Windows 7 Pre-beta Preview and Screenshots

Posted by Saad Hamid on October 29, 2008

A couple of hours ago at PDC 2008, Microsoft introduced the new Windows 7 by giving a demonstration of all the upcoming features and releasing some screenshots for the Windows 7 Pre-beta build.

The features preview point to the same Windows 7 Features we published earlier yesterday and the screenshots quite closely match to the ones we published two months ago as the Confirmed Screenshots of Win 7.

Here you go with some new screenshots of the Windows 7 Pre-Beta build.

New Taskbar


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This is the new Windows 7 desktop with Aero Desktop Effects. Note that there is a new taskbar with glass effects and tree menu.

Gadgets


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The new desktop Gadgets in Windows 7 no longer need the Sidebar to be docked to. They can be placed anywhere on the desktop.

New Calculator


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New Show Desktop Effect


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The new Show Desktop Effect for Windows 7 shows border lines for all opened windows giving a preview of how many applications you are running.

Hover-over Previews


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The new Hover-over window previews in Windows 7 show a thumbnail of all instances of a running application.

New Start Menu


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The new Start Menu is quite similar to the one in Vista.

New Windows Explorer


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Windows Explorer has been revamped a little bit providing a list of most recently used applications and folders.

Windows Solution Center

Windows Media Player 12

New Mini Windows Media Player

New Device Stage Interface


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Thats all for now. All images come as a courtesy of Paul Thurrott whom I admire greatly for keeping us up-to-date with Win 7 development.

The good news is that for Windows 7 we will have only one Beta and RC candidate, no bloatware (Beta1, Beta2, RC1, RC2 etc) like we had for Vista.

Windows 7 Beta is expected to release somewhere between December and January. On the other hand if I get my hands on a leaked copy of the PDC build, I shall share here.

  • Ercolino de spiacico
    Why would I want to upgrade my Windows for workgoups 3.11?
  • Am waiting for Windows 7 BETA. This is going to be a hit like XP.
  • I hope to be better than XP (Vista have so much issue with the compatibility with drivers, aplications...) and yes I wanna see first public beta release of Win 7. :)
  • I am waiting for this. We should not assume anything good or bad before checking it out. Hope we wont experience any compatibility issues
  • @tweakwindows
    i dont think this will be a hit like xp nor xp was a real hit actually that was the beginning where people started to think about linux.
    for your kind information i want to add nobody want to upgrade his pc every once in a while they couldn't still make vista stable enough so many bsods if you having any hardware conflict etc etc

    To me windows7 is another microsoft strategy to gather some money by showing kids some bells and whistles and turn their back like they did with vista. if anybody really want to see a stable and maintained operating system go through ubuntu archives you'll see how often do they update the whole release instead of releasing service packs & fixes.
  • Microsoft should realize that, glass effects and reflections alone won't do any good.. We need performance..

    I still know die hard users who prefer just windows xp with Classic theme..
  • @Quakeboy,
    You have commented as if you already tried out Windows 7 and found only glass effects and no performance.
  • I tried it, in fact I type this from within Windows 7 64 bit right now. It is good, best than ever, better than any other OS there is and I used most of them. There is one serious bug with Automatic Media Sync, it nearly killed my 1TB HD, also I could not copy from one external HD to another, it just crashes the computer.

    Sad thing is that I know what and why and this is not good in contrast to the bad. But the most important thing to me is that the games work very well! all games run with much better graphics.

    Thanks to Microsoft for staying alive, we need you to stay alive because there is no good without the bad. How could we know if there weren't so many totally different operating systems in the world of computers?
  • raa
    Glass effect should make windows7 much faster :-D
  • Tony
    agree with Quakeboy; effects are ok if they can be archived without impacting performance otherwise should be left to games machines. However pretty it makes your desktop, it's unlikely that we are going to install an upgrade that slows our PCs - even on a new high powered PC it would be nice to have an easily configurable OS where you can choose to turn off unnecessary function. I don't really care what the desktop looks like; most of the time it's hidden.
  • Ilse
    Windows 7 are the same shit vista are! You can download now the beta version on Internet and its
    the same Vista but chance the look. The same problems you get now the same in the future.

    Its over XP is the best and here its ends! look forward and look to the future 2012 is the year the aliens give us the new system.

    Don't be a foul and stay by XP.
  • Derek
    Everyone keeps saying you can download Windows 7, where is it you can download. I want to try it out but every one one wants money from me just to download it, if Microsoft want us to buy it then let us have it to try.
  • Michael
    Where can we download the Windows 7 Pre-Beta?
  • Tamura
    I would like to use this OS when it will be released to the market asap.

    Regards,
  • It is available for download. Follow the link below.

    http://www.sizlopedia.com/2008/10/30/download-w...
  • Windows 7 will certainly be a hit in design like vista. But in features, I don't think so.

    I'm really disappointed of Windows because of Vista, a lot problems by the installations and compatibility problems.
  • @Nirmal
    Yes you are right in a way. I just commented based on performance of Vista glass effects on Average systems where Xp runs way too much faster. I must try out Windows7 soon.
  • Anonymous
    You idiot Windows fanboys don't even realize that the entire Windows 7 GUI is copied almost exactly from KDE 4. Windows 7 doesn't offer anything that great, and they ripped off KDE 4.
  • Anonymous
    If you don't believe Windows 7 is doing nothing but copying features almost verbatim from Linux, then take a look at this picture:

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3156/2987956453_...
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