Earlier last month when Windows 7 beta version was made available for download I thought I will have a look at it. I downloaded it from Microsoft's site (I have to say after a lot of struggle). Since I didn't have a spare PC/laptop to get it installed I decided to install it on a VirtualBox.
I initially thought of using Microsoft's Virtual PC. But after reading some of the experiences of user's I decided to drop this and use VirtualBox instead. The major reason for choosing it was it’s support for Windows 7.
First, you have to download VirtualBox and install it. During the installation on a Windows system (XP or Vista), you might receive a warning that you are going to install an untested software.
Don’t worry about it, click continue anyway when those boxes appear and finish the installation.
The file you have downloaded from Microsoft’s site is a CD disk image. Fortunately, since we are going to use it on a VirtualBox, you won’t have to actually burn it to a CD to use it.
Once you have installed VirtualBox and you have the Windows 7 beta installation CD image, you’re ready to create your virtual machine and install Windows 7 beta. Launch VirtualBox to create a new machine.
The wizard will start. click Next to continue.
On the next screen make sure you select Windows 7 as your operating system. Click Next.
On the following screen you have to select how much memory you would like the virtual machine to have.
I think the minimum requirement for Windows 7 is 1GB of RAM, so be sure to set it to at least 1024MB. You can set it to more than 1024 if you want. Click Next.
On the following screen you have to create a new virtual drive for the system. Click on the button labeled New to continue.
A new wizard to create the virtual hard disk will pop up. Click Next to continue.
On the next screen I would recommend using the default option of a Dynamically expanding storage. This will make sure that you won’t use any more disk space (on your main system) than what is necessary.
On the next screen you have to set the disk location and size. Since you are using a dynamically expanding drive, the size of the disk is somewhat arbitrary. So set it to 20-50 GB to be safe.
Click Finish to complete the wizard.
Once you have completed creating the virtual machine, you will have to configure it to use the Windows 7 disk image. Select your virtual machine, click Settings, and navigate to the CD/DVD-ROM section.
Check the Mount CD/DVD Drive checkbox and click the ISO Image File radio button. Then click the folder icon and then browse to where you saved your ISO image and select it.
If you have a multi-core processor, there’s an option you’ll want to enable to speed things up on the virtual machine.
Go to the General section and on the Advanced tab enable the Enable VT-x/AMD-V checkbox. This allows VirtualBox to take advantage of machine virtualization capabilities of your processor.
Go to the Audio tab, and click the Enable Audio checkbox and select Windows DirectSound for the Host Audio Driver.
Once you have the machine configured, click the Start button to turn on the virtual machine.
You will now see the Windows 7 installation begin. Just follow all the prompts and install Windows. If you need to get back to your main computer at any time, the hotkey to release control of the virtual machine is the Ctrl key (default) on the right side of your keyboard.
Once you’ve installed Windows 7, you can install the guest additions. The guest additions will provide better video and audio support to the virtual machine. The guest additions also allow you to better integrate the virtual machine with your main system.
To install the guest additions, you will have to press the right Ctrl key on your keyboard, go to the Devices menu and select Install Guest Additions…
During the guest additions installation, click the Install button whenever prompted. Once you’ve installed the guest additions, reboot the virtual machine. Upon rebooting, all of the virtual devices should be working.
Now that you have the guest additions installed, you will be able to share the clipboard, access to files on the main system, and move the cursor seamlessly in and out of the virtual machine.
That’s it. It took me less than 45 minutes for the install and to activate the OS using a product key provided my Microsoft.
The first warning I received was that the system did not have a anti-virus software installed. I clicked on recommend a anti-virus program, which included AVG paid edition. On the AVG site it even stated that it was in fact compatible with Windows 7 (wow for a beta OS – well done).
Honestly, the only difference I see in Windows 7 Beta is simply a few adjustments to the interface (better taskbar, slightly better navigation and menu’s).
I think the big question that most people will want to know is about performance. Is Windows 7 faster than Vista/XP? My opinion is that it does appear to be quicker. But you have to remember that any clean install of Windows always seems faster in the beginning (isn’t that so?). I believe the system will need to be used before any judgment can be made as to performance improvements.
Some of the professional tests seem to indicate that Windows 7 has a better boot time.
I will leave it here and continue to experiment with the beta release.
