Windows 7 Beta

sonic

I'm sure many of you have heard, but Windows 7 is now an official public beta. I've had it for a little while now but just got around to installing it tonight. I installed it after on my laptop as my primary OS because I like it so much. It is like the snappy and more gorgeous version of Vista. It feels so fast, it found every driver (including my 8600m GT) except for my card reader (which it picked up from Windows update), and it is extremely stable. I recommend at least giving it a try on an extra partition.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

JasonLavoie

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I'll give it a try just for shits and giggles

TheWinterLord

Well as seeing i cant install vista service pack 1 i might give this a try XD
Yes i talked to microsoft support for over 2 months about this...

oXYnary

Hmm.. Well since I really need a new puter drastically (still running a 1 gig memory system with a athlonxp and attempting 2048 multilayter textures and zbrush). I was going to try to hold out for its release before picking up a new system. But if I can get the beta.....

Might still wait for the first dx11 cards though.

James Edwards

WinterLord: I'm in the same boat as you. Short of wiping the drive and reinstalling, I have no windows update and you can't update to the service packs without it. Everything else works though, and since my vista machine is pretty much only used for doing 3d work and a few games I haven't bothered. It works for everything I need it for. I'll probably give win 7 beta a try on a new hard drive and upgrade to the full version when it ships instead of bothering to fix vista. Not sure what killed my update though. Nothing has been able to fix it.

Frankie

I was wondering about this, did you try benchmarking with any 3d programs or photoshop?

SHEPEIRO

my vistas been totally ransaked by a trojan or two in the last few days, so im thinking this might be good for me too. is it easy to install with vista already installed, im a bit of a noob when it comes to replacing operating systems

Wahlgren

Faster?! IM SOLD!

I´ll take the plunge. Tonight! ;O Next post will be on windows 7! Booyah!

JordanW

It's not -totally- safe, I read through the release notes and it mentioned an issue where if you added mp3 files to be played it the Windows7 media player it would permanently delete the first few seconds of audio when it tried to read/write metadata.....kinda turned me off from even dual booting on my machine at home.

LoTekK

So far so good. After testing it out a bit with a dual boot, I decided to go the upgrade path. It's snappy as hell, and I haven't had much in the way of compatibility issues so far. No performance issues with Silo, Photoshop (cs3, not 4), SAI.

Steve Schulze

The question is: Is it better than Windows XP? I never found a compelling reason to upgrade to Vista.

Also:
http://www.xkcd.com/528/

Mark Dygert

I like it, I'll probably make the jump at home from XP to Windows 7. At first I felt that Windows 7 was an extension of the Mojave project and that we where all being duped into buying Vista all over again, but after trying it, there's enough different from XP & Vista to Win7 that I like, I will switch over at some point. I'm probably stuck with Vista for 1-2 more years at work as my now kick ass system slowly turns to crap.

It needed to be light, quick, transparent and any attempt to save the users from themselves needed to be virtually invisible. So far they've pretty much got it. With the economy the way it is, they need to woo entrenched XP users and once bitten twice shy Vista users to a new OS, it could be a hard sell.

Hopefully they leave the strong arm "buy it and like because we say so" tactics out of the marketing campaign this time around. Hopefully they'll also drop the 7 sku idea and go with one version. They just tried too hard to make Vista ultimate the only choice. But I guess its much easier to sell a product when you compare it to lesser versions of itself...

Wahlgren

jackablade. Compelling reason = more than 3.4gb of ram

Lee3dee

First I tried to installl the 64 bit version, but my computer is too old (dual core) needs a core 2 duo or higher, so I downloaded the 32 bit version and installed that one to the same spare HD. Installation went ok, until it got a major error.

So my testing of windows 7 didn't go too well I still have XP, i'm happy with it but I would like the 4 GB of ram that I have to be used instead of only 2.

Mark Dygert

Notorious P.I.G wrote: »

jackablade. Compelling reason = more than 3.4gb of ram

Windows XP x64 is limited to 128gb of physical memory and 8 terabytes of virtual memory per process.

If someone loves XP enough they will find ways to stay until the last possible moment, it happened with win98.

I hope they stick with Win7 as a name and forget all this Vista, Cloud, crap.

Waz

I've been using it for the past 3 days now and have run into a few issues using it. First 3ds Max 2009 can't save scenes for some reason, I don't know why. Surround sound doesn't work when using my Creative X-Fi. I haven't tried installing Office yet or a bunch of other things. Also the one game I'm playing atm Dead Space runs fine.

One thing I really like is having the tablet connected turns your PC into a Tablet PC, so there's hand writing recognition, and pen gestures. I also like the new task bar functions and windows snapping to places on the desktop. So far I see myself switching over when the full version is released. There's a lot of new stuff I'm liking and visually it looks really nice too. It also installs faster and boots up faster then my 64 XP partition does.

LoTekK

Waz, try reinstalling your x-fi drivers. I had issues pulling up any of the creative software after upgrading, but once i reinstalled the drivers i was good to go.

