Adrian Kingsley-Hughes over at ZDNet has already gotten his hands on the Windows 7 Beta 1 and published a full review. An ISO image of Windows 7 Beta 1 leaked this weekend on the web. Windows 7 beta 1 was expected to get distributed right after CES 2009.
Windows 7 beta 1 build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400 gets tested in this review and the good news is that this Windows 7 build runs stable and fast, but is not really offering much more than the pre-beta release of Windows 7. Quote from the review: "Windows 7 has a far fewer applications to look at than XP and Vista. Gone are applications such as Windows Mail, Windows Messenger, Movie Maker and so on. Anyone wanting apps of this sort will need to download then via Windows Live Essentials.
Paint and Wordpad now incorporate the Ribbon UI found in Microsoft Office and seems to have received a little TLC by Microsoft programmers."
Read the full Windows 7 beta 1 review on ZDNet. Update: Windows 7 download release details

With the Windows 7 beta already looking pretty stable a mid-year release of Windows 7 is possible, but will it be good enough to finally get me off Windows XP?