Shrunk one of my partitions and installed the 64-bit Windows 7 beta on my main machine. Popped in the burned install DVD, hit Shift+F10 to bring up the console and then used the DISKPART utility to SHRINK an existing partition down. The install process requires almost zero user input and in about 15 minutes you’re sitting at the desktop. So far everything seems quicker than my Windows XP install which is going on 2 years without a complete reinstall. Boot time is quicker and Windows 7 actually restarts the machine, XP developed the problem of sitting at the “Saving data…” screen until I hit the case reset.
I’ll use Windows 7 as much as I can for my everyday activities for the next couple weeks and compile my impressions and see if this is really “what Vista should have been”. I’m betting that it is and probably a little bit more.
It just seemed like an SP for Vista. I mean, really…I was hoping for something a lot more different.
I agree with padfoot240, it feels like a Mojave service pack. That doesn’t mean there aren’t improvements under the hood but so far it feels the same.
I’m curious what Media Center improvements they’ve made.
Here’s a rundown of Media Center changes:
http://blog.retrosight.com/WindowsMediaCenterInThePDCBuildOfWindows7.aspx
Some subtle changes but a few are very welcome like Turbo Scroll and being able to scroll through a show with the mouse. The also mention something about “Shared Libraries” and being able to pull Recorded TV off other machines on the network. This supposedly took a little bit of work to do in Vista. Might be an option for you, stick your tuners in a different machine and have a lightweight (SSD based?) front end under the TV.
Saw a note somewhere else that it has the TV Pack 2008 which includes H.264 support built in.
The start menu and task bar got the biggest visible makeover. Pinning items really makes the quick launch bar obsolete. UAC is also much easier to disable now. Have a Windows Explorer window open? Right click it in the task bar and see a list of frequently opened folders.
I can see my task bar getting setup to where I would hardly need the desktop and start menu. Aero Peek is cool, get a visual preview of a window and close it without actually giving it focus.
So it might be an incremental update from Vista, but the question is it good enough to get people off XP. I think it is. I’m really liking the responsiveness and my machine isn’t exactly a speed demon. Everyone hated Vista, but I’m not sure there’s much to hate about Windows 7.
Sounds cool. I like this part too:
“Videos now have parity with Recorded TV in the area of bookmarks – you can now resume previously played videos where you left off.”
I also like the new look of the seek bar. Should be cool!