Windows 7 beta, get it while you still can

By on Jan 24, 2009 at 10:43 AM
Software January 24, 2009

To say Microsoft’s handling of Windows 7 to date has been nothing short of excellent would be an understatement. To paraphrase, the world wants 7. Working towards a very stable beta release and then making it available to the general public was a very smooth move – it showed the tech blogosphere, Vista’s harshest collective critic, that hope is not lost. 7 is fast, 7 is capable and most importantly, 7 is usable. The fun couldn’t last forever though and Microsoft announced last night that the public availability of the Windows 7 beta is coming to an end. Those of you who still haven’t gotten around to download the beta will have until February 10 to begin the process as no new downloads can be initiated as of that date. As the ISO is massive however, those who initiate downloads before the deadline will have until February 12 to complete them. Beta product keys will continue to be available after the deadline though, so stragglers need not worry. The key for Redmond now is to work tirelessly to ensure upcoming milestones are met and Windows 7 is rolled out on time. The world is high on 7 right now and the longer it has to wait for its next taste, the more people will have forgotten this round of praise.

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  • Skrilla

    FIRST

  • MadMike

    Skrilla: Nobody Cares that you are First. Go back to Engadget you insensitive clod.

    I have Windows 7 on a Lenovo T61p. It’s basically Vista SP2. Not super impressed to be honest.

  • 1jaxstate1

    I may replace Vista on my lappy.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Latitude: 34.713501, Longitude: -86.655502

  • Galvatron

    already using it the hardware requirmrnets are less tengint too

    1ghz porcessor
    1 gig of ram
    129mb vid card 15 hard disk space heck i can actully use my hd tuner dongle now so nice

  • Glenn P

    I may just wait till its released. I’m definately replacing vista with 7, although I haven’t had any problems with vista so far

  • Tom

    When Vista came out and everyone started crapping on it, I knew it would become the next “Windows ME”. Let’s hope 7 can have the shelf life and reliability that XP still has.

  • Gary

    Would this be compatible with Parallels on a Mac? I’m currently running xp.

  • Henry Bootjack

    I have had it up and running all week. My Vista partition has not seen any action. I have had no issues, all my peripherals and software has worked flawlessly with the exception of a couple Skype issues. I’m down with 7.

  • David Richman

    Using Win 7 on a dual boot with Vista. Am now using 7 almost exclusively. Between speed improvements and improvements in functionality (the launch bar improvements and right click recent menu) 7 is proving to be more than SP 2 for Vista.

  • Jeremiah

    Is there dual-boot with XP? I’m getting really bored with XP, although I obviously appreciate it’s [relative] stability.

  • http://www.boiseit.com Graham

    I’ve been using it on my HP 2700 Laptop for about 2 weeks now. Though this is not my main production machine (Still running XP on that one) No major problems here to report. Geting used to the new task bar functionality is a little chore but once I get used to it it will be much better in switching between programs and windows. The biggest issue I have is that I have all kinds of website compatibility issues in IE 8 but the compatibility mode solves that piece. No hardware, software or networking issues as of yet either. The network connection piece is much easier to get around as well. This has got to be one of the most solid Beta’s ever released by Microsoft, very surprising. It is running much faster than the Vista that was on this machine as well. I installed as an upgrade on this one and clean install on another test machine. Both installs were flawless but the upgrade took significantly longer.

    Nuff said.

  • Nikolaus

    Can one install Win7 as a dual-boot as easily as Ubuntu with Wubi? Seriously installing Ubuntu is so easy, if Win7 isn’t as easy then I won’t waste my time.

  • keymaker

    Windows 7 is a must have for any Windows user, however i wonder what is Apple up to with Snow Leopard cause no one has seen it yet and they already know what windows 7 is gonna look like, could it be that Apple is implementing multitouch and that’s the reason we haven’t seen new iMac’s? i think soo.

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