Downloaded Win 7 Build 7068 last night, and upgraded from 7057 this morning. The process took a little more than 2 hrs this time around too. Have just started to use this build so I will post later about my experiences with it, but here are some screenshots;

As you can see from the About Windows information it is Build 7068 which was built on March 21.

I am not sure whether this is the final IE8 or not, its build # is 8.0.7068.0

The Games Explorer has gotten a new icon

One change for me on WMC is that the option to watch internet TV is gone… Anyone else?

Nothing new here…

Must admit that I am not sure whether there are any new pictures here…

This is how Paint looks in this build…

Windows DVD Maker

Well, that’s it for now. I will post more on my experience with this build later…

Thanks to a twitter friend I got my hands on a x64 copy of build 7057. This time around I decided on upgrading instead of performing a clean install. It took approximately 2 hrs 10 minutes from I hit enter the last time until the new welcome screen greeted me.

There are a lot of comments out there about the look of the new welcome screen. I have to admit that I like it, but as Rafael Rivera has pointed out in this article this is probably a feature set up for OEMs so that they can change their welcome screen to their liking. In the same article he shows how you can change the background yourself.

This is the desktop that greeted me after the 2 hrs long wait (well worth it!)

Back to the upgrade process. I have to admit that I was a little anxious to see how it all had gone. I started up application after application and everything worked as it should. Actually; It worked better than before. Bugs I had encountered numerous times in build 7000 are gone; iTunes runs smoothly (which implies that I have to extend an apology to Apple for some of my previous rants… it seems to have been due to Win 7 Beta!), IE8 the same – its now faster and it hasn’t crashed any tabs yet and Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 works fine, which it didn’t before.

iTunes finally runs smoothly. The previous problems seems to be due to Win 7 beta…

Running IE8 with multiple tabs without any tab crashes. And pages load faster too.

As for the OS itself it looks pretty much the same as before – very well. There are some new icons and some different wording in some dialogue boxes (well covered by Ed Bott and Paul Thurrott) and there seems to be a lot of minor bug fixes.

I thought Win 7 Beta was impressive for a beta. Build 7057 is even better and I think that the Release Candidate (RC) is going to impress people big time. Highly recommended!

Looking forward to the final product later this year!

Apple released iTunes 8.1 yesterday/today. I downloaded and upgraded it as soon as I became aware of the fact. So far it seems to be more stable than the previous version. Apple Insider writes this;

As anticipated, Apple on Wednesday evening delivered iTunes 8.1 with performance enhancements, support for CD imports to iTunes Plus, and new Genius features. Separately, the company also updated its Front Row media application.
iTunes 8.1 (65.4 MB) "is now faster and more responsive," Apple says. "You will enjoy noticeable improvements when working with large libraries, browsing the iTunes Store, preparing to sync with iPod or iPhone, and optimizing photos for syncing."
In addition, iTunes 8.1 provides several other improvements and bug fixes, including:

• Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation).
• Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ.
• Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows.
• Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs.
• Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods.
• Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus.
• Includes many accessibility improvements.
• Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls.

 

iTunes 8.1 also includes a couple of security enhancements.

 

So far so good. Will come back with an update later as to if it solves some of my previous problems with iTunes on Win 7 Beta.