The initial advance reviews of Microsoft Windows 7 Beta are starting to spread, and this is what is known so far: It looks and feels similar to Vista, but adds a few minor performance and user interface enhancements.

Hardware and software that worked under Windows Vista will still work with Windows 7, which is significant for encouraging upgrades. Windows 7 install times are below half an hour, which is another improvement. Certain user-interface changes are under development, most of them positive. New are “Aero Snap,” which allows users to minimize Windows by dragging them to the top of the screen, “Aero Peek” which temporarily hides open windows and shows the desktop (which is similar to a Mac OS X feature), and a new taskbar.

As far as Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player, they both get improvements, but both are not as good as third-party alternatives which are already available. This will probably not be a game changer for Microsoft as far as operating systems go. Slowly but steadily, the company has shown signs of losing market share to Apple and Windows 7 does not change the problem.