Windows 7 open beta

124

Comments

  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    So far, I'm seriously loving 7, and I've been using it as my almost primary (while I'm at work, on my work laptop) OS since Monday.

    Pros:
    Cleaner, more sensible interface - Vista (and I like Vista, mind you) feels clunky and bloated compared to 7. The stuff they tried to do in Vista, they did right in 7 so far.

    Lighter memory and disk footprint - By quite a bit. Uses about 30% less disk on the default install. Everything has a snappier and smoother feel to it than on the same hardware under Vista.

    Hardware just plain works - Had one driver that needed to come down via Windows Update (nVidia video), but everything else (with the exception of the sound buttons on my laptop) just works. Bluetooth, external screen, wireless, they all just work right out of the box. And this is on x64!

    Taskbar changes - The new bar is great. By reducing to icons and taking a more OS-X approach, the taskbar is truly usable now. It's even practical, with this configuration, to dock the bar vertically. Pinning things to the taskbar, creating a hybridized taskbar/quicklaunch combination is just great.

    UAC Changes - UAC is not as intrusive, and makes a little more sense to the average user. I got in to Vista during some of the early betas where UAC came up if you scratched your nose. Even compared to Vista SP1, UAC in 7 is much more reasonable.

    Cons:
    So far, I have yet to run up against something that doesn't work, or has changed in bad way for me. I plan to use it pretty heavily over the next few weeks, so we'll see if/how that changes.

    Running Windows 7 x64 on a Dell Latitude D820 w/4GB RAM and nVidia Quadro 120 graphics.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Only consistent issue I've seen is that Pidgin hangs on quit every time. Otherwise, it's great.

    I'll say again, suspend to RAM and resume is blisteringly fast.
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited January 2009
    AUUGH! I can't use it because of my loader...I want to so bad.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    I've found that Vista's Superfetch function causes about five minutes of HDD activity after I boot my laptop. Does Windows 7 exhibit the same behavior?

    Also, AlexDeGruven, does the notebook Quadro card use the laptop NVIDIA driver or the desktop version? If it's the laptop driver, I'm confused as to why Windows Update would pull down the x64 driver for you and not for me.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    I haven't paid attention to it. It's fast enough to work on as soon as it boots, regardless if there's activity, though.
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    AUUGH! I can't use it because of my loader...I want to so bad.

    I think it works with grub, but you need to manually add it. At least, that's what this thread seems to suggest.
  • edited January 2009
    at the moment its fairly good even thought i only had it 1 day, but i dont really like the start bar (the way it works)
    does any one know of any asus p5n-d chipset drivers?... etc i cant find any.
    not many things work (drivers, some games)
  • Your-Amish-DaddyYour-Amish-Daddy The heart of Texas
    edited January 2009
    Cool, thanks for that.
  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    GHoosdum wrote:
    Also, AlexDeGruven, does the notebook Quadro card use the laptop NVIDIA driver or the desktop version? If it's the laptop driver, I'm confused as to why Windows Update would pull down the x64 driver for you and not for me.

    I'll have to check this to verify, but I'm pretty sure it's the laptop version, since the Quadro NVS chips are only on mobile hardware, IIRC. I'll update after I check it tonight.

    Edit: Checked the driver on the laptop, what I come up with under driver details:
    "NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M (Prerelease - WDDM 1.0)"

    Also note that I was incorrect, I thought it was the 120, but it's actually the 110.
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    I installed the 32 bit on my NF4, Opty 170, 1GB ram rig (clean install) and 64 bit on a lappy w/ C2D 5750 (2.0) and 4GB ram (upgrade from Vista Home Premium) this morning. Both machines are running super! I am particularly impressed with how well the 4 yr old Opty rig w/ 1GB PC3200 is running. It feels more like the same machine on XP Pro than when I tried to put Vista on it w/ 2GB of ram! Getting used to it may take some doing. But I am happy with it enough to get used to it and that seems to be going better than I expected too. I does definitely finish loading everything after going to desktop faster than XP Pro did!!!
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited January 2009
    I want to give it a try so bad but I just have so much work and files on my vista install, I'm afraid of missing something in my backups to switch. Could do a dual boot but I'd be fairly pissed if anything got messed up with my vista install. Maybe I'll order a fourth hard drive just to give it a whirl.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    The dual boot is seriously the easiest thing anybody's ever seen. I know nobody that's had it screw anything up on their computers.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited January 2009
    Snarkasm wrote:
    The dual boot is seriously the easiest thing anybody's ever seen. I know nobody that's had it screw anything up on their computers.

    I hear ya man. I once had a quad boot going. NT, xp, longhorn and windows server something, 2004, 2k? can't remember... Once things settle down, I'll probably go in and do a good backup and then go for dual boot. Just right now, I don't want to mess with nothing..lol
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited January 2009
    Ahh forgot I was building a pc for my uncle next week. I'll throw win7 on it :)
  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Snarkasm wrote:
    The dual boot is seriously the easiest thing anybody's ever seen. I know nobody that's had it screw anything up on their computers.

    Your not kidding!

    This is so easy it makes even Partition Magic look like a stone age wheel in comparison!
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited January 2009
    This is the first release since windows 2000 pro that has brought anything improved and worthwhile to the table.

    The new Explorer is a breath of fresh air and far better then vista's or xp's.

