Windows 7 – Beginning

I downloaded a copy of Windows 7 last night, and installed it today.  There were no hitches, no problems, it was a clean install. I installed it so I can duel boot between Vista and Win7 (Instructions here), and I have had no problems.

The first time I saw Win7’s desktop, I was shocked.  Both in a good way, and a bad way.  Good that the icons were nice and big, and the awesome pre-installed fish background.  Bad because I am used to Vista’s tiny taskbar,  Win7’s taskbar is about twice as large.  After a bit of browsing on the internet, I find nothing wrong with this, but it actually helps.  There is a few things new with the taskbar, besides the size.  On the far left there is a box.  If you press the box, it shows the desktop, press it again, it brings back your windows.  The same function as Windows Key + D, in past versions of Windows.   This is just one of the many new features in Win7.

Another feature of the taskbar, is the new way to see your open applications.  Instead of show the name of the application, it show the icon,and when you click it, it opens the application.  This not only saves space, but it is easier to use.   If you are using Internet Explorer, and have tabs open, you can click on the IE  icon in the taskbar,  and it will pop up a little window on top, and lets you chose which tab you want to open.  One of the other new features is “Documents Library”,  Which is an easier way to see your documents.

From the last 3 hours of using Windows 7, I have been astonded.  There have been no crashes, or problems.  I am going to get Windows 7 as soon as it comes out.  And if you are using the beta, do not forget to send feedback, the main reason Microsoft is giving out the beta.