Windows 7 Beta unmasked

In Microsoft's keynote last night at CES 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that Windows 7 — the highly anticipated followup to Windows Vista—will be available as a free, public download on Friday, January 9. Windows 7 Beta has been out in the wild (i.e., BitTorrent) since December, but if you've been waiting for things to get a little more legit before you tried it out, you won't have to wait much longer.

The download is available today for all MSDN, TechBeta and TechNet customers. You can read Microsoft's full press release about the announcement here. Microsoft is limiting downloads of the beta to the first 2.5 million downloads.

Keep in mind that this is a beta release of the operating system, so you probably won't want to install it on your primary or only computer, and that it expires on August 1, 2009.

Windows 7 (formerly known as Blackcomb and Vienna) is the working name for the next major version of Microsoft Windows as the successor of Windows Vista. Microsoft has announced that it is "scoping Windows 7 development to a three-year timeframe", and that "the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar." Windows 7 is expected to be released sometime in 2010. The client versions of Windows 7 will ship in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. A server variant, codenamed Windows Server 7, is also under development.

How can anyone be excited by an announcement, after 2 years, to fix the weaknesses in a product that was launched two years late? Microsoft's Windows 7 is more of the same, and that's not going to drive sales.

I would like to hear Windows 7 will be virus-free; will not have blue screen; it does not suck or hog the hardware and requires only a Pentium III processor and 256 Mb RAM.

Microsoft is a great company. They made huge differences as leader in their industries. But Microsoft is now trying to Defend & Extend out of date Success Formulas. And even in a recession - maybe especially in a recession - that does not excite people. Customers want innovation, not just more of the same, but finally working right or at a cheaper price.

More
* Windows 7 beta: First impressions