Fallout3 doesn't seem to want to run fullscreen properly for me. Well, it does, but my display goes to sleep while the game runs. o_O (windowed mode fixes that)
Bioshock blows up on startup, haven't tried windowed mode yet.

sonic

I did some have issues with a few 3D things, but then I installed the latest drivers from everything for Vista and it all works perfectly now. The good thing about the migration from Vista to 7 is that they use the same driver model unlike XP to Vista which caused tons of problems.

JordanW wrote: »

It's not -totally- safe, I read through the release notes and it mentioned an issue where if you added mp3 files to be played it the Windows7 media player it would permanently delete the first few seconds of audio when it tried to read/write metadata.....kinda turned me off from even dual booting on my machine at home.

There's a patch out to fix that, but I agree it's pretty annoying!

Emil Mujanovic

I must really be out of the loop, because this is the first I've heard of a new OS from Microsoft. But even more surprising is that most of you are praising it instead of shitting all over it in true Polycount fashion. That's definitely a good sign.

-caseyjones

JasonLavoie

Good to hear all, i'm probably going to install on the weekend, was just wondering if anyone who uses Audio software / equipment, is their any issues with drivers etc.? I know creative xfi has some issues (looks like there are drivers though to fix that... which is really nice).

How do Steam games work with it? (if anyone has tried) don't know if there will be any issues with it?

LoTekK

Steam's working just fine so far (aside from the aforementioned issue i'm having with fallout 3 and bioshock in fullscreen, though I'd imagine those are related to those specific games).

My x-fi (i've got the usb one) went a bit wonky after the upgrade, but was fixed with a driver update.

James Edwards

I doubt I will be praising it no matter how good it is. It's just an OS. So long as it doesn't hinder me from actually using my software to get work done, I really don't care. I'm not expecting much to be different from vista to be honest. Some refinement and tweaking here and there, but a shocking turnabout from what I'm using now? Doubtful. I have no problems with vista as it is... at least it's letting me use a 64 bit system and extra ram for some of my primary applications. That's all I care about. Vista update on the other hand, has been a problem. Really hope to not have that experience again with 7.

dejawolf

caseyjones wrote: »

I must really be out of the loop, because this is the first I've heard of a new OS from Microsoft. But even more surprising is that most of you are praising it instead of shitting all over it in true Polycount fashion. That's definitely a good sign.

-caseyjones

whaddya mean, so people are supposed to shit all over a microsoft product regardless of whether its good or not?
did you ever think there might just be a tiny little reason why people shit all over microsoft products, e.g they've literally force-fed inferior products on people?

dejawolf

deleted

Snowfly

Unfortunately I'm still on a Mac, but I would give it a shot, on the premise that Microsoft's optimizing the hell out of it. Any OS that lets me maximize my hardware is worth a try, and I'm beginning to hate the bloat that is OSX..

Wahlgren

dejawolf wrote: »

whaddya mean, so people are supposed to shit all over a microsoft product regardless of whether its good or not?

Isn´t that really what everyone has been doing the last 10 years or so?
I think that´s what casey here means.

Anyway. I decided not to install it yet... mostly because the goddamn download page wouldnt let me download and i started working instead of firing up that old torrent program.

sonic

Snowfly wrote: »

Unfortunately I'm still on a Mac, but I would give it a shot, on the premise that Microsoft's optimizing the hell out of it. Any OS that lets me maximize my hardware is worth a try, and I'm beginning to hate the bloat that is OSX..

I like Windows and OSX both the same, but I will say this: I installed the latest version of OSX on a 400mhz G4 with 512mb RAM and it ran beautifully, including the visual effects. I've also heard stories of people installing Windows 7 on old pieces of shit and it running very well, too.

almighty_gir

i just want a version of windows that has completely barebones, 0 latency audio drivers...

none of this multilayered bullshit.

Emil Mujanovic

dejawolf wrote: »

whaddya mean, so people are supposed to shit all over a microsoft product regardless of whether its good or not?
did you ever think there might just be a tiny little reason why people shit all over microsoft products, e.g they've literally force-fed inferior products on people?

I didn't mean people shitting all over Microsoft, I was talking about the OS specifically. Considering that the majority of Vista users have complained about the OS when it was first released (that being a full release and not just a beta) and still complain about its faults to this day. Where Windows 7 in beta form is supposedly faster and more stable than Vista. Which is why there are still so many users running XP.

-caseyjones

Keg

I'm really happy with Windows 7 so far. The new taskbar setup is quite nice and it's just noticeably more responsive. Also I don't know if it's available in a new install, but with the upgrade option there was the option to connect online to download updates to win7 so they're integrated into the install. Another point with the installer that was somewhat nice was the details listed showing the percentage as well as the actual numbers for amount of data copied over out of the total amount to copy.

Also of note, the mp3 corruption has been fixed. It was an issue in the leaked torrent iso that's been patched (windows update patch possibly).

