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Windows 7 Beta 1 Screenshots

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Windows 7 Taskbar Internet Explorer I’m experimenting with Windows 7 Beta 1 this morning and grabbing some screenshots of things that look and feel a little different than Vista. The new Taskbar takes awhile to get used to, but then the productivity benefits really begin to kick in — roll over an icon and the active windows for that app appear above. When you roll over the thumbnails, they appear on the desktop as a preview. If you want to go to that window, then you click the thumbnail. In addition, in various Microsoft apps like IE 8 and Windows Messenger, right clicking the taskbar icon brings up various menu choices. For example, for IE, the History list shows up. For Messenger, tasks like Status changes and other Messenger specific items show up. I’ll capture this and more in an InkShow due up in a day or so.

More pics after the break of new Touch settings.

 

Click images for higher res shots.

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  Settings for Inertia and adjusting the sensitivity
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New configure options for pen and touch displays — After clicking setup, the screen to the right the displays  
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Calibrate options for pen and touch. Both options display the image to the right.  
   
17 Comments

17 Comments

  1. Ricky Cadden

    01/13/2009 at 9:42 am

    I’ve been using the beta on my Fujitsu P1610 lately, dual booting with XP Tablet Edition, and I’ve found that the handwriting recognition is improved, especially when I write in cursive.

    Also, the press-and-hold to right click has been improved ALOT. With XP, often if I move the pen slightly, it messes up the ‘hold’ sequence and I have to start over. Win7 handles this much better.

    Unfortunately, I’m still having display alignment issues, where the edges of the screen are hard to tap. This presents a problem with the floating input bar.

  2. Amitai Rosenberg

    01/13/2009 at 9:48 am

    Nice!
    Exciting!
    Can I please ask a question:
    Can I use Windows 7 beta on a XP machine?
    If so, please tell me how?
    Thanks!

  3. Rob Bushway

    01/13/2009 at 10:11 am

    yes, you can. You can either dual boot or do a clean install. Upgrading from XP Home isn’t supported. I’d recommend a clean install.

  4. Rob Bushway

    01/13/2009 at 10:12 am

    also – just stick in your disk, boot, and follow the wizard prompts

  5. Tyler

    01/13/2009 at 10:30 am

    What machine are you running W7 on? I have it on my HP tx1000, and do not have the Touch and Panning tabs….Not sure if they will work on my machine, or if its just a driver issue.

  6. Rob Bushway

    01/13/2009 at 10:33 am

    Dell Latitude XT – You probably need to install the digitizer drivers for your machine. I did for mine, and the options showed up.

  7. Amitai Rosenberg

    01/13/2009 at 10:43 am

    Thanks!
    1. Is there a way to install Windows 7 from a portable hard drive, not from a disk?
    2. Do you think there’s a chance Windows 7 will work ok on a computer with 256mb ram and about 700mhz- :)?

  8. Rob Bushway

    01/13/2009 at 10:45 am

    1 – I think you need to burn it to a disk
    2 – I think it will install, but whether it could run or not is another story. 256 mb and 700 mhz is quite challenging. worth a shot. let us know how it goes.

  9. GoodThings2Life

    01/13/2009 at 11:46 am

    Actually, 256MB isn’t even qualified to “run” Windows XP… it’s barely enough to allow it to walk briskly. I believe the minimum requirements for Windows 7 state 1GB of RAM.

  10. Amitai Rosenberg

    01/13/2009 at 11:55 am

    Do you still think it’s worth a try?

  11. Rob Bushway

    01/13/2009 at 11:57 am

    it might be a good experiment, but I wouldn’t expect much….256 mb of ram was gone a long time ago.

  12. Amitai Rosenberg

    01/13/2009 at 12:02 pm

    Oh well. It does run slooow xp. I’ll think about it… :)

  13. J-K

    01/13/2009 at 12:19 pm

    Tyler, the touch panning feature (and the other touch gestures like zoom and rotate) will only work on multi-touch enabled machines. Unfortunately the HP tx1000 has a resistive touch screen which only supports a single touch-point at a time :(

  14. Gavin Miller

    01/13/2009 at 1:18 pm

    I see you’ve got the dreaded live mesh black taskbar of doom! Should be cured in the next update which should stop the transparency being switched off.

  15. GoodThings2Life

    01/13/2009 at 5:25 pm

    And Liveside is reporting a Mesh service update over the next 48 hours, so we may just see a new build sooner rather than later! :)

  16. Jane

    01/13/2009 at 6:22 pm

    I’m also testing the beta out. Sadly, it looks crappy on virtual PC (vista basic, etc even though I gave it at least 1.3Gbs of RAM). I’m too scared to put it on my main laptop. I anticipate getting a tablet/touchscreen laptop next year or early 2010 so I’m definitely eager to see if the wait will be worth it. :)

  17. Bill

    01/13/2009 at 8:00 pm

    @Ricky:

    I have the beta running on my Fujitsu P1620 and have the same problem with the touch screen not registering input all the way to the edges of the screen. I reported this to Microsoft.

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