of course Apple, Microsoft, and the GNU/Linux & Open Source community. To copy good ideas, innovations and paradigms from each other is, in that situation, mostly good for the average consumer by minimizing the learning curve when taking on new OS.
I welcome Microsoft in finally making a task bar similar to OS X’s Dock (welcome! sorry, but your 7-8 years late), which I think is a superb way of managing running apps (and often used ones). However, I think it is funny when they shamelessly copy, pixel by pixel, applications and/or features. Have you seen Windows Calendar and iCal side by side? They are basically twins. And we all know who came first…iCal.
As you say, it is the “inside” that counts. Having to maintain backward/legacy compatibility is one of the things that Microsoft has chosen to live with. In addition to that you have the monolithic development process Microsoft uses which makes it quite difficult to create new features that “sticks” past alpha stage.
The underlying message I wanted to give with this blog post is that this Microsoft is moving in the correct direction. At least UI wise. I haven’t really touched the security aspects of it, and the fundamental flaws of the OS. I have just gone through some UI changes that I feel will make some changes for “the WIndows 7 users of tomorrow”. When it comes to flaws, bugs, etc. it would probably be better to write a book… Microsoft still do have a long way to go before they catch OS X (if they ever will). It’s like the game of a cat and mouse…except the cat never catch the mouse.:-)