Win7 RC on Dell XT

[Steve S]

I've finally finished bringing up a Win7 load on my XT, and except for a few idiosyncracies, everything seems to be working well (or at least without any crashes... yet...). In addition to a clean install of Win7, I've loaded the N-trig MTM beta software bundle, .NET 1.1 and a few of my favorite applications including MathJournal 2.1 MultiMedia, ArtRage 2.5 and a few other apps.

In terms of stability / operability, I find that Win7 RC has a few more issues than pervious builds, but that's probably to be expected since Microsoft is now filling out the OS to be a complete package rather than just concentrating on core features.

The Good:

<> Start-up and shut-down are admirably fast, just as we were led to expect.
<> Multi-Touch with the new N-trig driver seems to work well, much more like the iPhone / iTouch experience (which is very well-tuned).
<> The new task bar features are very convenient.

The Needs Improvement:

<> Win7 doesn't recognize that I have an SSD, so I'm not sure that the OS is utilizing it as well as it could.
<> I think there's something wrong with Windows Update; when I installed .NET 1.1 (and why the **** it isn't part of the baseline load is beyond me...), Update failed to pick up the Service Pack or the Security hotfixes. Days later, Update still hasn't offered them.
<> IE fades in and out for no obvious reason (but it seems to be related to entering URL's). One minute, IE is there, then suddenly the desktop appears, and a couple of seconds later IE is back, acting like nothing happened!
<> Gadgets sometimes fail to start, leaving a blank space in the SideBar.

So far, these are the most obvious issues that I've seen; not bad at all given the pace at which Microsoft is readying this OS for market... and isn't this what beta testing is all about, anyway...?