Windows 7 Public Beta First Impressions
Well, two days ago I decided to download and install Windows 7 on my primary desktop at home. Since then, I’ve had a pretty good experience, so I figured I’d run down a brief overview thus far.
Booting to Install
After burning the .iso to DVD for the Windows 7 Public Beta x64 edition, I popped it back in and rebooted. When the installer loaded, I was presented with a surprisingly pretty Windows loading logo. Instead of the ball-looking Vista logo, I see four swirling balls come together in a mini explosion. The resulting set of colours provide a pulsating logo backdrop.
Yeah, I know, who cares that there were some swirly ball things and a pulsing backdrop, right? Well, as small a thing as it may be, it looked REALLY nice. It almost made me feel like I was using a PC designed by Tony Stark. Maybe Microsoft is learning to have some class these days.
Once the installer loaded, it looked incredibly familiar. Well, it was essentially the same (looking) installer that Vista uses. In fact, when I clicked the link to things to know before installing, it popped up with the Vista install help guide. No really, I’ll upload a picture of it later. Aside from that, however, the install went incredibly smooth. Could have been a bit faster, but I’m impatient.
First Boot
On first boot, I must say I was a little confused. I sat there, looking at the desktop thinking “There’s something out of place here…” After a minute I realized what it was; Windows 7 automatically detected both of my displays and set up an extended desktop at native resolution on both displays. Here I am, used to Windows XP loading for the first time at 640×480 on my primary display only.
I should also note that the default wallpaper is a beta fish. I don’t know if I should sigh for them using a lame joke, or snicker because it’s actually kind of cute.
I then set upon my usual after-install task to grab Firefox, and start collecting drivers. I clicked on that plastic-looking “e” in the new-improved (aka bigger) quicklaunch tray, and noticed that I was prompted for first-run settings of Internet Explorer 8. That’s neat. www.getfirefox.com
So with Firefox installed and in the quicklaunch tray, I decide to check what drivers I need to install, so I can figure out what order to do it in. As I open the Device Manager, I notice that there is only one device without a driver. My chipset, ethernet, USB card reader, everything else seems to be installed. Even my video card was displayed as being a Microsoft driver for Nvidia. Only my MSI wifi card didn’t have a driver. Impressive! I figured then that I just needed to grab the latest Nvidia so I’ll be ready to try out some games!
I hopped over to Nvidia’s download center, and saw that they had Windows 7 listed as an OS option. Cool, I selected it. I’m presented with a message from Nvidia that they do not have downloads for their drivers under Windows 7, as the drivers are held in the Windows Update repository. That sounds like a rather…interesting…idea. So I close Firefox and open up Windows Update. I’m told that there’s a new driver in Windows Update for my video card, as well as for my ethernet adapters, and my wifi card.
Running through Windows Update was about as easy as in Vista and XP, but with one nice feature: when I finished installing the video driver, I didn’t need to reboot! FINALLY MICROSOFT!
And with that, in all of 10 minutes, I had Firefox installed and all my drivers installed and up to date. This is the experience I’ve been hoping for since my first Windows re-install. In less than an hour, I went from start of install, to installed and ready to be used to full potential, with no headaches. Though somehow, the ease does feel a bit familiar.
Conclusions
For my first impressions, it seems pretty solid. While it looks like they haven’t touched the installer much, it does work just fine, and gets you where you need to go. With some tricks pulled from the Linux and Macitosh sleeves, Microsoft seems to have given their users a simple install and first-boot experience that works.
I must admit, I’m impressed.
Stay tuned for the next post, with my experiences in getting my favorite software and games running in the Windows 7 Public Beta!
- John / @johnsgunn
One Response to “Windows 7 Public Beta First Impressions”
By Doug Estey on Jan 13, 2009
7 looks promising from the get go. Hopefully Microsoft will be able to pull of the execution of this release in a much sloppier fashion than that of Vista. I’ve seen a lot of people already raving about 7 in the same way that they raved about the early Longhorn builds, and have so far been mildly impressed by it… but a lot of these new features just make sense.
As for the GUI, it has most definitely benefited from Apple’s design principles. Under the hood, it looks like Microsoft might be adopting a package manager of sorts… at least for drivers. This would definitely not be a bad thing.
Better driver support, improved window management, and increased stability are all things that Vista should have had in the first place. Is 7 too little too late? I’m not sure yet. At least it’s a step forward.