Michael Knubben

almighty_gir wrote: »

i just want a version of windows that has completely barebones, 0 latency audio drivers...

none of this multilayered bullshit.

So you think 0-latency audio can be done just by making a barebones windows?
You simpleton!

Junkie_XL

It took me a while to get Vista working the way I want and I don't want to change anything. I don't even want to risk installing SP1...I sure as heck will not be touching a new beta. Just tired of upgrading. So much other stuff I need to do instead.

I'll just increase the size of the icons in my quick launch on the taskbar to keep up with the times...there, instant windows 7 :-P

almighty_gir

MightyPea wrote: »

So you think 0-latency audio can be done just by making a barebones windows?
You simpleton!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_legacy_audio_components

flaagan

Still have to find a spare Sata hdd to install the 7 beta on, but will probably give it a go in the next week or two.

Regardless, came across this MS page for personalization for windows 7.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/Personalize

dejawolf

Notorious P.I.G wrote: »

Isn´t that really what everyone has been doing the last 10 years or so?
I think that´s what casey here means.

i prefer to differentiate between good and mediocre.
most people have been shitting over microsofts mediocre products, and downright burning microsofts bad stuff on a stake.
for the actual good microsoft products, there's merely been some resentful murmuring about it being"nothing special".
it comes with the territory of being a 'big evil corporation®

Talbot

Notorious P.I.G wrote: »

jackablade. Compelling reason = more than 3.4gb of ram

Someone needs to install 64bit...

Are most of the programs that run on vista compatible with Windows 7?

dejawolf

there shouldn't be any major problems with apps that already run on vista.

okno

I keep trying to download it but halfway through, the download manager goes blank and when I try to resume, it says "Could not resume, the file has changed on the server.(mismatch filesize) Try to download a fresh copy of the URL" I've restarted the download 4 times but it does this every time

flaagan

Oh snap!

http://i.gizmodo.com/5131933/giz-explains-why-the-windows-7-taskbar-beats-mac-os-xs-dock

Keg

I just noticed that the taskbar items can now be progress bars as well. I was copying a file over the network and it was taking a bit and showed as a progress bar in the taskbar.

ScoobyDoofus

Besides the BS problems I'm having...it seems cool. The taskbar is rad and everything is very smooth & slick even on my old hardware.

*UPDATE*: So turns out I was stupid and didn't set the drive to "basic" rather than "dynamic" in the dialog. Now I'm running Win 7 on a spare drive. It immediately comes up and says my current #2 IDE drive has a bad file structure and begins to scan & "clean" it. Now that drive is unreadable...at least in Win7. I haven't tried it back in XP yet...I hope its not suddenly nuked. I'll be super pissed, because it worked great before.

So after trouble downloading from Microsoft I got it via torrent. (same problem as Okno)
Now, when trying to install onto a 230gb SATA drive on my system, Win 7 claims it cannot install onto that drive. Wtf? We STILL need special drivers to install to anything but a IDE disk? Do I need to Fdisk the drive or something and set its partition "active"?(bootable right?) Help me out here...

EarthQuake

I've only ever need special drivers to install onto RAID, not sata. I've installed standard xp and xp64 on sata disks, no problem, countless times. So..... wut?

ScoobyDoofus

Yeah. My #2 drive, my "Storage disk" somehow got its Master File Table corrupted. Trying to repair that today. Win7Beta is totally awesome so far, besides my sound card being incompatible. And DVD playback not working at all...and JAVA stuff behaving strangely.

Wahlgren

So. Here i am. Installed the beta since vista started crapping out on me. Feels new. Im scared.

I´m still setting everything up and getting every program in there but first impressions are good. I can see it being better than vista when all the major kinks get ironed out.

Pedro Amorim

i encourage you to post pics or it didnt happen

dejawolf

i sense a philosophical epic coming along...
if me eating breakfast isn't on youtube.. did i eat breakfast?

pior

Flaagan, I find this page quite interesting. It seems like the MS guys really started to think about user-friendliness and subtle assistance to help smoothing out the OS experience. However they still have their fingers up their ass when it comes to visual clutter. Double-outlined, round-cornered transparent windows haha. Makes me want to puke... That one screenshot tells it all
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/01/contextuals2.jpg

OSX icons are huge (something I totally dislike) but in the end it still looks way cleaner that the Win7 1999 website graphic design orgy.

Pain!

Hopefully they'll allow for easy custom themes changes.

bounchfx

well pior i'm sure you know you can change the size of the osx icons...

but yeah I see what you mean about the outside of the windows, that is pretty funny

EarthQuake

I envision a wonderful utopian future where our windows will not be enslaved behind terrible boards, NO SIR, OUR WINDOWS WILL ONLY CONSIST OF TERRIBLE BOARDERS!

ElysiumGX

can that be disabled?

Flynny

Hope so, currently using Windows 7, quite a decent upgrade.