Microsoft Windows 7

I must start this by saying I’m a huge Mac fanboy, and Apple fan in general. Ever since I got my first iPod all the way to now, 2 iPhones, 2 Macbook Pro’s, iMac, MobileMe, iWork, Time Capsule and whatever else with an Apple logo on it resides proudly in my house.

This was Will's Snow Leopard Win7 custom theme

So when I went to my night classes this evening, it was raised by the lecturer that Microsoft were downstairs in the newly refurbished main hall of the college campus….. oh, and that all attendee’s get a free copy of Windows 7, yet unreleased might I add. Well, tickle the crowd pink, and the lecturer pink, as he went down after the positive response to blag himself and 20 students a place inside the auditorium to listen to Will (sorry, didn’t catch the surname, if it was even given!) from Canada, now residing in Sandyford, Dublin, as he walked us through a few features from Windows 7 all while being berated by the crowd (in particular one harrassing man) with all types of mad questions.

The Win7 campaign has been very good so far. They’ve addressed a huge number of underlying issues with their operating system, and convinced me to relinquish my grip on XP, on my gaming PC. No, not on my beloved Snow Leopard-clad Macs!

Sadly because of the amount of redundant questions (why can’t I play my games properly!), we didn’t get the full demo. However, he did address a number of ridiculous questions quite smartly. He, himself admitted he was an avid Apple fan, with Mac’s in his house (and even said he only recently swapped from time capsule to a HP home server running Windows). One such question was gaming, which is the only reason I own a PC, frankly. He was quite clever and probably quite right too. The reason some douche in the crowd can’t run virtualisation of XP on 7 effectively (i.e. run his games in compatibility mode) was because the vendors didn’t build their software effectively… not because Microsoft decided to ditch your game.

Most Win7 stuff was done on a touch-pad Dell & a Netbook, alongside an Xbox

We also got a chance to see the new media player in action. Knowing Apple’s frontrow quite well, I’ve never sat well with Microsoft’s offering as it feels quite bloated, and slow. Even in the freeware market Plex beats it (on Mac’s).

So, what did I get out of this? Well I got out of a lecture, quite literally. But also I gained an appreciation for how well 7 works. Most of the presentation was done on an intel-Atom powered netbook. The intro was courtesy of a multi-touch DeLL pad and there was use of a HP home server and XBox (from Will’s home, we were told). Nothing broke, no blue screens. It all felt a little.. well, Apple. The demo was to show off features live on stage, and show people how easy it is to do simple things like connect to a network, or do more complex things like connect to your home media server to watch home movies via your Xbox. None of the equipment was super high-end. All of it, in fact, is available to buy today – quite cheaply too.

Also, giving attendee’s a free copy of 7 Ultimate was a great touch. I don’t think even Apple gave free copies of Snow Leopard out to anyone at their conferences.

So, will I use 7? Yes. As my main OS? As much as I like where they’re going with it, no. They really did a good job, it seems. But I still love my Macs!

Stay tuned over the next few days as I’ll be posting a review of a pre-release version of Google’s Chrome OS!