Don't forget, you can extract the Windows 7 iso onto a bootable USB. Makes the install much quicker:
1. diskpart
2. select disk 1 (if disk 1 is your USB stick)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32 (ntfs also works).
8. assign
9. exit
10. Extract the ISO
11. xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (Copy Windows 7 iso content to the Flash Drive E:)
If you have access to MSDN, go grab it! Remember that your February Beta keys will still work. If you need to regenerate them then these instructions will help:
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/10/psstheres-how-to-get-your-windows-7-beta-key
A new feature being announced is XP mode for Windows 7. XP mode is essentially an application running in a Virtual PC virtual environment. Installing the application in the virtual pc environment will result in it being published to windows 7 as an application. The requirements for this technology includes processor virtualization support (Intel VT or AMD-V). It will be a separate out of band update released in final form to coincide with the release of windows 7 (so it's not actually built in). Paul Thurrott has a nice set of screen shots on the whole thing here: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/xp_mode_pre_shots.asp
This weekend I installed the current windows 7 64-bit beta (build 7000). All my favorite apps installed just fine including the SCCM console. I even managed to find a beta build of the rsat tools: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82516c35-c7dc-4652-b2ea-2df99ea83dbb&displaylang=en The only thing that I spent a significant amount of work getting to run was google chrome. I'm still in love with it, and just started using the 2.0 dev beta. So of course I want to run it on top of my windows 7 beta. Well now you can. In the target part of your shortcut to chrome.exe add -in-process-plugins. It runs just fine now. Credit to: BlogsDNA
Oh by the way, windows 7 boots faster on the same machine I was previously running vista 64!
