I was watching this demo video by Gotta Be Mobile’s author Rob Bushway the other day, where he was testing the Multi-Touch software for Windows 7, and it’s looking… well, far from usable.

But like I said, it’s all pre-beta on pre-beta, and it’s likely to improve drastically before either is released as a final product. It’s cool to see the Windows environment with the Multi-Touch screen, and I agree with Matt Burns that it does look good. But I’m not impressed. It looks incredibly “jerky” as Rob Bushway says in his article. But let’s be patient shall we?

To be honest, I did expect a better performance from a public beta release. I suppose one could argue that it’s the best way to get lots of feedback, but how do you think the feedback would sound on a beta release like this? I’m still hopeful though, and I’m sure like I said, improvements will be made.

But how funny is this guy? He shows us just how “jerky” it is, and sums it up pretty well… Although, I’d have to say that “the fruit” looks far juicier than the software in question.

If you’re running Windows 7 on a Dell Latitude XT, you can download the drivers at N-Trig.com and give it a spin. Please note the spec requirements “DuoSense technology enabled and the Windows 7 pre-beta version installed on your Dell Latitude XT“

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This video shows a short guided tour of the new, improved Taskbar for Windows 7, and I must say, it really looks good. Some of the features could really help improve productivity, if you’re the mouse-browsing type. Personally, when using Windows (XP), I tend to navigate through the system using the keyboard only, so the “Aero Peek” (a.k.a. “Peek” for short) would render rather useless for me. However, I tend to change my way of working with things every now and then. No matter what, it looks and works nicely indeed and I’m certain many will appreciate it. Check it out:

Update: I found this article on Gizmodo where they show us a “hidden feature” called “Aero Shake”. Not sure why it’s referred to as “hidden”, it could as far as I know always have been there and nobody noticed it. Or if you have to activate the feature as it might have been turned off for beta testers (hence “hidden”), who knows. I just think it’s truly awesome, a really really good idea. It’s one of those things that stands out, and might even think “Ha, not even Mac OS X does that”. Judge for yourselves:

Windows 7. Yeah I know, catchy huh? You know, I have to say I’m a tad bit proud of the Microsoft crew for taking this step… Naming it Windows 7, as it is the seventh release of Microsoft Windows.

/../ coming up with an all-new “aspirational” name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve /../ Mike Nash says in his blog post, and I can only assume one of two things. A) They want to get away from anything that may remind their potential consumers of Windows Vista, which really didn’t do Microsoft any good at all. Or B) They’re simply trying to make sense. Either way, I believe it is a good name. Call it uninspiring, call uncreative, heck even unoriginal. But frankly, it makes sense. It sounds good. Not so pretentious.

Microsoft seems to be in a hurry getting the word about Windows 7 out, and pushing the operating system out to developers, as they within a few weeks are distributing a pre-beta version, a “developer only release” as they call it. It’s understandable that they try and ramp up the tempo for this OS, since XP is getting rather old and Vista really isn’t considered a viable alternative for many, making the last decent Windows OS seven years old! Hey, maybe it’s a celebration to their last success… Windows 7 (years since we did something good…).

The only actual planned release date mentioned is June 3rd 2009, but it’s expected to be changed during The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27th and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the week thereafter. I’m confident the June date isn’t even close to an actual release date, so we’ll just have to stay tuned.

At the very bottom of Mike Nash’s blog post, a comment posted by one “strevoir” pleads to, I have to assume Microsoft:

“Please dont call it Windows 7 Please!
Please dont call it Windows 7 Please!
In Hong Kong, 7 in Chinese sound like the word “Lame”
As a microsoft fans,I dont want mac fans joking about the name, It will be hell annoying!!!!!!!!”

That is just funny.

Via TechCrunch, SweClockers and Windows Vista Blog