    Ive been running build 7000 since the day it showed up on pirate bay and im surprised to say this but I like it better then any previous versions of windows its currently on my media center pc and im loving it Its also dam fast. The new media center is also noticeably improved and for network shares can use credentials other then your current user account. Also every task ive thrown at it has been as fast or faster then on windows xp or vista. Even when coping a large amount of files from my samba server vista's explorer would sometimes just randomly lock up and my transfers would get stuck and/or fail. On 7 its as reliable as on xp and it just keeps trucking on when it maxes out the disk's transfer speed on the server.

    edit:My setup are as follows
    Asus M3N78-VM
    AMD Phenom 9550
    2X2GB ocz gold ddr2 800 (Not sure on exact model or timings)
    pc power & cooling 420W silencer
    ATI HD 3870
    Antec Fusion Media center case (M-atx)
    Plextor 18X SATA dvd-rw drive. (Re-badged pioneer with metal gears)
    Razer Barracuda AC-1 Sound card (connected to speakers with toslink optical cable, DTS for encoding)
    Logitech Z5500 speakers
    Samsung LN52A550 television (Connected with HDMI)

    edit: Its still never going to replace ubuntu or mac os on my notebooks but its s step in the right direction.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited January 2009
    Komete wrote:
    Ahh forgot I was building a pc for my uncle next week. I'll throw win7 on it :)

    I wouldn't recommend doing that, the beta runs out at the end of august and then we don't know what'll happen. There'll likely be a hack out that stops the kill switch but it'll be a hack and could lead to future problems for your uncle's system with windows updates not working validation checks failing etc....
  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    kryyst wrote:
    I wouldn't recommend doing that, the beta runs out at the end of august and then we don't know what'll happen. There'll likely be a hack out that stops the kill switch but it'll be a hack and could lead to future problems for your uncle's system with windows updates not working validation checks failing etc....

    Definitely agreed. It's timebombed, and getting around that will require some pretty hacky stuff, if you can even get it to work at all.

    Not to mention the fact that this is Beta1, and we'll see at least one more plus a round of RC before the product goes final. Things can change a lot between now and then.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Yep. We're currently expecting a beta 2, and probably two release candidates before Win7 goes gold.
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited January 2009
    I'm running both versions at this time. The 32bit is on an old workstation I had laying around at work.
    P4 2 GHZ
    512 MB R(rambus)Dram
    onboard video

    It shut down Aero and anything it couldn't run automatically. Runs even on a system that says it shouldn't and I have it networked on my domain. Nice.

    My home system is running Win 7 64 bit.
    Opteron 180
    2 Gigs of ram
    74 gig Raptor
    500 gig Barracuda

    Still sweet and very few issues. I did load the nVidia drivers for Vista and my Audigy 2 zs got pulled because of issues. no fix I can see so onboard sound is running but still in 5.1 mode.

    Crysis Warhead is going at 1280 by 1024 medium settings but highly playable.

    The worst thing so far has been the crashes in IE 8. Firefox 3.0.5 gives me no problems except downloads which can't seem to save anything unless I save it to the desktop, so I use IE for those.

    Initial impressions are good though. For a beta, it's surprisingly stable.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Finally got around to installing Steam on the laptop running 7. It's quirky (constantly thinks I'm playing a game), but it does run, at least. I get about 25 FPS in TF2 because it doesn't know my graphics card... but I don't know if Vista would either; haven't tried it there.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    That's curious. I'm having no download issues under FF3 on 7 x64. Hmmm.. I wonder if there's a way we can fix that for you.

    Speaking of Audigy 2, can you try the Daniel_K drivers? Also, I know this is going to sound strange, but select SPDIF as your default audio device.
  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Same here with the downloads on x64. I'm having no problems downloading anything to anywhere I please.

    What kind of places are you trying to save them? It should default to \Users\username\Downloads

    If it's trying to save somewhere that your account is lacking permissions for, that could be the issue.
  • CallredCallred Maryville, tn
    edited January 2009
    For some reason, it will not complete a download to the default area in 7. I tried different folders and the same thing happened. Small glitch. BTW I took ownership of the entire drive, all folders and subfolders just so I could see the hidden folders under USERS. I have all permissions set to my log in.

    I did try the drivers that Daniel came up with but did not set SPDIF as the default, I'll reinstate my Audigy and give it a test. Thanks.
  • FormFactorFormFactor
    downloads it to run in paralells on his Hackintosh...
    At the core of forgotten
    edited January 2009
    downloads it to run in paralells on his Hackintosh...
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Found a bug:

    Windows 7 x64 hard locks under heavy disk I/O from uTorrent's RTM, beta and alpha clients.

    I'm going to see if it's strictly related to I/O by performing a sustained and looping transfer of a 10GB zero-fill.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited January 2009
    It really doesn't matter. I have to format his machine about every six months due to the amount of maleware he attracts. I use to go in and clean it all up but it got to be too much of a pain. You'd think he'd learn.. He now keeps all his music and movies on a external drive. Always ready for the next format.
    kryyst wrote:
    I wouldn't recommend doing that, the beta runs out at the end of august and then we don't know what'll happen. There'll likely be a hack out that stops the kill switch but it'll be a hack and could lead to future problems for your uncle's system with windows updates not working validation checks failing etc....
    Definitely agreed. It's timebombed, and getting around that will require some pretty hacky stuff, if you can even get it to work at all.

    Not to mention the fact that this is Beta1, and we'll see at least one more plus a round of RC before the product goes final. Things can change a lot between now and then.
  • TroganTrogan London, UK
    edited January 2009
    I downloaded Windows 7 a few days ago.

    I've never dual booted before, but I'd like to dual boot Windows 7 on a Vista laptop. Is there a guide on how to do this?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    Trogan:

    when you go to Install Windows 7, it will give you the option to create a new partition out of free space on your hard drive. Give it 25GB and continue with installation. You'll be done in about 30 minutes, tops.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2009
    It's thuper duper easy!

    It'll automatically edit your boot.ini for you, and as soon as you restart, it'll offer you the choice of booting in 7 or Vista.
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