After finally getting my hands on the build of Windows 7 (6801) handed out at PDC I’ve been playing around with it for the last few days.

My main question was whether or not this pre-beta was good enough to be used as a main OS and even replace Vista. The answer is both yes and no. Yes because it’s already fast, stable and full of new features, no because for me my Bluetooth is incompatible.

There are bugs, most of them are hard to pinpoint because none or show-stopping however the more you use it the more it will become apparent exactly why this is still a pre-beta product. The main cause of them seems to be from the new explorer libraries feature which incidentally is fantastic, easily the best new feature in Windows 7.

Now for most people performance is going to be what interests them the most. I have found that booting up time has been improved, but not hugely so, I’m referring to the time from turning the computer on to getting the login screen. From the login screen to a usable desktop however is a huge difference, in fact I would say what previously took