Chris Retlich recently encouraged me to download VirtualBox which allows you to run a separate OS simultaneously with your default OS. I then decided to install Windows 7 beta which I had downloaded a few weeks earlier but did nothing with.
I already have Windows Vista and despite all the rumblings about it I haven't minded Vista all that much. I think it's more public perception than actual quality of Vista that is the problem. I wasn't expecting Windows 7 to be much of an improvement due to the fact that it's being released so quickly after Vista was released. The installation of Windows 7 went very quick and required very little input from me. When the OS booted the first thing I noticed was, "gee the taskbar looks different". One of the major changed Microsoft has made is the way the taskbar works. It now acts like a mix of the old versions of Windows and Mac OSX (or more like a glorified version of Nextstep which is what OSX is.) What this means is there is no longer a quick launch toolbar. What we have now is icons such as IE8 sitting in the taskbar automatically and when clicked, are the icon that you use to switch back to IE8.
Another useful thing in Windows 7 is the way you can interact with windowed programs. You can now drags windows to the top, left, or right of the screen and they will automatically resize in different ways. If you drag the window to the top of the screen it will automatically maximize. If you drag it to the left of the screen it will automatically consume the left half of the screen.
Another change is gadgets can now be undocked and moved around the screen freely rather than be stuck on the side. This was one of my biggest complaints about them in Vista and has been fixed. There also appears to be a whole slew of things in Windows 7 related to multi-touch which gives users with the proper hardward the ability to use their fingers/hands to manipulate Windows without a mouse.
Finally, Windows 7 has a better manager for UAC and also a better manager for all those annoying balloon tips that popup in the taskbar area.
Another feature I just recently discovered, is if you right click on a file, you're given the option to "recover previous version" which appears to be a version control feature that uses Windows Backup. It will be interesting to see how well this feature works.
Also another extremely needed feature in Windows is a screen shot generating tool. Windows 7 FINALLY has a tool that allows you to grab various regions of the screen and to save as an image file. Lets hope this will mean I won't have to waste my time at work generating screen shots for co-workers anymore.
So what sucks about Windows 7? My only complaint is that since they got rid of the quick launch toolbar, there is no longer an easy way to "show the desktop". They did create a really small button in the bottom left of the screen near the clock to accomplish this, but since I have such a large monitor it's too much mouse moving to quickly access it. I also am very displeased with Internet Explorer 8's rendering capabilities as it appears it is creating new rendering bugs that don't exist in IE6 or IE7 and also IE8's failure to emulate the rendering of IE7 and IE6 in capability mode. If IE8 is officially released as it is now, it will a worse browser than IE6 is.
I give Windows 7 a 9/10.
