Windows 7 pre beta launched ! Let's Download it !

So what is Windows 7?

It's the next version of Windows for PCs, and it's the result of working hand-in-hand with our partners and with people who use Windows in the real world every day. We're paying particular attention to the things they're telling us are important to them and will make their PCs work the way they want them to—things like enhanced reliability, responsiveness, and faster boot and shut-down. We're also trying to make their everyday tasks easier, like connecting and syncing devices, browsing the web, and managing a home network.

Of course, we're also working on new capabilities, so people will be able to do things with Windows 7 that were difficult (or perhaps impossible) to do with PCs before. Finally, we're working hard to ensure that Windows 7 will run on any PC and work with any program that works today with Windows Vista, so upgrading from Windows Vista will be easy.

We hope this helps you find what you're looking for.

Download - (torrent file)

Windows Media Player 12's surprising new features

Though many previously bundled applets now will ship separately to Windows 7, Windows Media Player remains part of the core OS. Windows 7 will ship with Windows Media Player 12, which includes some surprising new features.

The UI itself is brighter and lighter than WMP11. Some buttons and toolbar items have been moved around, but the experience should be pretty familiar to users of version 11. What does represent a big change is the removal of the Now Playing button, which in WMP11 switches to a view showing the current playlist.

This is because WMP12 completely separates library management from what's currently playing, with two distinct player modes; Now Playing view, and Library view. Library view contains all the library manipulation features that should be familiar from WMP11. Now Playing view contains the current playlist, visualizations, and videos.

Library view


Now Playing view with a video


Video playback controls


Now Playing playlist


Now playing visualizations

There's also a new taskbar miniviewer that works with the new Windows 7 taskbar, and WMP12 includes support for Jump Lists.

Taskbar Mini viewer


WMP's Jump List includes WMP-specific actions

Aside from the split between Library and Now Playing, the basic operation of WMP12 is the same as in version 11. There are plenty of small refinements, like automatic previewing (hovering on any song plays a 15-second preview of the song), and the Library view now shows all media types in the tree simultaneously (WMP11 can show audio or video or TV or Pictures; now they're all on display).

Audio previews

A common annoyance with many media players, WMP included, is not having the right codec. WMP will try to detect which codecs are required and provide a location to download them, but this is hit-and-miss and less than convenient if all you want to do is play a video. In recognition of this, WMP12 includes support for H.264 video, AAC audio, and both Xvid and DivX video, in addition to all the formats supported by WMP11 in Vista (MPEG2, WMV, MP3, etc.). With these new codecs, WMP should support the majority of video found on the Internet out of the box.

The area of WMP12 that has seen the most work is how it works with networked resources. WMP11 has the ability to browse the libraries of other users on the local network, as long as they're using WMP, too. WMP12 extends this to allow browsing not only of WMP libraries, but also of iTunes libraries. With the aforementioned H.264 and AAC support, WMP12 can play most iTunes media. It's only "most" because, of course, Apple won't license its FairPlay DRM to third parties, so WMP is unable to play DRM-protected iTunes Store tracks.

It's not just libraries that are improved. WMP12 makes it easier to play back audio or video on remote devices, a feature dubbed "Play To." WMP12 can stream to other computers in your HomeGroup, so, for example, you can browse your library on your laptop but actually play back on the HTPC connected to your sound system.

Remote streaming set-up

As well as streaming to remote PCs, WMP12 also includes support for controlling Digital Living Network Alliance v1.5 devices. These are networked devices with audio and/or video playback capabilities; so, similar to the scenario of streaming to an HTPC, you might be streaming audio to a Sonos box. Each device being Played To has its own playlist and playback settings and is controlled through its own little window.

The Play To controller for a network device

If a device can't handle the format being streamed, WMP12 will detect this automatically and transcode it on-the-fly.

