Exploring Windows 7 – Part I

There have been quite a good review about to be released Microsoft Windows 7 in internet. It was told that Windows has the stability of Windows XP with features of Vista. I was curious to try it. It is a beta version to be released in the market as a commercial version in July 2009. Some web sites claimed that the trial period may expire in June 2010. If the trial period is that long a period, it is worth trying it. I will have ample period to decide on upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. A decision has been made to try Windows 7.

Then the question came up “how”?”. The following options were considered:

1. Install Windows 7 replacing Windows XP.
2. Having only one machine, why not have a new machine? That would have better configuration to try all the features of Windows 7. The only machine I own now is six years old with old video card.
3. Try on a virtual machine.

The first option is risky, since it is the only one machine I have, whether production or test purpose. There is a risk of losing some of applications and data I use now. It was ruled out. The second option is also out of the question, since I am a non-performing guy, I mean non earning guy. I chose the third option which is practical.

I decided to use VirtualBox, the virtual machine application after seeing good review of it. I installed it in my machine. The following link provided me the necessary instructions.

installing-windows-7-on-virtualbox/

I followed the instructions and I had only only glitch which is not in these instructions. I was trying to install the Windows 7 virtual machine on a FAT32 file system partition. This action allowed me to go only up to 85% of extraction of installation files. I had to search in the web and found a solution. I converted the partition from FAT32 file system to NTFS file system. The installation went smooth.

CAUTION: The installation file of Windows 7 is 2.36GB size. It took me three days to download (non-continuously) with my broadband speed of 256 kb/sec.

The first impression is positive. The look and feel is good. My video card did not allow me to try desktop effects. I will write more about it in my second part.