I finally got to trying out the beta, and it is awesome. The new taskbar is great, speed is fantastic, the overall look is sleek but not trying too hard. The windows sidebar is gone, replaced by gadgets you can place anywhere you want. Taskbar search seems much faster, launcing applications is at least as responsive as XP, user account control (the annoying 'Are you sure' box), is MUCH less intrusive.

I'm running this in a virtual machine using Sun's free VirtualBox software, and the performance even in a virtual machine running on top of XP with just 1GB of RAM allocated to it is surprisingly snappy. At boot, the OS only uses about 400MB of the available RAM. I am running the virtual machine off a USB 2.0 external 2.5" hard drive, boot time is less than a minute even on this slower disk (it would be concievable that boot time would be 20 seconds or so on a faster hard disk with the OS running native instead of as a virtual machine).

Every so often, MS releases a crappy OS, then follows up with a winner. Vista is like Windows ME (rushed, slow, everybody hates it), and Windows 7 is like XP- In my opinion, they are about to redeem themselves.

I would have agreed if they had ditched the dumb Semi-Basic, Basic, Premium, Semi Ultimate, Ultimate, and Professional version scheme.

Even though Apple releases a new updated OS every year for $100, atleast every version is the same.

And, 7 comes with xp!

I think it will be a worthy upgrade

I CAN'T WAIT FOR IT TO BE RELEASED! I feel like kicking my Vista CD's out the window, but I need them everytime my PC crashes. :(

Apple doesn't have to cater for the same range of people.

I am hyped for windows 7. I am one of the few who actually like Vista.

You could always you know......choose the one you want.=P

I dont know how the hell options are a problem.

OT: Sounds good. I was too late to get into a Win7 beta.=/

I have to settle for a Win7 visual style for now.=P

Hmm, I just tried to d/load the BETA of the MS site, but they've taken it down. I've reverted to downloading a virtual machine.

I'll post my opinions when it's done. However, one must admit, I tend to love new things simply because they're new (like Vista, I had to get that simply because I didn't want to be stuck with XP anymore) I pirated Vista at launch, but partook in the purchase of a retail copy (ultimate 64bit) at the end of that year, I assume that I'll do the same with this, as well.

I also ran into the same problem, but was able to find the beta on BitTorrent and use the Windows 7 Beta product key I had registered for earlier.

I have the beta build ~7000 (with updates to current). It works but had some glitches that seem to have been fixed. As far as a User Interface, I like the taskbar, but I don't like the start menu. I prefer the classic start menu from XP (but that is just me).

Works well over all, and it plays games (UT2004).