Update 6/15/09: WebEx will work if you use Firefox to start & join meetings.

Update 5/5/09: WebEx currently does not work with W7.  I called WebEx and their official response was they would support it when it goes RTM.  Currently you cannot start or join a meeting since Meeting Center does not launch.

 

Windows 7 RC when public today to everyone, Download it here

 

Update 5/3/09: Turns out CD Daemon does not work on W7 currently, did a bit of research and found SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive (found info on Craig Pringle’s blog post)

 

Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) was released on 4/30/09.

 

After downloading it from MSDN, which Microsoft MVP, partners, and some Microsoft customers have access too, I installed it last night.

 

I went with the x64 Ultimate Edition.  I had previously installed W7 on my work laptop, on a separate partition, and was impressed with it.  But Outlook and a few other apps had some odd issues, so I really couldn’t use is my primary system.

 

Well the RC is much better.  So far, less than 24 hours after install, my system and been running great.  DDO, Left 4 Dead, and a couple of other games I’ve tried worked fine.  Outlook, other Office 2007 applications (which SP2 just came out for on on 4/24/09), MediaMonkey, and others are all working great.  As does several utilities I normally use (DVD Shrink, ImgBurn, SpeedFan, Bullzip PDF printer, Norton Internet Security 09, WinRAR, & CloneDrive)

 

This up coming week will be the big test, since I use this system as my primary work machine.

 

One very cool thing to note is that I didn’t need to install any hardware drivers at all, well except for my WiFi printer!  I recently blew away my other OS partition, which was running Vista x64 due to multiple issues with Vista, and installed XP x86 on it.  It look me alot longer, maybe 6 hours+ to get everything re-setup.  Windows 7 tool maybe about 2/3 the time and 1/3 the reboots.

 

So here’s the great things about Windows 7

1) QUICK!  Boots up and reboots quicker then XP & Vista

2) Much better UI (Task Tray, Aero, menus, window management, and more)

3) Included almost all drivers out of the box, or downloaded them from Windows Update

4) The latest and greatest OS 🙂

 

Here’s a quick overview video (note DDO in the Start menu :45 sec into the video)

 

I’ll update this post as time goes on..