– Multiple versions of Windows Vista/7… OOHHHHH you mean like Windows XP?
Here is the list of XP:
– Windows XP Home edition
– Windows XP Professional edition
– Windows XP Media Center 2003/2005
– Windows XP Tablet PC
– Windows XP 64-bit Professional
– Windows XP 64-bit Professional for Itanium processors
– Windows XP Starter Edition
– Windows XP for Embedded systems edition
– Windows XP Embedded Standard edition
– Windows XP Embedded for Point of Service
– Windows XP Fundamentals for Legacy PCs
Pick your edition!

Versus Windows 7
– Windows 7 Start Edition
– Windows 7 Home Premium
– Windows 7 Professional
– Windows 7 Ultimate

[sarcasm]Oh no… so many choices!!!! [/sarcasm]

I don’t know about you guys, but I found quiet some important bugs in Windows 7 RC. :/

* Moving pined items up/down in the Start Menu, can make the the recent program list disappear all by itself.
* Browsing item by item in the Control Panel can result to an error in the panel “failed to load”, and then Windows Explorer stop responding.
* Start Menu search can’t find panels added by drivers (sound card/video card), however it works when looking for other things, and within the Control Panel window search bar.
* When DPI is set 150%, IE8 and Firefox crashes when you start typing in any field. (probably affect other software)
* XP Mode is not as advertise 100% compatibility, as when you run software that require input other then keyboard/mouse (ie: microphone), it can’t use it, which render the software useless.
* Windows XP compatibility always run applications as Admin. What if I don’t want to run it as admin? Why have the check box to allow you to run the application as admin? (I have an application that works under Vista, but not under Win7… shame.)
* Help icon in the mobility panel (Win+X) is still from Windows XP.
* Char Map text in the status bar is not aligned properly vertically.
* Char Map dropdown box (the one you use to select a font), is not properly centered vertically
* Windows Journal.. oh boy… most icons are badly drawn, and the “zoom page” drop down box is miss aligned going over a line separator.
* “Phone and Modem” Control Panel, dates since Windows 95. It’s not even using Aero buttons.
* Blurry Recycle bin icon in the right click menu on the recycle bin icon (when enabled).
* Disk loading cursor dates from Windows 95.
* Using Windows Standard theme, the crumb-bar (address bar) section are smaller then there field.
* Using Windows Standard theme, on the start menu, the blue cancel (X) button that appears next to the search bar when you perform a search is smaller than the search icon.
* Tool tip on “Minimize”, “Maximize/Restore”, and “Close” buttons on windows is still using Classic Windows style.
* When expending the “Add gadget” panel by clicking on “Show details”, the panel gives this vibrate feel (the window is not drawn properly make it jump during animation)

Feels like missing feature:
You know on the Start Menu, you have 2 items Windows Media Player 12, and Sticky Notes, where it can open up to the left of the start menu to offer some quick actions.. well this is totally incomplete, making it useless.
Look at Sticky note, you have “New Note”… that’s it. What is the point? That is what it does by default when you click on the “Sticky Note”. How about show the list of notes written down?
For Windows Media Player 12, why not have my playlists, and/or “play video” and “play DVD” when a DVD movie is inserted? Anything to make it useful.

Installed it and gave it a quick test drive. My observations:

the good:
- It works as quickly as Windows XP inside a virtual machine.
- Many things have been re-arranged to make easier accessible… eg: Screen resolution is now a right click away.

the bad:
- how in gods name Microsoft continuously manages make simple things so convoluted is beyond me. I think Windows 7 in essencene has almost exactly the same feature of OSX (not including the iLife suite) to serve as a basic tool box for day to day computer work. Yet Microsoft still manages to make everything so convoluted it’s actually quite amazing. Just take a look at the Start Menu. There just doesn’t seem to be much logic behind what’s listed on the left hand side (various programs) and on the right hand side (various programs, docs, config screens).
- I have spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out were IIS is. Turns out it wasn’t installed by default. No problem. However, after installation I now don’t seem to be able to find were the bloody IIS console is. I actually know it’s called the IIS console yet I still can’t find it. Tried to type in help and still no luck??? What’s worse after typing “IIS console” in the help search box it tells me to check my spelling.

Why is this bad? Well, for some reason Apple managed to implement this feature within three clicks from the desktop: System Preferences -> Sharing -> Web Sharing with a comments that reads: “Web Sharing allows user of other computers to view web pages in the Sites and folders on this computer”

It it too much too ask to make things simple?

the ugly:
- While Windows 7 is a huge improvement over Vista it does seem like Vista really just a Beta version. I actually went out and spend money on a full version of Vista Ultimate. In many ways I feel cheated. Microsoft never delivered on the Ultimate promises and Vista was plagued by so many problems I went back to Windows XP. Now I am expected to fork out more money for a new version that essentially is what Vista should have been come… do they really think I am that stupid?
- Multiple versions of Windows 7? WTF, haven’t you guys learnt anything? Just do one version, sell it at the same price as OSX and this baby blossom.