First look at Windows 7 beta 1 (build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400) | Hacker News Reader

First look at Windows 7 beta 1 (build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400)

blogs.zdnet.com

7 pointsShamiq8 comments

I'm not sure how many details reviewers are allowed to mention, but that's usually what I'm interested in. Vague comments about stability or performance are extremely dependent on what you're doing (which the article doesn't say much about), and therefore aren't really saying anything.

A more useful review would be something like: pick 5 tasks, remind people how horrible and awkward they were to accomplish in XP, and then show how Windows 7's new features make those tasks much easier to complete. (I can probably find more like 50 tasks that are awkward in other versions of Windows, so finding a small list shouldn't be hard.) If Windows 7 hasn't changed at least enough to make 5 common tasks easier to do, then I really don't care about how snappy, stable or pretty it seems to be.

The new UI looks a lot like KDE...

It still has classic Windows weirdness to it, like shutting a computer down by clicking a button that says "start".

You don't click any button that says start. You click one the Windows logo, then the universal power sign. I can't think of anything more logical than that.

Was that a kneejerk "say something bad about Windows" reflex?

My only frustration with 'shut down', 'log off' and 'lock screen' in vista was the lack of confirmation dialogue. All to often I would lock it rather than logging it out.

And clicking the windows sign and then shut down is awfully like clicking an apple sign and then clicking shut down. Quite a nice standard really.

Yes, that does suck. I've slept my laptop a few times too.

Yeah! the moment I saw the UI, this was the first thing that occurred to me. The UI looks a lot uncluttered in the beginning.

But what's still weird is this... Take a look at the pic. http://content.zdnet.com/2346-12554_22-256914-5.html The entire UI after logging in has a different title bar and windowing theme . But why does that "Install windows" thing still sport the old Win98 windowing theme - the old dark blue fade?

And the desktop after login. Looks neat and less uncluttered. Yeah borrowed from KDE it seems :)

Again http://content.zdnet.com/2347-12554_22-256914-256960.html?se... I got damn confused here. Look at the title bar and toolbars of Paint and Wordpad. They look crowded like as if they are waiting with a "Hey! click me first" sign board. The old WinXP alignment of toolbars was better. As a WinXP and Linux user, I feel the toolbars very confusing and it sounds heavy & confusing.

And top-bottom fading of the windowing theme borrowed from Mac? Coz I've seen such a design in Safari and same with Mac

But overall, the UI LOOKS NEAT with light shades.

P.S:- @henning: You can understand it like this "start -> shutdown" as in "begin to shutdown". So that isn't a big problem anyway since start is now the windows logo :)

It was leaked via a torrent. Article detailing that found here:

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/12/27/windows-7-beta-iso-l...

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