I’ve re-installed my personal laptop with the x86 edition of Windows 7 Beta 1. As before, it’s running well. I’ve reloaded all the Live Essentials stuff, some of the additional (free) MS photography software and the Canon codecs so I can read the CR2 RAW files from by DSLR cameras. I’ll be doing some presentations on this stuff at 2 of the upcoming MS Community TechDays for IT Pros 2009 events.
Honestly, I won’t be dumping my copy of Adobe Photohop CS. But I am very impressed with what MS is giving people. The vast majority of digital camera owners want to be able to:
- Quickly get photos from their camera to their computer
- Store them in a way they can be easily found
- Maybe rate and tag the photos to make it easier to search and prune the bad ones
- Browse and look at old photos
- Print photos on their PC or online
- Share photos online
- Maybe do some blogging with their photos
- Do some simple editing
MS appears to have made that very easy for home users … and for free. There’s even some more advanced tools that do a very nice job. I’m mucking around with the tools and Windows 7 now and posting some quick stuff on a blog.