The “Break it Down” Blog

Microsoft Windows 7’s Beta Customer Preview launched today.  Based on the below message posted on the download page it looks like it is pretty popular.

“Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal — we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.”

News of the Beta came Wednesday from Steve Ballmer during his CES keynote The beta version of Windows 7, the next PC operating system from Microsoft was suppose to be available for downloaded today by MSDN, TechBeta and TechNet customers.

Given the early reports on Windows 7’s performance I’m not surprised it is quickly gaining popularity.  Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDnet.com tested the Windows 7 Beta against both Vista and XP and found Windows 7 to be faster than both previous operating systems.

The results

Here are the results of the tests for the two systems:

Conclusion

The bottom line is that the more I use Windows 7 the more I like it. Sure, we’re looking at a beta build here and not the final code, so things could change between now and release (although realistically final code ends up being faster than beta code). Also I still have some nagging issues relating to the interface, and some concerns that the UAC changes will break applications and other code, especially installers, but overall Windows 7 beta 1 is a robust, solid bit of code.

Sure, Windows 7 is not XP, and never will be (thankfully). And if you’re put off by things such as activation and DRM, then Windows isn’t the OS for you (good news is there are others to choose from). But if you’re looking for a solid OS then Windows 7 seems ready to deliver just that – a fast, reliable, relatively easy to use platform for your hardware and software.

Hopefully the Windows 7 Beta will be available for download again soon because given its performance I’m looking forward to trying it out.