ASP.NET Programmer

Windows 7 Beta Online: Free Download

Around January, Microsoft put the latest build of Windows 7 release candidate online. It was a free download, and they’d give you an activation code that would expire in 6 months to a year. All this was an effort to recruit developers and tech professionals to assist them in their beta testing efforts. As of February, you could no longer download the software yet you could still get activation codes. Seems a little ass backwards to me, but this is Microsoft we are talking about. This morning Microsoft opened back up download of Windows 7 with their final release candidate. Get Windows 7 RC here.

I managed to get a copy to test out off the torrents a couple months ago, and I have to say I’m impressed. This is coming from a guy that was so fed up with Vista that I rolled back to XP Pro even in the face of numerous headaches and hassles. Here’s what I’ve experienced so far with Windows 7:

? The install was amazingly fast. I do have a fairly new computer, but I’ve never had an install take less than an hour from start to finish. Windows 7 was up-and-running in 30 minutes.

? The computer was ready to use right at startup. All the drivers were installed for everything — graphics, sound even printer. I’ve never in my wildest imagination thought of Windows hooking up the printer, but they did. Very cool and saved lots of time of tracking down device drivers.

? After a month, I haven’t run into any compatibility issues with programs I’m running. Every once in awhile a program will trigger the “this program may not work properly” message like Adobe Acrobat, but it seems to truck along fine.

? The look-and-feel of Windows 7 reminds me a lot of Vista without those backend headaches that consistently plagued Microsoft’s ugly step-child.

? Its incredibly stable for a release candidate. I’ve had it running for the past 3 weeks and just rebooted it because general memory leaks were causing the box to run sluggish. I have yet to see a blue screen, a system crash or anything running haywire.

? It has a nice new features set. If you are a Windows developer, IIS7 is a nice built from the ground update to IIS. I’m still winding my way through the features of IIS7. Many more features to Win7 that I’m just to lazy to get into. A few can be checked out here.

In general, Windows 7 is a great OS. After being happy as a clam on XP, they lost a lot of luster in my eyes after the Vista debacle, but they’ve clearly learned from their mistakes with Windows 7. Now for my obligatory disclaimer on loading Windows 7. If you aren’t tech savvy, just wait until the final build comes out for the public. Release candidates can be buggy and incompatible with certain softwares. If you know what you are doing, load it up and have fun playing in Microsoft’s new sandbox.