Every now and then, I get the unique opportunity to try something new. Whether it's a new application or operating system, or something less nerdy such as a new food or drink. This story happens to be about Windows 7. I was able to get a beta copy of the software and quickly installed it onto a virtual machine running on my laptop.
Below is a brief rundown of what this thing looks like and how it runs, plus a short review on my experiences with it.
Attachment 1: Starting Windows - At least they put the graphic back, it didn't feel right to have so much black space available.
Attachment 2: Login Screen - new background, but same concept
Attachment 3: The new desktop. Notice the modified taskbar at the bottom. This includes something similar to a quicklaunch / Apple dock.
Attachment 4: Internet Explorer 8. For those that haven't messed with IE8, go ahead and install it somewhere. It's not too bad of software (i.e. I haven't found any obvious bugs, yet) and they've thrown in some new features such as a compatibility mode, a developer mode, and a privacy mode.
Windows Media Player has also come with a single song player that doesn't load the full bloated application. Instead, its a stripped down player that just does what you need it to.
Microsoft has also added the ability to burn ISO images straight to CD. This is one of my favorite new features because I use it so much and would rather not have to install a separate program just to get it down.
Windows 7 also includes a little Black Box recorder for end users to show developers and IT personnel exactly what they were doing when the program died. It records the information of your keyboard and mouse movements and saves it all in a compressed file.
Finally, for now, Windows 7 can make a special recovery disk for you in those situations in which you just can't boot up. Just type in 'system repair disc' in the Start Menu search bar and you'll be lead to where you can create this.
