Ayan's Blog

I need a new laptop. But what should I get? Maybe I should look around for a laptop with Vista Business with downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional? How about Linux? No, I can’t spend that kind of time getting it to work with all the software I use. Maybe I could get a second job and buy a Mac? No, wait. There are no jobs available.

Worry not. Windows 7 Beta is here. Of course, it will only run through August, but something is better than nothing. You can always change the system clock to keep it running beyond that date. Yes, it has bugs. But, it’s still better than Vista. Come to think of it, my trusty old Windows 3.1 was better than Vista. Yes, you can run Windows 7 perfectly on your current hardware. You don’t need to buy a new Quad core machine for it.

Do not install the Beta version on your primary machine. It’s good, but any Beta version is always unstable and has bugs. That’s why it is a Beta version. I used a spare hard drive to test this OS. If you do not have a spare drive, please back up all your data and keep a copy of your current OS handy before installing this OS.

I tested Windows 7 on a Toshiba Satellite laptop with a 2 Ghz Pentium Dual Core processor and 2 GB RAM.

Nice uncluttered appearance

Installation:
Installation took about an hour and was up and running with the greatest of ease. It automatically found all drivers needed for the laptop and installed them without any prompting. I installed both Google chrome and Firefox immediately without any issues.

Desktop:
We have all experienced the memory hogging issues of Vista. Windows 7 booted up quick and did not seem to be memory intensive. It is stated to be launched for netbooks as well. Aesthetically, it seems similar to Vista, albeit with larger icons. Also, the taskbar is better organized. For example, running the mouse pointer over the IE icon shows full images on all open IE tabs. This OS is definitely much faster than Vista. It felt extremely responsive and had a good old Windows XP, but better, feel to it.

Homegroups: This brings about a new and much better way for home networking. All your computers, portable devices, mp3 players are shown in your network. This is certainly not new, but the difference is the way the process has been simplified and able to accomodate videos, pictures, albums and files. Printer sharing was also remarkably easy.

UAC (User Account Control):
The UAC which is the main irritant in Vista has been toned down in Windows 7. With all the software that I installed, I was disrupted by the UAC only once. The UAC can be configured to different levels as per your individual choice.

Issues:
After a few hours, it stopped recognizing the headphone socket and would play sounds through the internal speakers only. Changing settings and troubleshooting did not help.

Conclusion:
Hopefully, when the final version of this OS comes out, it will be comparable to the Beta with lesser bugs. Windows 7 is what Microsoft envisioned when they launched Vista. With bug fixes, Windows 7 should be a pretty formidable opponent to both Apple and Linux.