Aaaaand tomorrow (Friday) the beta will be available for download for everyone @
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

Unofficially the beta has been available for a couple of weeks through Bittorrent sites.
The new windows version is supposed to be more reliable than previous version, a statement supported by several of the people who have already seen the product.  The beta gives a better impression than previous releases and seems without the “big problems” that were in XP and Vista from the beta-stage.
Especially good news for people with low performance computers, the requirements will be lowered. Apparantly you will be able to run Win 7 on a computer with 1g ram and 1mHz processor.
I know, from what Ive seen, that if this is released during this year (which its scheduled to) I will skip vista and go for 7.
Windows Vista was at its release met by numerous critics (me being one of them) and I have to this day only used XP after the Vista release.
Still, approx 300 million people worldwide are estimated to be Vista users.

Speculations are if the 7 will be released earlier than the “before xmas”-statement. Some predict it will be released as early as around the beginning of the summer.
I have no idea what will happen, but I know that I do like what Ive seen so far, Im awaiting the release with high expectations and I may try out the beta on my old laptop

Screenshot of the Win 7 explorer

From what Ive seen so far I especially like a few of thedesktop enhancements (most important jumplist which i looove & aeropeek).
Windows 7 is also supposed to bring us a new version of Direct X (no big surprise there). But the “new thing” (that we’ve seen tried before but this time it seems more realistic) is that we will be introduced to a solution where older computers can get updated direct3d(11) support.
This is supposed to be usable pretty much no matter wich graphics card your computer has installed, meaning that this will open up for use of games and graphics applications on older computers. The warp10(that the platform is called) wont be able to compete with or replace normal graphics-cards but can open up for new possibilities on older computers.

Alright, thats my little update about the Win7 beta release thats right around the corner.
Finishing with a couple of screenshots: