Windows 7!

After some hitches with the Microsoft servers I finally got access to the new Windows 7 BETA programme.

Sign up was pretty easy, just shoved in my Live ID, then tell Microsoft why I wanted the BETA, after that a key was displayed on screen (it would have been nicer for them to email it to you so you had a copy) along with ISO download links.

I opted for the 32Bit version, I already have Windows XP on the iMac and have everything setup the way I like it so didn’t want to touch that, however the MacBook dosn’t like Windows XP and the touchpad is totally erratic, however since last trying Bootcamp on the MacBook, Apple have released a touchpad update for XP/Vista.

I decided to give Windows 7 a go on the MacBook, if the worst came to the worst I could always delete the partition easily anyway. I started by running the Bootcamp assistant under OS X, this is a simple process and only asks one question which is “How big do you want the Windows partition to be?”, I opted for 80GB as I didn’t know if Windows 7 had grown larger than Vista and wanted plenty of breathing space. Partitioning took about 2 minutes and once I had burnt the ISO downloaded from Microsoft with Toast we were ready to go.

The MacBook restarted and the installation went fine, I forgot to write down the product key so when the setup asked for it I simply clicked the option to enter it later, this was fine and the installation continued. Once installed I got the same first screen as Vista asking for my username and password along with the name for the computer.

With all this entered, you then move onto choosing a user account picture and a desktop wallpaper, however after these in Vista you are finished but in Windows 7 it loads up a screen that shows all available wireless networks allowing you to join them, this has been a part of the OS X welcome process for ages however it’s a welcome addition to Windows 7, nice little touches like these can make or break an OS.

Next up was drivers, I was going to go for the hard option and chase up all the components individually with manufacturors to see if they had BETA drivers available, however when push came to shove I could not be bothered. I shoved in my OS X Install DVD and this lauched the Bootcamp drivers isntaller, once these had installed and I had rebooted the MacBook everything seemed to work and Aero was enabled. However this was the old version of Bootcamp drivers (2.0) and there has since been an update (2.1) I downloaded and installed them however these do NOT seem to support Windows 7 and the Bootcamp assistant that lives in the taskbar didn’t launch at start up anymore, this was a bad thing as it controlled the advanced features of the touchpad and the illuminated keyboard not to mention all the function buttons such as brightness and volume.

I had to uninstall all the drivers and roll back to 2.0 and everything was fine again so if you are running Windows 7 don’t install the 2.1 update. I then installed the touchpad update from Apple and this was fine and DID improve the touchpad. Clicking, right clicking and scrolling is now possible and accidental movment has been minimised.

Now onto Windows 7 itself, it’s not that much different from Vista to be honest however there is a definate difference in speed with Windows 7 feeling much snappier than Vista, however this is expected as it’s running on a high end Dual Core processor with 4GB of RAM, overall my preformance score was 3 with the HDD being the lowest which is dissapointing.

The interface is much cleaner than Vista aswell with all the blacks removed and replaced with nice clear glass like it was supposed to be, the sidebar appears to have been removed aswell with gadgets now just clipping onto the side of screen, kinda like they did with sidebar but without the sidebar.

The taskbar is also improved, you now get little icons when programms are open instead of the icon and the full program name, this is cleaner and looks better, also instead of grouping or having lots of the same program there only ever is one, when you roll over it a browser appears allowing you to see all the windows that are open within that program, this is very productive and helps keep things organised.

Overall the stabillity has been good aswell, I installed all the programs I usually would under XP or Vista and have no issues yet. Everything installs and works as expected. For a BETA OS Windows 7 is very complete so to speak and far out preforms Vista’s SP1 attempt let alone a BETA.