Windows 7

Just downloaded the new beta of Windows 7 (32bit) from Microsoft and installed it on my test machine... and its seems pretty good and stable for a beta!!

My test machine:
Athlon 1800XP
1GB RAM
GeForce 5900XT

I couldnt get Windows Update to work, but that could be due to that I havent got the Beta key yet (due to the overloaded servers).

Windows installed the standard VGA driver for the graphics card, which didnt like my games... so I downloaded the nVidia Vista driver for my card and it worked a treat ;-)

Once I plugged in my network cable, it found the 2 XP boxes on the network and my ADSL2+ modem fine... also the transfer speed was good too.

Installed Blitzmax and that worked fine, after setting it to run as Admin (havent tried MinGW yet)...

The only thing I havent been able to test is sound due to Windows didnt like the sound chip on the motherboard... but this PC is over 6 years old now...

Anyone else played with Windows 7 yet?

[Edit - removed old links - Download from here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/ ]

Hey, How do you get the Key? I had this download location before when it first appeard but the servers borked.

Where do i apply for a key?

Apparently from here:

https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/productkeys/win7-32/enus/default.aspx

If it ever works!!! Been trying for ages now...

Just to clarify with BlitzMax... it loaded fine, but when I compiled any of the examples it failed saying it didnt have permissions to write to the location (C:\Program Files\BlitzMax\Samples\)... but when I right clicked on BlitzMax exe and ticked Run As Admin, it works fine...

Meh, I think MS are blocking the download. I have tried 3 times now to download it from both IE and Forefox but it keeps stopping when it's at 60%.

Since I was I think part of the first lot to download but not get a key due to the server borking I'm gonna try and hit the torrents to get it.

I mean literally whent he download was available and we could get a key within 2-3 minutes it all slowed to 0.0005byte browsing. :/

[edit] ALso one of the admins on the MS windows 7 forums revealed a little console trick which extends the beta an extra 30 days. So you can get 60 days use of WIndows 7 without needing a key. :)

This morning (9:30am Australia Central Time), I was downloading using Free Download Manager and was maxing out my connection at 2MB/s... got the ISO in about 25 mins ;-)

I thought I read that you could re-arm up to 120 days without a key... :-)

Yeah I just found another post on it. There is another technique, completely legit, requires no hack or patch, just inputting a few console commands that after 60 days you can, as you say re-arm, which is the term they use for it, for 120 days total. :)

As for the download, yeah I was getting 2.2megabyte download speeds from the link. The ISO is 2.4Gig so under 25 mins for me also to download but each time it got to 60% it would trigger somehow firefox and IE to think that the download was complete.

The ISO after that was only 1.8gig but could not be mounted and failed a verification check in UltraISO.

I haven't tried a download manager. I have licensed version of Getright but it became highly annoying when I used it and could not deal with it at all.

I'll try free download manager though to see if it works. I have found a torrent for the release but will try again with the main download before I use the unethical way of getting access to it.

WOOHOO!!

Just got a key!! I tried the 64bit link:

https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/productkeys/win7-64/enus/default.aspx

And after a million refreshes it finally popped up.... and the 64bit key works on the 32bit version... I can now access Windows Update and its downloading a driver for the sound card!!

150 refreshes and counting trying to get that page to display a key.

I know it works because some dude on neowin posted about 5 minutes ago with ascreenshot and time. He got his key after 90 refreshes about 10 minutes ago. :)

Also the download is still failing. It seems to only work when it wants to but others are stating success in downloading it using Internet Download Manager.

I'm using that now. Started the download about a minute ago. Here's hoping. :)

I havent used that one... I used Free Download Manager...

It seems to be pot-luck.. been reading this thread on Whirlpool:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1120619&p=-1#bottom

And only a few are getting the key...

Well the driver installed for the sound card and I now have the sound volume control in the task bar (I like the new one BTW)... but no sound, I think I recall having this trouble with Vista on this box too...

Did you install the patch? It states on neowin that the current 7000 builds are plagued with an error in Windows 7 that destroys mp3 files.

I downloaded the patch but it's no use as I don't have the WIndows 7 Beta yet. The download failed also again using Internet Download Manager.

I'll read that forum you linked to. See if I can get any info.

Damn some popel get all the luck. :)

Don't know how to help with the sound. I also had a problem with sound with vista as they had no support for the lowest end Sounblaster Audio cards. Well atleast no driver that would work properly.

Ive read about that issue about mp3s (something to do with media player)... I havent downloaded it as I installed Win7 on my test box and I totally formatted the drive before doing so... so no mp3s were on it anyway...

Ill have to try this on another PC later...

Wow, I am simply amazed at your level of enthusiasm to download what is quite simply, the next generation of bloaty crap.

Still, at least Microsoft have inadvertedly admitted that Vista is awful and are trying to rectify the situation by releasing a service packed Vista with a different skin as a new OS. I guess the only way is up (or down depending on how you look at it)

At least the beta download isn't 12gb I guess. Still, there's plenty of time to put the useless stuff back in.

