Windows has always had very little application software in the base install; this has now been extended to an email program. There used to be something called Outlook on previous versions of Windows but on Windows 7 there is none. One has to sign in on the Windows Live site (what was it earlier? Windows Dead?) and then download a mail client.

But after going through this procedure, and also downloading a whole lot of other applications plus things like Silverlight, using which Microsoft hopes to kill Adobe's Flash, there was no joy.

I had to use my email address (one from Gmail) to log in to the Windows Live site; the mail program itself appears to be a bid to try and counter the dominance that Google is slowly gaining when it comes to web applications.

When one opens the mail program, one is advised to synchronise one's inbox with mail sitting on the web but when I tried to do so by supplying my username and password, I was told that my login had been rejected. It looks like you have to eat, drink and breathe Microsoft for things to work smoothly. I'm pretty sure that one would not have had this problem with a Hotmail account but that's the last thing for which I would sign up.

The amount of bling and meaningless junk has increased exponentially. The Windows Live site has messages like: "Your profile is all about you..." Geez, I wasn't aware of that, thought my profile was about Charles Manson.

While Windows mail is being installed, there are helpful messages like "Your software is being installed." Takes brains to think up things like that! Reminds me of the messages that are repeated when you call any business these days, lines like "Your call is important to us." After you have been on hold for 35 minutes, such things do begin to jar a bit.

There's a bit of confusion apparent on the Windows 7 taskbar - there is no way of finding out, visually, which of your applications are open and which are not. This may possibly be cleared up before the final release of Windows 7 - which is, when?

Windows 7 is better than Vista - which is saying nothing. It looks beautiful. Pity that the same viruses, worms and malware that wreak havoc on Windows users can attack this version with equal gusto. The nag screens are all there too and my monitor goes through something akin to convulsions every time I click on an executable, before bringing up the nag screen. It even does that for software downloaded from Microsoft's website!!

No verdict here, this is not a review as I stated earlier, just sundry observations on an operating system that, after nearly three years of work (Vista was released in 2006), has gone into beta.

I'd like to see a rebuilt Windows - something on the lines of OSX. In that respect, like all those Windows users, I guess I'm also waiting for Godot.