Windows 7 Beta Preview

Windows 7, the latest version of Microsoft’s industry-spanning operating system, is on the horizon. What does it mean for you? 

Introduction

The brickbats hurled at Microsoft over the last two years regarding the most recent version of its flagship operating system, Windows Vista, must have startled even the software giant. While Vista wasn’t universally hated, it certainly wasn’t loved by all, and with its longer-than-usual gestation period for drivers, updates, and Service Packs, Vista did little to broker goodwill between Redmond and the rest of the computing world. With Vista, it looked—and to some degree, still looks—like Microsoft lit a damp firecracker.

But that might change with the next next-generation Windows, casually titled Windows 7. Don’t plan on a full-scale step back to the innocent days of Windows XP, but don’t expect many game-changing revisions, bloat-inducing features, or productivity-strangling hardware and software problems, either. When the new OS was released in public beta earlier this month, we installed it on a Cyberpower Gamer Xtreme XE. Although we’re not convinced Microsoft has learned everything it should have from Vista, this latest OS just might be able to point the best elements of Vista toward a brighter new horizon.