The Windows 7 beta 1 has come to light sooner than expected. The first beta of Windows 7 is scheduled to hit the shelves near the 2009 holiday shopping season, but it reportedly leaked on the Internet in the form of an ISO file on torrent trackers.

The new OS was presented by Microsoft at the Professional Developers Conference last month in Los Angeles, but it failed to impress as many industry analysts failed to see the subtle differences between Windows 7 and Vista.

Now let’s talk about the Windows 7 beta 1.

According to ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, who has a copy of the OS and several impressions on it, the Windows 7 OS is “solid and fast.” It is very interesting from a visual point of view and it comes with a set of new features such as the new revamped taskbar which is way easier to use than the Vista or XP taskbar.

However, it has its flaws. The taskbar seems to be trying to do too much and it comes across as kludgey and counter-intuitive. For example, it’s quite hard to tell the difference between apps that are running and shortcuts that have been pinned to the taskbar.

There is some speculation that Microsoft will launch Windows 7 as soon as January 7 when the company’s CEO Steve Ballmer delivers a keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He will certainly talk about Windows 7.

If you are curios and want to experience the new OS for yourself, Windows 7 can be downloaded from the Pirate Bay BitTorrent site, for example. A simple search on this torrent tracker will return about 7000 listings. Also try Mininova and other BitTorrent sites.