Windows.7.Beta

I've just managed to installed Window 7 Beta (x64) today. I was already running the M3 build for about a month and so, I guessed it is only logical to upgrade to the beta. (I will spare the screenshots here since I think it is already all over the Internet. If you have not been keeping up with the development of Windows lately, here are some screenshots).

I quite like the new boot up screen that shows a glowing Windows icon but I really hated the fish wallpaper. I wish they give me back the original blue wallpaper from M3. All the important drivers for my Lenovo T61p installed properly without any problems. NVidia also provided an early x64 Quadro FX 570M driver for it, so running Aero is not a problem.

I must say that the OS seems pretty stable at this stage but that's of course I have not load in the development tools and SQL Server. Maybe it is too early to tell. Performance wise is better than Vista. The UI is more polished now but I find it hard to get use to because there seems to be too many specialized dialogs to perform a single action. I still prefer the good old days where I can do almost everything in one dialog box.

Sidebar is gone but psychologically I still make myself feel that it is there by arranging my gadgets on the right hand side of the screen. The taskbar is somewhat different but still has its roots to the good old taskbar. There is a handy jump list from the Start menu.

Windows Explorer is more polished now but I dislike the Favorites folder being displayed all the time. I would like the left pane to be solely reserved for my folder tree. Wordpad and Paint now, have Ribbon interface and the Calculator has just gotten more useful with the various modes.

To conserve power, the display will be automatically dimmed (like handphones) when we don't use the PC for a while. For Powershell scripting , there is also an Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) which looks kinda neat.

That's all I have discovered so far. Still have not tried my favourite Speech Recognition feature yet.