[Latest Update: February 3rd, 2009]

I finally made the leap and installed Windows 7 Beta on my current production machine. While the experience has been generally flawless (on MS’ side), I’ve already encountered some incompatibilities. These are most probably caused by the applications’ vendors, not Microsoft, but they inconvenience nonetheless.

Beware of the following applications’ difficulties prior to installing Windows 7 Beta for production use.

This list will be updated regularly to reflect my findings as I use Windows 7 Beta from day to day. I’ll also try to resolve any issues I come across, if at all possible.

Incompatible on vendor-side:

  • Daemon Tools Lite
    Can’t get past STPD-installation, alternative like SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive work

Random crashes (annoying, but livable)

  • Latest Java Runtime
    Instability. Java can be brought back to life easily, though.
  • Windows Live Essentials: Writer
    Writing works fine, but Writer locks up after requesting existing posts from the server (tested with hosted Wordpress blog). Doesn’t happen every time.

Applications crying wolf:

  • Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
    Probably does version checking but installs just fine
  • Adobe Photoshop CS4
    Ditto Dreamweaver

Tested and cleared:

  • AVG Free
  • Windows Live Essentials: Messenger
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Live Mesh
  • µTorrent
  • XAMPP