Well I’ve finally done it, I’m now running the Windows 7 beta on my desktop machine. I’ve had the ISO kicking around since my last post, but I’ve been in the process of moving and have not been able to setup this machine until today. Installation was a marathon, it took me the entire day to get things sorted and working properly!

Turns out 3rd time is still the charm. My first attempt was an upgrade from my existing Vista SP1 install. Everything went smoothly, but 7 would not detect my Nvidia network card. This is probably my own fault though for stretching my Nforce 2 platform way beyond its useful life. My second attempt was a fresh install of 7, still using the Nvidia network card. This time I was able to get the card recognized, but it would not obtain an IP address for the life of me. Third time around was a fresh install with the Nvidia card disabled and my gigabit Marvell card enabled. Third time was flawless. Internet throughout the install allowed 7 to grab the latest Microsoft drivers for all my hardware. Aero works great, internet works great, I’m satisfied.

I have to say, I’m very impressed with Windows 7. Even though I have only really been playing around with it for the last couple hours, the new features such as Aero Peek and Taskbar are quite useful. It is easy to see that this is a beta, I have had a few issues with apps crashing and appearing to hang, but still processing in the background. If you keep in mind this isn’t ready for production yet then you should be alright.

I really, really like the new taskbar. It makes so much more sense than the previous version which was used in every version of Windows until 7. It is also very intuitive; it’s as if this was the way it always was. I’m easily navigating around through windows and everything is where you would expect it to be.

If you haven’t done so yet go grab the beta! You only have a couple days left to grab it officially from Microsoft. I’ll keep you posted with anything new I find or any issues I might have. Let me know what you think of W7 in the comments!