Windows 7 Beta 1 In January?

According to an article on Gizmodo, Windows 7 Beta 1 may be available to MSDN developers and the like around January 13th.

While this is not necessarily a release candidate, it definitely shows progress towards a final ship date, hopefully in Q4 of 2009.

Does anyone plan on tempting fate with the new Beta release of Windows 7?

Windows 7 Microsoft Pages

Upon some snooping around today, I came upon the official Microsoft Windows 7 page(s). The pages are not that much, except they offer some low level information about the upcoming OS. 

The site also gives links to specific information for developers, enterprises and the "press." I also found the "Windows 7 Team Blog." This blog has some interesting tid bits about Windows 7 including differences between it and Vista / XP, new features and product development phase updates.

The blog does talk about the unveiling of Windows 7 at this years PDC in LA. Some quotes from people who were given pre-Beta loaded machines for demos are available there as well, if you wanna get some inside opinions on it as it is so far.

Windows 7 Taskbar Improvements

Gizmodo has a video of the new Windows 7 Task bar in action. It looks to be impressive and neat. 

I am still a a little confused as to how this is really different from XP or Vista's task bar. I mean, the icons are larger, but you still can drag and drop to it. It doesn't seem to be that different to me.

Maybe I am missing something here. I must say that I love the wallpaper on the PC. It gives one the underwater feeling.

Why You Should Be Excited About Windows 7 (Unless You Use A Mac)

Gizmodo has an excellent article on some of the improvements for Windows 7 over Vista. Personally, I never had much of a problem with Vista. I know few people who did, actually. I do admit that there has to be some truth to the pummeling it has taken over the past few years, or Microsoft would have absolutely denounced them long ago. From the looks of this article, they won't have to when 7  is released.

The article goes into some of the major improvements, which I will outline generally (I didn't do the research, I can't take the credit!)

• Applications running on Vista should run on Windows 7.
• Systems running Vista will see an improvement in speed.
• Notebooks should get better battery life.
• Windows 7 will be more reliable from the gate.

Having said all that, one must take into consideration how these things will be accomplished. Some of the new features and improvements outlined in the article are:

• Windows 7 window memory manager
• Application Crash Resiliency
• Problems Step Recorder
• "Sandboxed" device drivers
• All hardware updates via Windows Update
• Better background management
• battery efficiency reporting.

It sounds like Windows 7 will be what Microsoft wanted Vista to be. Hopefully, it will be and more. My big question is...will Microsoft make the upgrade cheap to get people away from Vista?

Windows 7 on a Eee?

According to an article on Gizmodo, it seems that in the future, Asus Eee's will be running Windows 7.

That is awesome news, if Windows 7 is as good as it is being made out to be. I still think Vista Basic would be a good fit for netbooks, but that is just my humble opinion.

Touchscreen Eee PC Due Early 2009, Will Run Windows 7 Later Says Asus CEO

Since the Asus Eee has been known to run several OS's ranging from Linux distro to full blown Windows XP, it may not come as a surprise that one day they will run Windows 7.

Asus does have a good feel for the market of netbooks and disconnected devices, such as gaming and multimedia consoles, and they are the market leader with sub-notebooks.

But why Windows 7? Why not Mac OSX or Windows Vista Basic?

Windows 7 will simply be a better version of Vista, with some new features. Why start there? Isn't there some form of happy medium where an OS can be an OS? I find it hard to believe that any version of Windows post XP will be smaller than 4 GB of physical hard disk space.

So why use it? Why can't the Linux distro be tweaked and made very "Windows like?" Just one Eee fanboys opinion.

Windows 7 To Be Next OS, Not Just a Code Name

The next version of Windows will simply be called...Windows 7. This, according to an article on Gizmodo's website, was done for simplicities sake.

"The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity. Over the years, we have taken different approaches to naming Windows. We've used version numbers like Windows 3.11, or dates like Windows 98, or "aspirational" monikers like Windows XP or Windows Vista. And since we do not ship new versions of Windows every year, using a date did not make sense. Likewise, coming up with an all-new "aspirational" name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows"

Whats in a name anyways? 

AMD + DirectX 11

According to Gizmodo, it seems that AMD is expecting DirectX compatible GPU's to be available in 2009.

If your in to obvious stuff, it also looks like they're expecting Windows 7 in 2009 too...[PIC]

Windows 7: Updated[Micorosft News]

Although this is not a huge chunk of new or earth shattering news, it is still interesting and somewhat informative.

According to a post on Gizmodo, it seems that Windows 7 will look and feel a lot like Windows Vista. I am not sure if that is a bad thing, or if it is supposed to scare off the anti-vista crowd.

The article also states that Windows 7 Beta will be out around December, gearing for a 2009 release. 

Windows 7 Pics: Watch Out Vista Haters

On Gizmodo's site, they have an article and pics of what will be the next OS by Microsoft...Windows 7. While there is not a whole lot of info out there about the OS, it seems it will include "multi-touch" technology.

Hopefully this will be a more refined and highly tuned Vista based OS to stifle the Vista haters.