A leaked version of the Windows 7 Beta got out about a week a head of it’s public release.  Of course that statement alone brings to mind 2 questions.  One, Couldn’t people just wait another week? and two, which is probably more to the truth, How does something leak from Microsoft labs? They probably have more security protocols then Fort Knox, and the employees stock options are making stupid money.  So it seems hard to believe that this could have made it out with out somebodies knowledge.  Odd isn’t it, that this leak happened a week before CES (Consumer Electronics Show) of which Microsoft was / is a keynote speaker for.  Generating a little buzz before you get on stage? Course one thing for sure, I wouldn’t blame them, that’s what marketing departments are for, to come up with stuff like that.

Well with that said, I, along with like 2 million other people or so (would love to see the download / install numbers) went out and Downloaded the official realase this past weekend, and I’m typing this post from the PC It’s installed on.  So far it has proven (I hope) to be indeed beta software, for every couple of cool or even just working features, there’s a gotcha waiting in the wings.  Granted if we’re looking at a Aug, at the earliest release, then there is still plenty of time to work out most of those issues. 

I’m sure, if anybody cares that doesn’t have the beta, you can do a quick google search and find out about all the new features.  So I don’t want to go over that, as its already widely covered.  Instead I’ll pick on something that near and dear to mine and a few friends of mine, and that is about computer games on Windows 7.  Well on that front, it’s been pretty hit or miss.  I’m making sure to submit feedback on this stuff in hopes that it can be fixed before launch.  Because, to be honest, I like everything else about the OS (bugs aside) and really want to pick it up.

So I started with 4 games of verying popularity, ok they are the more recent stuff in my library, and I really don’t have the budget for to many more right now.

• World of Warcraft (with it’s over 11 millon subscribers will probably be installed on a Windows 7 Machine or 2)
• Warhammer Online: A new comer to the MMO set with a few million subs also, Different enough from WoW to find a solid place in the market as long as they keep building on what they have.
• Universe at War: One of the few (maybe close to the first) XBox / PC games that the players from each platform could play against each other Via Games for Windows Live.  Though some would also say, that’s what killed the game.
• Fallout 3: Post Apocalyptic goodness, Won a few awards, rabid following, don’t know what else to say about it, just good.

I didn’t have a problem installing any of these games, I say that with a bit of glee (Chuck: there shall be no Glee) as it pretty much went down hill from there. With one exception, Warhammer online.  Installed and launched (played) with out a problem at all.  And the real funny thing is, I had the least bit of hope for it.  The other three had problems with patching when the game started, Fallout would crash as soon as I hit the play button.

That’s kind of the ugly part.  For the most part I was able to get these games up and running, but adding the Users group to the folders and giving them full control.  This, of course, probably kills off some of the security features within Windows 7.  I suppose many gamers are computer savy enough to understand what I just said to do, but that not all, and we need to make those others happy also. 

Now Fallout 3 is still giving me a little grief when I exit out, but from reading the forums, others are having the same issues on Vista and XP.  So that’s probably more of a game problem then the Beta OS. 

Other then that, Everything is chugging away pretty good, Getting great Frame-rates in Warcraft and warhammer, no lockups when playing.  I can only comment based on what I’ve been told about gaming on Vista PC’s but from what I see, Windows 7 is working as good as XP.  So as soon as the other issues are resolved, yes, I think Windows 7 could indeed be a good gaming platform.