The Windows 7 beta looks likely to be making an appearance soon – with Microsoft updating its official Windows 7 site with a download link.
Although the download link currently goes to a 'page not found' page – it seems likely that the changes to the site herald the long-awaited beta version of Vista's successor.
Windows 7 is a massive event for Microsoft – which is finding itself put under increasing pressure to deliver a knock-out OS.
Windows Vista and its bad press in particular have prompted some to question whether the traditional OS is the future for computing, and even Microsoft is beginning to focus more heavily on the 'cloud'.
Good drivers?
However, Windows 7 could wrest back some control for Microsoft if it can avoid Vista's early driver difficulties, work better on low-memory systems and still provide the enhanced security of its predecessor. The pre-beta version of Windows 7, which was distributed at Microsoft's recent Professional Developers Conference, suggests that these areas have been successfully addressed.
The arrival of Windows 7 is not expected until late 2009, with the majority of pundits betting on an early 2010 arrival.
However, the software has been shown off over the past few months, and the arrival of a public beta will spark massive interest from across the globe.
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sotthomas
January 27th 2010
2. Given that this is beta1, i'd expect to see some changes to the overall look of things. However I doubt the functionality will change much, so it'll most likely look like a polished and expanded version of what you see now. It's an evolved taskbar/startmenu, I don't think you'll see a massive change to the UI until that UI concept has been superseded by something completely new.
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paranoid.one
December 19th 2008
1. I'm interested, but still skeptical. The most frustrating part of the Vista introduction (for me, anyway) was that they stopped selling XP, essentially requiring you to get Vista on anything new. If they repeat that with 7, I'm heading straight to the Apple store.
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