The Windows 7 public beta is enjoying a much warmer reception than Vista met and not only because there are more than a half dozen working drivers.  Microsoft has been talking with various new sources about what lessons they learned from Vista and how they managed to utilize that knowledge into making Windows 7 better.  They delve into the changes in the development process like the participation of third parties and the goal of making the beta as stable as an RC is expected to be and to make the RC as good as the final retail version.  That may never stop the mantra of ‘wait for the first service pack’, but might make it a little quieter.  Read on about it at Slashdot, as well as a review comparing the three beta Windows 7 versions to Vista and XP SP3, in both 32 and 64 bit flavours.

“For the past several months, Microsoft has engaged in an extended public mea culpa about Vista, holding a series of press interviews to explain how the company’s Vista mistakes changed the development process of Windows 7. Chief among these changes was the determination to ‘define a feature set early on’ and only share that feature set with partners and customers when the company is confident they will be incorporated into the final OS. And to solve PC-compatibility issues, Microsoft has said all versions of Windows 7 will run even on low-cost netbooks. Moreover, Microsoft reiterated that the beta of Windows 7 that is now available is already feature- complete, although its final release to business customers isn’t expected until November.”

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