Though WMP12 is very similar to WMP11, it's nonetheless a very compelling advance. Rather than ignoring the success of iTunes and the use of non-Microsoft video formats, Microsoft has acknowledged this reality and decided to make WMP work as well as it can with them. This attitude represents a hugely refreshing change from the software giant's past behavior, and WMP is greatly improved as a result. The situation is similar to that with the Windows Live Essentials, where interoperability is a key long-term objective. This is good for consumers, and it will prove to be good for Microsoft. Long may it continue.

Microsoft Office Comes to the Browser (Finally)

Microsoft announced this morning at its PDC conference that the next release of Microsoft Office will include browser-based versions of some of its main office software products - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. These will be "lightweight versions", but Microsoft told us yesterday that they'll still have rich functionality and will be comparable to Google's suite of online office.The apps will enable users to create, edit and collaborate on Microsoft Office documents through the browser. The apps will work in IE, Firefox and Safari browsers (no word on whether Google Chrome will be supported). Update: Microsoft clarified in an email that these apps will use HTML and AJAX, but also Silverlight components.

Update 2: For a contrary view on use of Silverlight, see Matthew Holloway's comment below (comment #19), in which he says that "SilverLight apps on OSX and Linux are typically second-class citizens to SilverLight on Windows."

The online versions will share the same names as their desktop counterparts (Word, Excel, etc), although unfortunately they don't fully escape the awkward and confusing branding that Microsoft gives to most of its Internet apps. The collective name for these apps is "Office Web Applications". To remind you, there is also an Office Online (a separate Microsoft site where users can download templates) and an Office Live Workspace (for sharing office files between desktop and Web - our coverage).

The "Office Web applications" will be available to consumers through Office Live, a service which has both ad-funded and subscription options. Business users will be offered Office Web applications as a hosted subscription service and through existing "volume licensing agreements". There will be a private technology preview of the Office Web applications later this year.

Last month we ran a poll asking which word processing tool you primarily use. We got over 2,600 separate votes and a resounding 49% of people still use Microsoft Word as their main word processing tool. Its open source desktop equivalent OpenOffice got 16%. Google Docs was the best placed Web Office app, with 15%.

The results showed that there is still a big place for desktop Office apps. Nevertheless, with the announcement yesterday of Microsoft Azure - a so-called cloud computing OS - Microsoft is clearly serving a growing demand for browser-based office software. We expect these apps to become more full featured over time.

First Look at Windows 7

Rahul Srinivas, Oct 29, 2008 1441 hrs IST

A look at everything the next iteration of Windows promises

As reported earlier, the finer details of Windows 7 were revealed at the Professional Developers Conference(PDC) that is underway at Los Angeles.

We now have a fair idea of what Windows 7 really is all about.

The PDC coverage also answers the biggest question people had in their minds -- Is Windows 7 just a "spruced up" Vista? This is what it was considered to be, when we had a very restrictive initial look at the leaked screen shots that appeared few weeks ago. Well, that argument has been laid to rest now with Microsoft offering a "hands-on" to the journalists who attended the PDC. They had on offer a Dell Laptop loaded with a Windows 7 pre-beta Build 6801.

These are the initial impressions of what the Windows 7 is all about -- and what it is not.

To start with, it is not just a Vista rehash. Yes, it retains the "family look" but there are many underlying changes that makes it a far better OS than its predecessor. Although I still think they should have opted for a full design-change to alienate itself from Vista, Microsoft chose not to do so and I believe they have valid reasons for that decision. So, what's new? And what is not? Read on.

First off, the build that was showcased during the PDC (6801) is reportedly an older version. This meant that several of the new features that were seen in some screenshots were not present in this build. For the record, screen shots have revealed newer build versions; namely build 6926 and 6933, which seems to be a more complete package -- albeit an unstable one.

Networking -- the Windows 7 way

To start off, connecting to a wireless network is now far easier. In fact, it is just one click away from the task bar -- to digress a bit here, the taskbar is another Windows component that has more or less remained the same over the years. Not any longer! The good ol' taskbar "text" has given way to icons (which does impart a somewhat gaudy look to it). More on the taskbar improvement later. As for choosing a WiFi network to hop on to: click on the icon on the task bar and you get a list of all the networks available. Click on the one you wish to join to and you're done! Now that's nifty but leaves me wonderin why such an interface was not offered earlier, through Vista.

UAC remains; but subtler now

The dreaded UAC (User Access Control) pop-ups still loom large. Yes, you have the option to turn them off in Vista... However, Microsoft thinks there are folks who would still want their computers to be a bit more proactive and let you know what your background programs are up to. So what's on offer? A slider control through which you decide whether to turn UAC off completely or let it pop up only when a program (and not you) makes a change to the system settings. Nice!

Sidebar: Killed

I am not sure how many of you found the Vista sidebar irritating, as I did. When screen real-estate is at a premium, it was a pain if you wanted to use the gadgets without the accompanying sidebar to eat up your resolution. Windows 7 has shown the sidebar the door but the gadgets remain: you are now free to place them anywhere on your screen. Finally!

HomeGroups

The Homegroup is supposed to be a tool to share files and media over a small home network. Apart from sharing printers, it can also help setup a share for other hardware, and allows for seamless inter-machine connectivity along with added security: you decide what to share and what not to. This is one of those networking solutions that is wizard-driven. The problem is that wizards rarely work uner the Windows ecosystem -- how many times have you run a networking wizard which successfully does nothing? Let's hope this one actually works.

Device Stage

Device Stage is an enhanced "auto-play" pop up when you connect an external device to your computer. The only difference is that now you have different interfaces for various hardware. By supported hardware, I mean the devices which provides content for the Device Stage will show up with "extra features", when connected, instead of the plain auto-play window that is the current norm. It remains to be seen if device manufacturers pick this up.

Taskbar

Yes we're back where we started. As I mentioned earlier, the taskbar has undergone a complete transformation after having been left unchanged since eternity. The quick launch has been discarded and now we have icons replacing the text that displayed running programs (very Mac OSX). The right click offers greater access to features and flexibility -- offering options such as opening recent files and related goodies.

Multitouch

Finally we have multitouch on the PC and prima-facie, it seems to work pretty well. While you might need a slight learning curve to start off with it, it won t take an user significant time to master it. And yes, it supports all the gestures you have in mind -- pinching, stretching and the others. Happy?

User Interface

Ok, nothing revolutionary here. It still looks like Vista (which most people might not like). But there have been minor changes. The Flip 3D remains along with the new taskbar (already previewed). Notable additions include a new windows resizing feature which has managed to turn some heads. And yes, the system tray has been upgraded as well. It now offers you more control over the (annoying) balloon pop ups -- letting you decide if you want to display an item on the tray permanently or not.

Mac Users Boo (as usual)

While many have welcomed the changes, Mac users claim most of the new features on the Windows 7 are simply Microsoft's version of existing OSX stuff. Yes, we have been hearing this ever since the Vista launch and now it has rather become a norm. Windows 7 is arguably the biggest change to the user interface that Windows have been through since XP and from what I see, it is a far cry from a rehashed Vista. With an expected 2009 launch it remains to be seen how it fares against the OSX SnowLeopard 10.6 due mid-2009.

A faster Windows?

Windows 7 will also aim to be leaner, faster and it won't crib for system resources -- a lesson well learnt from the Vista debacle. Remember the 'Vista capable' labels? To prove this, Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky showcased his personal laptop during the keynote which ran the OS smoothly. The netbook reportedly ran at 1Ghz with 1 GB of RAM. Now that's nice. An OS easier on the hardware is certainly welcome.

So what do you think of Windows 7? Is it enough of a change to encourage you to adopt it when it releases? What about those of you currently using Vista? Does Windows 7 offer sufficient reason to upgrade?