I didn't expect to be writing this so soon after my previous Windows 7 post, but things change. :-) My long term plan has been to skip Windows Vista and move to whatever came after that. Of course that turned out to be Windows 7. Microsoft took what they learned from their stumbles with Vista and applied it to Windows 7. It's turned out to be a good plan for me if not for them.
I decided to install the beta release of Windows 7 on this old Windows XP machine. It's five years old, and doesn't have the graphics to run all the visual effects, but 7 runs just as quickly and crisply on it as XP ever did. And 7 is a delight to use. I didn't think Windows 7 would even install on this old PC, but it runs so well I've switched over completely. The only problem, this beta release expires on the first of August.
Improved native security is one of the things I like best about Windows 7. You can run 7 as a "Standard User", which means malware can't intrude like it could if you ran as an Administrator. It's just not practical to run Windows XP with lowered rights, but it's easy with Windows 7. It's also easier than with Windows Vista. The net result is that Sunbelt Software's VIPRE is the only major security software that I'm using for my revised security setup.
Updated the expiration date.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
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2 comments:
Hello Philip-
My name is Jeff and I work with the Windows Outreach Team. I came across your blog today and wanted to say thanks for being a Beta tester. People seem to be having a lot of luck running Windows 7 Beta on older machines like the one you described. Hopefully people will get some use out of their older machines that they thought would be obsolete by now.
I have one piece of not so good news for you. The Beta actually expires Aug. 1 and not at the end of August like you mentioned. The next version of Windows 7 to be released will be Windows 7 RC1, but I do not know for sure the availability of this release. If you are interested in hearing more details about this, take a look at the Windows Blog. Here is a link if you are interested- http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/MainFeed.aspx
Best,
Jeff
Windows Outreach Team
Thanks for the correction Jeff. This computer will have been idle for 3 months by then. I just hope that I've had an opportunity to test RC1 on another machine by then. :-)
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