Conscript

Here are a few good previews of an early build.
http://neowin.net/news/live/08/10/28...e-windows-7-ui

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_preview.asp Part1

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_preview_02.asp Part2

__________________
"Golden" Rule as medic, Attach to good fellows and heal nearby losers when needbe.
My name will blaze across the stars long after your petty treacheries have been forgotten.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
"What a horrible night to have a curse."
They fight like devils! They will die like sinners!
He is what his life has made him.

jepzilla

I have some concern about the changes to the task bar, specifically how they're making it into sort of a Dock, and I'm in the camp that thinks docks are a bad user interface. Microsoft's user interfaces have never been the prettiest, but I've always found them the most productive; and since user interface elements are always some of the last features that Microsoft finalizes, I'll withhold judgement until we see a feature complete beta and everything is tweaked and finalized.

Looks like they're cleaning up my biggest complaint about Vista: the insane control panel.

I hope they push WPF more.

jepzilla

Ooh, native support for VHDs. I'm probably going to replace my user directory with a mounted VHD. In fact, it would be awesome if it would do that by default. Being able to backup my stuff by just copying a single VHD to an external hard drive would be fantastic.

Meers007

I must say I like the new UI. I like the changes that they implemented in Vista when they created it (roll over the window name, get a preview, condense the taskbar, etc.) and I like the desktop preview and such and the windows being glass and going transparent.

One of the things I found interesting here was that you can see your most recent files. I'm not sure what the person that was doing the demonstration was doing though:

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jepzilla

So far they've been demonstrating the changes in the shell, which are extremely slick (Aero Peek anybody?), but there have been a few tidbits about lower-level changes too. The coolest things I've heard so far:

1. Complete install in 15 minutes.

2. Hardware requirements much lower than Vista, runs well on netbooks.

3. For laptops, it completely shuts down hardware that's not being used and changes things like disk access patterns to better conserve energy. It also generates a report telling you what the most power hungry hardware and software you're using, to help lengthen your battery life.

4. They're building a centralised repository of all drivers into Windows Update, to entirely eliminate the need for driver disks.

5. The kernel can analyze how some buggy programs are crashing, and change the way it runs them in the future to minimize and prevent future crashes.

What I find interesting is they aren't announcing any features which aren't complete and functioning, and best estimates say that release is a year away, so what's still cooking? Windows 7 sounds like it could be another Windows 95, blowing all competition out of the water.

Dakin

I think I like everything other than 4 and 5. I can see these 2 items getting seriously screwed. I have already seen where updates have chewed a computer performance or caused to crash.
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LOL... this is a repeat of the whole Win ME... I mean we made Windows XP. They put a test version out in the public for us to get pissed about and make money off us and then finally finish the real OS and make it available for everyone to use.

My other thoughts are that I hate vista... its just f-ugly. Well its not as ugly as XP though. 98 was a awesome... I mean I want to seriously see good themeing options with out having a third party piece of software. And some hardware monitoring tools that work.

__________________
"Dakin when you visit some one you often bring your army" -- Snengod2
"You think the gods would allow me to die by your feeble blade?" -- Beowolf

jepzilla

Uh, ME and XP have nothing to do with each other. XP is based on 2K and the NT line, ME is based on the 9x line. Completely different codebases.

Dakin

If anyone wants it:

Microsoft has the beta out:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/e.../dd353205.aspx

Read about more stuff here:
http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=1116187

__________________
"Dakin when you visit some one you often bring your army" -- Snengod2
"You think the gods would allow me to die by your feeble blade?" -- Beowolf

Sirusblk

Hey if this doesn't require a 256 mb increase in RAM for all programs over XP then I'm all for it.

I don't like the dock either, it seems like they're ripping it from Apple's GUI only it's not even half as nice.

Conscript

Well just got it installed right now and have to say im impressed. I like the new UI and it's features. You can change the taskbar to be a mix of the old and new. More exploring to do.

__________________
"Golden" Rule as medic, Attach to good fellows and heal nearby losers when needbe.
My name will blaze across the stars long after your petty treacheries have been forgotten.
There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt.
"What a horrible night to have a curse."
They fight like devils! They will die like sinners!
He is what his life has made him.