Windows 7

It’s been about 6 hours since I started the process of installing Windows 7 Beta on my Dell XPS M1330 laptop. Installation was a breeze and so was the remaining configuration. Apart from the classic look & feel, am completely hooked onto the new taskbar. It’s absolutely amazing. Windows Search is lightning. Since am a ardent user of free softwares, in the process of installing everything again since I took a call of doing a complete fresh install instead of upgrading from Vista. My installation steps

1. Backup of the entire laptop using DriveImage XML onto an external USB drive

2. Download Windows 7 Beta. Ensure that while downloading PC does not sleep or go into a standby and then resume the download. It happened with me and when I tried to install, I got the error

STOP: c0000221 Unknown hard error

\systemroot\system32\ntdll.dll

Downloaded the whole setup again this time it went ahead.

3. Scrapped all the partitions and started afresh and installation completed.

4. My laptop give a blue dump after submitting the user account creation in the initial setup. When I restarted, it again came back to the same setup screen but the earlier account was already created so had to create a new account.

5. All set to go!

6. Installed DriveImage XML

7. Restoring all my old data.

Have installed this on my primary laptop (which is against the MS recommendations btw). For all those who are eager to try the new OS, will recommend to feel the experience first hand. It’s awsome.

Will keep posting if I come across anything in Windows 7 over here. Happy installing & all the best, for all those who are trying out the new OS!