I think it’s ready too Kelly!
Kelly Poe is a big fan of Windows 7. So big he started a site to campaign for the release of Windows 7, the newest operating system from Microsoft. I just voted yes!
As Kelly says though, I want Microsoft to take all the necessary time it needs to make sure it is fully baked. Just don’t put it off waiting on more Vista revenue. It ain’t gonna happen!
Just a note to all of you that are saying that I don’t understand about the Beta process…I understand bug fixes and taking the time to make sure it’s ready for mass consumption. I’m simply trying to create a community of people that say they are ready for Windows 7 (when the times right…which we hope is soon) and were proud of it.
I wasn’t getting the full effect of Windows 7 on my old Athlon machine so I formulated another plan. I had a spare laptop hard drive, (sometimes it’s good to be the family tech-guy ’cause you get to keep the spare parts when you fix a pc 🙂 ), and I also have a Thermaltake BlacX eSATA Hard Drive USB Docking Station
Anyway my main machine is a Dell Inspiron 9400 with an Intel Core2 Duo T-5300 and 2gb of RAM. It’s a 17″ laptop and I normally have my desktop extended to an older KDS 19″ tube monitor. I swapped my “XP-Drive” for the spare drive, loaded in the Win7 Beta DVD and booted up. I just let the installer wipe the drive. Once again (with a clean install anyway) Windows 7 installed very smoothly.
At first I was disappointed because the graphics driver was “generic” and I couldn’t set the display to the native resolution of my screen (1400 x 900). I’m not even sure what I did, but it seems like Win7 sort of “learned” my system. After I connected my tube monitor back up and changed the desktop theme to the landscape theme included, I was able to set both displays to my desired settings.
Also, the Aero functions started working as well. When you mouse over the extreme right hand end of the task bar the windows go transparent. Move your mouse away and they come back. I also got the gesture based functionality and the window snapping. If you haven’t been keeping up with Windows 7 lately, you can catch up on Paul Thurott’s WinSuperSite.
Another impressive thing was that Windows 7 included a driver for my Canon MP600 multi-function printer/scanner that actually works better at scanning than did the original XP driver that came with the printer. No downloading necessary.
Similarly there was a driver for my IOGear eStata express card adapter. Window 7 didn’t blink when I inserted it.
I have a network attached hard drive (NAS) where I store a lot of the installer files for programs like Firefox, flash, etc. Those installers wouldn’t run from the network drive (although they will with XP), but I ended up getting them to work by copying them to the local drive.
All the software that I’ve tried works just fine. That includes Sony Vegas Movie Studio 7.0, DVD Architect Studio 4.0, Acid Music Studio 6.0, Flock, Firefox, and others. I’ve hesitated on installing Microsoft Office so far due to the activation issues. I haven’t tried the virtual tour builder software and the stitching software that I use in my business either, but I don’t expect them to be a problem.
I had some real work to do that required me to use my Office installation, so I had to swap back to my XP-Drive. The couple of days that I ran Windows 7 hooked me for sure.
My next steps are to set up my libraries and media center and be the guinea pig on my proprietary software. If all that goes well I will be ready to Release Windows Seven!
Brett
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