I should probably preface this post by saying I’m far from a windows expert. I am quite comfortable within XP but don’t really have much experience in Vista outside of the few occasions I’ve launched it in VMware to flash a phone. I use XP daily for work, but basically just tolerate how it all works. I definitely prefer OSX, though the more I’ve used Windows on a daily basis the less I find I care as there are ways to basically to everything I need on each system.
The Windows 7 beta was leaked at the same time I ordered the Samsung NC10 netbook so I decided to go for it. I had a few days of experience in VMware before the NC10 arrived and overall I find that it’s quite peppy and looks really slick. It definitely reveals XP’s age visually and offers some general niceties. I was pleased to see that performance in both virtualized as well as the netbook environment was excellent. The standard install / startup of the NC10 includes some Samsung specific applications for controlling the keyboard, trackpad, battery etc and none were obviously included in the Windows 7 install though they all installed without too much hassle in Windows 7. I did have to use compatibility mode to install things, and thus far the only conflict here seems to be the synaptics trackpad software. Through some trial and error I was able to find that the conflicts are unfortunately with most of the cool stuff you get with the synaptics driver. By disabling the virtual scrolling and gestures, I was able to stop the trackpad from freezing. While this essentially reduces the trackpad to a basic device again, I at least can continue using the PalmCheck feature which prevents the trackpad from activating while typing. With the smaller keyboard this feature is actually critical for me.
Otherwise I’m running Firefox, iTunes, Tweetdeck, Chrome, Windows Live Writer, Evernote, Launchy, Skype, WinSCP, OpenOffice, Boingo and probably a few things I’m not remembering. I’ve seen a few circular stalls (the windows 7 beach ball) which I expect to have resolved when I upgrade from 1 to 2GBs of RAM. Windows 7 installed beautifully and seems to handle pretty much anything I’ve thrown at it. I’m looking forward to seeing how things evolve over the course of the beta.