Time's running out to download Windows 7 Beta1 for free

If you're either a TechNet or MSDN subscriber then there's no need to rush though the sooner you start evaluating Windows 7 the sooner you can realise the benefits in your business. The public download of Windows 7 Beta 1 finishes on 10th February so if you want to try it then you'd better get your skates on.

I've installed Windows 7 Beta 1 on a wide range of machines including my 6 year old Compaq Evo, a Samsung Q1 Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC), a Mac Air running Win7 natively using bootcamp as a boot manager and a wide range of Lenovo and ASUS EEE PCs - it's benefits are more apparent on both the low powered machines (as it's really fast) and those with decent graphics due to the wonderful live preview of running applications.

The download is 2.8Gb so it's not trivial but it's worth it.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Nik> Sorry for the slow reply. A friend of mine has Win7 on an EEE901 and it works well

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Mike> Win7 won't install as an upgrade onto XP keeping the settings - Vista would and then you could move up to 7 though that's a hassle - this may change by release.

• Anonymous
  February 09, 2009
  Interested to hear you've tried it on the Eee; would it fit on an Eee 901 (4GB boot drive)? Did you have any driver issues?

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2009
  I downloaded the beta, but I haven't had time to try it yet. Will it install over XP and retain apps/settings/drivers? Or will it only install to an empty partition? I think Microsoft should give Vista licensees (maybe not all versions of Vista) a free upgrade path to Windows 7. Mea Culpa, Microsoft, Mea Culpa. I do think Windows 7 LOOKS to be a promising product, though I wish they'd get rid of the registry.