I feel the need to preface this review with the fact that I am using an amazing computer (quad core / 8 gb ram / fat ass video card), this is a review of Windows 7 beta versus Windows Vista on this machine.

Good

• Suspiciously fast. Really, its weird.
• The only driver I had to install was for the Video card. Network, HD audio, everything else was running on first boot, some even during install (My tv and receiver started working during the install).
• Absolutely everything I have tried has worked exactly as expected (Steam (and games), XBMC, µTorrent).
• File copying is waaaay faster. I was transferring at over 100mb a second over the network, its was like 10 times faster than my average with Vista, even locally.
• Transparencies remain when windows are maximized (including the task bar)
• Window preview and grouping is sweet.
• Being able to peek through to a specific grouped window with just a few quick hovers is very nice.
• Animations are very smooth, and not too flashy, just visual cues
• You can reorganize entries in the task bar in groups.
• The system tray notification area is vastly improved. You can hide an icon, its notifications, or both. No more icons giving you shit.
• It’s gorgeous. Its pretty much just Aero, there are minor variances, each one of them a subtle improvement.
• Many little shorter paths, I don’t have to click as much to do something.
• I want to say again that its fast. I am not waiting at all for common tasks that I have had to in the past.

Bad

• Explorer does not start at the Computer view, it starts at the library view. Explorer goes to the Computer view, thats the rule, they shouldn’t be allowed to change that.
• The side by side window thing doesn’t work so well with multiple displays.

Conclusion

Its great. Seems like MS is really getting their shit together lately (with exceptions of course), I will definitely be using Windows 7 for any Windows needs I have from here on out.

I like it a lot.

Keeping it non-technical, because someone else will rant about that stuff in more detail than I am willing to or can.

Stuff I am liking:

• Very fast
• It is very roomy feeling, not much “chrome” as it were.
• I don’t have to relearn shortcuts, they are almost all FFish
• I can open JavaScript bookmarklets in new tabs (this was not the case for FF as of version 3)
• Searching is awesome, with a bit of setup, its very few keystrokes, like: “w jelly” to search wikipedia for jelly
• View source pops up in a tab
• The animations are cute and informative without being annoying
• the launch page is handy (although Opera has had this for some time)
• Built in “appability” (make one tab appear as an application window, for something like google docs)
• Built in tab restore (I constantly close a tab and then realize I want it back)
• Built in and fairly complete dom inspector, console, and JS debugger
• The process manager is awesome.  Even when stuff gets out of hand, you can assumably fix it without losing your whole session
• The find dialogue is great, however it will take a moment or two to adjust to top-right vs bottom-left

Lets get critical*:

Good:

• The design has been updated and is much less offensive to the eyes.
• The dashboard has better information at first glance.
• Dashboard widgets will probably be pretty cool.
• The new flash uploader is a big improvement.
• The new gallery feature seems pretty cute, although it isn’t the sort of thing I usually go in for.
• Full screen post writing is nice if you have a lot to write.
• Tag management / tag filling is handy.
• The ability to define permalinks on the fly when writing a post is neat.

Bad:

• The admin has a max-width that is very noticeable (annoying) on a widescreen monitor, especially because it is not centered.
• I miss the categories being on the sidebar on the post pages.
• Tags still are not searchable. Why are tags not searchable?
• There is even more Javascript in the admin than before, for an impressive total of 324Kb, ~2 second load.

TBD:

• Whether or not any of the cute little enhancements break the hell out of plugins that I don’t feel like updating.
• Whether or not nightmarish new vulnerabilities have been introduced. With an update this big, it is almost a sure thing.

Watch Matt’s screencast for a quick overview, I have to update the rest of my sites.