Windows 7 PDC Build 6801 First Impressions

[Yoon]

I recently had a chance to try out the PDC 6801 build of Windows 7 and was mildly impressed with some of the new features. Besides the new visual style and some minor layout changes to Explorer and other programs, it is still quite similar to Vista. I am pleased to see that the UAC prompts are not as frequent as they were in Vista.

The Super Bar is an okay change, although I feel that the interface needs to be improved a little further. It is hard to tell whether the icon is just a quick launcher or is an active window without having the cursor over the icon; indicators are probably needed.

Another thing I noticed was how stable this build of Windows 7 was, considering that Windows 7 is not even considered 'beta' yet. I think MS is going in the right direction with Windows 7, but I feel that further changes and improvements are needed to really make Windows 7 the "must-have" OS.

[Jaegar]

Sounds nice. I may actually bother to get this one if it ends up being nice. I'm having issues with screen tearing due to a lack of vsync (can't find the setting on either os >.<) I'm guessing 7 will keep the compositor and DX 10 which both appeal to me.

[Yoon]

I've loaded up Windows 7 PDC Build 6801 on a weaker PC made with leftover parts, which are:

Athlon 64 3200+
ECS GeForce 7050-M Motherboard
1 GB DDR2 533
WD 80 GB 5400 RPM HDD

Even on a weak PC like this, it is running W7 pretty good, albeit some window animation choppiness (which is probably due to the weak integrated graphics and early graphic drivers). Not quite as fast as XP on 1 GB, but definitely faster than Vista on a build like this.

I'm getting used to the Super Bar more; it really is a nice change, but it does feel like it's been heavily inspired by Apple's Dock feature. Another nice feature is the ability to adjust the security level of UAC prompts, which really should have been included with Vista.

Here's some screenshots that I took:



Also, it appears that Windows 7 will feature a "software" DX 10 GPU mode, called WARP 10 (Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform). It's basically designed for computers that don't have a real DX 10 video card installed and also for a "GPU safe mode", just in case the main video card is having issues. Ars Technica has more info. about this new feature: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... e-gpu.html

However, WARP10 will not be replacing real GPUs anytime soon, given the benchmarks from that article.

All in all, Windows 7 is shaping up to be a really nice OS.