I’ve been playing around lately with the public beta release of Windows 7 on my MacBook and overall enjoying myself.  I have never used (or even touched) a Vista installation so I don’t have any bad experiences to taint my impressions.

I’m using Parallels Desktop 4.0 on a 14-day trial, and Coherence Mode with Windows 7 works quite seamlessly.  I am able to log into and use Quickbooks Online Edition (which requires Internet Explorer) for my business accounting, while maintaining my OS X environment.

In Full Screen Mode, Windows 7 has some quirks that I haven’t quite figured out:  I was able to pin applications to the dock initially, but after activating the sound card that Parallels emulates, lost that ability.  I have no idea whether the two are connected (or even how they would be) but that’s my only guess.

The themes packages in Windows 7 are a nice touch, especially the ability to rotate among background images (the included Landscapes and United States themes are beautiful) is a great feature.  More themes are available from Microsoft’s web site.

Without getting into any technical details about Windows 7 (remember I’m using an emulator on my 13.3″ MacBook Black with the Dual Core 2.0 GHz processor) I can say I really enjoy the experience.  Windows XP, which I have been using on several computers since that god-awful Windows Me, seems a little out-dated (it is after all several years old).

While Microsoft bills Windows 7 as a beta (and there are a few things I can see fixing), let me say that I will most certainly be installing the final version when it is available — both on my MacBook and my work PC.