Latest leak of Windows 7 close to finished
The latest version of Windows 7 to leak from Microsoft appears to be a pretty decent example of what the finished edition will be like. It includes several changes from the beta edition which will be the bulk of performance and feature tweaks.
The leak is of build 7048, which was completed on Feb. 19. (The public beta edition was 7000 and was finished on Dec. 12.) That timeline means the leaked edition will have many, though not necessarily all, of the changes made in the release candidate edition. That’s the point at which the system is effectively classed as finished and after which the only changes usually made are fixes for serious bugs.
Both ZDNet and Arstechnica have explored the leaked edition in depth and compared it with the beta edition. Many of the changes had already been announced by Microsoft, including a revamping of the way Alt-Tab works; it now displays windows with the Aero system so you have a better view of what each application contains. There’s also changes to the list of features you can turn on and off including, as we mentioned yesterday, Internet Explorer.
Another tweak since the beta edition is that it’s now possible to see disk partitions more easily in My Computer. There also seems to have been a little public relations polish applied to the system. For example, the Reliability Monitor feature has had several negative terms such as ‘problem’ and ‘poor reliability’ removed. And there are some cosmetic changes including new icons and an extra 13 sound schemes.
Windows Media Player 12, which debuts in Windows 7, now has an option titled ‘Allow Internet Access to home media’. It appears this will require users to link their music and video library to a Windows Live account so that they can access it remotely but can’t share it with the public.
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