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Can’t believe it? Yes, again, news about Windows 7.

It’s has been 2 months since my last post about Windows 7 Milestone 1. It was interesting and funny to watch how skeptics around the world reacted to my news. Many people denied and tried hard to prove what I posted was not true. Well, skeptics here is very reasonable but the evidences they used were merely those not-yet-updated ‘Vista’ in version windows or dialogues, and, many F words. That’s not reasonable, nether works. How desperately I hope those guys know more about software development and engineering.
You know there is something like the dark side of the force, especially when you have control on something and feel a little bit more powerful than the people you’re watching.

I’m afraid I’ll kick those guys again since today I bring you new bits of Windows 7.

This time it’s the 2nd release of Windows 7 Milestone 1. Version 6.1 (build 6574.1.{SECRET}). The {SECRET} here means I won’t expose detail.

No, even Milestone 1 isn’t a single release. Microsoft releases multiple versions of M1 with different minor version numbers. Well, for me it is the 2nd one I’ve gotten but I’ve no idea about how many releases Microsoft did before. I’ll use Win7 M1 R2, which stands for Windows 7 Milestone 1 Release 2, to describe it in the following. Please be noted, ‘Release 2’ is my naming convention, not Microsoft’s.

BTW, I do think my plain English here is OK for non-English speakers especially for readers from Europe and Asia. Anyway I’m not writing for WIRED or New York Times. I won’t provide translated local versions (What? Somebody asks what if the plain English is a fatal disaster for those native English speakers? … )

I use the same platform as for M1 R1: Intel G35 chipset motherboard, Core 2 Duo 2.66G dual core processor, 1 x 1G memory, integrated graphic card. Moderate, if not decent.

The installer is not greatly changed since M1 R1, only some words are updated from Vista to 7. Last time I use R1, the License Terms and SKU selection referred ‘Windows Vista’, now it’s changed to ‘Windows 7”.

The SKU selection shows these options:
Windows 7 Business, HomeBasic, HomePremium, Ultimate, HomeBasic N, Business N and Starter.
See some new SKUs are included however I don’t think these will definitively be the SKUs Windows 7 will provide. The installer program may inherit from some development tree so the SKU names are inherited also. Anyway, it’s not important to argue how many SKUs Win7 will bring to us. It’s much of business, not technology.
The SKU selection uses something like a grid control, the 1st column is SKU name, and 2nd, Date Modified. For all those SKUs, the date is March 2008.

An important change, also a nice improvement, is that you aren’t asked to input product key during the whole installation phase. For Vista installer, you can input a blank key and proceed but there is still a step and a text box for that purpose. Win7 M1 R2 installer simply skips this.

As in the M1 R1, Win7 installer automatically creates an additional 500.0 MB partition before system partition. A user doesn’t have control on this. No idea on what for. The partition doesn’t appear in My Computer but you can see it in disk management.

Other parts of the installation are same as in M1 R1.

The post-installation setup wizard, may be used for performance benchmarking to determine experience index, differs from that of Vista in that Win7 removes those fancy animation pictures during the process and the time it spends on this step is much less (less than 2 minutes on my platform).

Finally, after the setup here comes the product key… Yes, you can still input a blank key.

M1 R2 recognizes my G35 integrated graphic card and adapts display mode which makes my eyes comfortable at the first sight on Win7. Remember I had to find drivers for M1 R1.
The user name, machine name setup windows isn’t the default Vista style, I mean, neither Basic nor Aero. See below. The font is even Arial not Vista’s default.

Images below are clickable, click to view the large one.

Here comes the screenshots, more eye-candy elements are added into this release. I would say, Redmond’s engineers did do lots of polishing.

My Computer, watch the toolbar, 2 buttons at right. The first one is the View, the second one is used to toggle displaying preview panel. Besides that, look at the left panel, it’s redesigned, only Favorites, My Document, My Computer and Network there, more organized and simpler.
Window behavior is another area being enhanced. Double clicking on the top or bottom border of a window makes the window automatically adapts to the screen heights, but double clicking on left or right border makes nothing happen.
The arrangement of my computer changes greatly. A picture is worth… I’d better shut up now.

And, sorting options for different content.

Health Center, looks like Microsoft really starts caring your computer’s health. Besides, mind the mouse over effect.

click it, we get

Windows Health Center

let’s expand the Computer System

Windows Health Center Settings

Another great change is the Search in Start Menu. In Vista, after start typing search keywords the left half of Start Menu shows the search result. In Win7 M1 R2, the whole Start Menu area is used to show search result, including the right half which in Vista is used to display those traditional links such as My Documents, My Computer and Control Panel etc.
I personally like this change because it makes a user concentrate on results while not being disturbed by items.

There is no sidebar gadget control in system tray. Remember the vertical line of Vista’s sidebar when you move mouse on it? That’s not for Win7. Sidebar gadgets are much more similar as other objects on desktop like Recycle Bin. In Vista, you can’t click through the Sidebar area, for Win7 you can. The add gadget window looks like that in Vista.

The best enhancement comes from UAC, annoying UAC (User Account Control if you didn’t hear of it. Well… I think even a non-Vista user hear of the infamous UAC). Now we all know it was designed to annoy users but no more annoying in Win7 M1.
When you issue multiple actions which require approval from UAC. At the second request Win7 pops up a dialogue asking would you like to temporarily disable UAC thus you won’t be asked. Choose Yes and you win. This is much more user-friendly. Why didn’t you geniuses do this in Vista?
You know at this dialogue no hotkey works. I couldn’t get screenshot so I took a picture.

Video:
- smart display
- better search
- preview button
- double clicking top border to make the window auto-adept screen
- behavior of clicking separator between address box and search box
- I have other screencasts but I worry about the height can not fit in Yahoo Video’s/Metacafe’s/YouTube’s standard video size. You can’t see much details. Do you know which website can I use to upload big size video?

Tags: microsoft, software, windows, windows 7