Windows 7

Those of you who are interested in computing developments have probably been following the news about the progress of Windows 7, Microsoft's soon-to-arrive replacement for Vista.

The extent of the failure of the latter may be judged by the fact that 7 will probably arrive late this year - less than three years after the release of Vista whilst the very successful XP is still going strong after eight years!

Microsoft has offered a beta version of 7 as a free download, both in the 32- and 64-bit versions; you can find the download here.  I have been trying them out.  Despite the fact that the new operating system is in beta, I have had no trouble and so far it seems that the claims of improved performance are fully justified.  I installed it on a separate partition as a "clean install" but the option of an upgrade installation which is reversible is also offered.  Of course certain programs have not yet been modified to work with 7, but some providers, Skype for instance, have been quick off the mark to offer compatible versions of the software.  And in 7 one is directed automatically to a site to download the appropriate software.  The other good news is that one does not need a supercomputer to run 7 (as one does with Vista) -1 gigabyte of RAM is plenty.

Here is a short video review (by Cnet) of 7 which should give you an idea of how the OS works.

The free beta download version of 7 unfortunately expires in August; I hope that Microsoft will not be charging the earth for the new OS - I for one would be happy to use it - at least based on my experience so far.

Until the next time