I'm still trying to figure out a pattern which Windows versions are good and which bad, but it seems Windows 7 is good, since it's based on the XP codestream (Whistler-Blackcomb):

3.0 (bad), 3.11 (good), 3.51 (good), 95 (good), 98 (bad), 98SE (good), ME
(bad), 2000 (good), XP (good), 2003 (good), Vista (bad), 2008 (bad), 7 (good).

Vista was only a failed branch (Longhorn):
"Vista went gold (RTM) on 8 of November 2006. Named after the Longhorn Bar in the Whistler-Blackcomb resort; initially planned as an "interim release" between "Whistler" and "Blackcomb" (which was "Vienna" and is now Windows 7)."

The core is only 40MB, while in Vista it was 448MB, so there is a great potential to strip down Windows 7 to a really fast Windows, faster than XP.

Windows 7 can also run without a graphical GUI, that's a feature I've been asking since 1990:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071021-core-of-windows-7-taking-shape-meet-the-minwin-kernel.html

My main reason to test was to see how my games work on it ;-)

Since it looks like it will be released this year, portals will expect your game to run on it!



Actually its not that bad... think I read somewhere they are more going for downloadable bloat ;-)

Of course Microsoft's official position is still that they don't advise people to wait for Windows 7 to be released, but that they should upgrade to Vista first.

Also, interesting tidbit: the buzz in the rumor mill is that Microsoft will announce an incentive program in the next couple of months for a free upgrade to Windows 7 for people who purchase Vista between July '09 and whenever Windows 7 hits the street.

I saw a balmybalmer monologue where he introduced windows 7 and said it was ready for beta. He addressed absolutely none of the usual concerns. Instead he began ranting about windows live intergration with the new os. How easy it is to use live services, messenger and hotmail as an integral part of windows and how you can sync your live data locally or something.

Whoopty Doo.

I want to know if they have changed vistas horrible unintuitive interface, driver problems, random startup, shutdown and 'idle lag' times and the large list of network / compatability issues vista has. Have they changed the kernel model like they suggested they would do ages ago and decreased its unnecessary bloat so it can run on the majority of current hardware without sucking up all the ram? It will be nice to see if they have added some options to UAC as well, other than on or off.

I guess i will have to download it and see. :/

I kind of dread this new feature:



Why on earth do they have to screw over *every* usable feature until the whoel thing is an unusable mess?! The quicklaunch bar worked., and was obvious. Merging it with your open apps just makes it less obvious what crap is already running on your computer.

Personally I disable the taskbar grouping the first chance I get, because it's annoying. Now they ripped out the quicklaunch and essentially stack that on top of the grouping as well.

Great... they should leave well enough alone, instead of messing with all the 'change for the sake of change'.

From what i've read it looks more convenient than Vista. I suspect it will make more users happy than Vista and so also reach an larger installed userbase.

Contrary to the whiners, I personally like Vista.

Just got this message from MS server.

Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal -- we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.

Barney

Its said that since yesterday, for me.

Some of us are for performance and dumbing down what we really need out of an OS, not flamboyant looks and bloat for twice the price.

I'm a big fan of Vista, sounds like Windows 7 might be good for an update to my wifes computer. XP sucks big time compared to Vista. Windows 7 if it has been trimmed down a bit should be even better.

When's Windows 7 due for release?

I wonder what it'll end up being called. Presumably MS wont stick with calling it Windows 7.

It will be out on holidays, that means like June-August 2009.
Windows 7 is the final name. It makes sense because that's it's version number. Vista was Windows 6. XP is Windows 5.1.
Originally Windows 7 was planned to be called Vienna, and it's codename is Blackcomb, but I think Microsoft didn't want it to sound too much like Vista, since it has a bad reputation.

Interesting Lumooja, thanks.

I'm sure i read somewhere that Windows '7' is actually Windows 6.1?

Yeah, you might be right. On Wiki it says it's NT 6.1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Windows_versions
However, then I wonder where the name 7 comes from :)

I guess they just rounded it up to 7. :P

Wow lets see if we can copy Apple more.

Stupid icons in a row on your screen.
Renaming to Windows 7 (Mac OS X?)
No words to be found on Desktop (looking at screenshots)
Same general "revolutionary interface" that looks 'cool' but lacks the functionality of a simple gray file menu.

I'm so tired of this. I can't even use the new MS Word because its too
frustrating.

I really really really need to try Linux again... I don't think I can handle
this new wave of stylish crap.

Or I can just do what I've been doing for years... when in doubt go back to
Windows 98.

-sigh- Bust out the E-Machine from the dusty corners of the basement...

Erm, Apple aren't exactly beyond ripping off/copying others' work, ya know. :)

Anybody else having trouble downloading this?

I get my licence key and click the "Download Now" button, and the same page reopens! Tried it in FF3 and IE7 - it doesn't wanna play ball.

The links therevills posted worked, but the download stopped at 4% the first time I tried it, and 7% the second time.

Bleedin' farce, the lot of it.

Oh, I'm not saying they aren't... didn't they borrow the multiple workspace idea from Unix/Linux systems?

All I'm saying is that as far as electronics go, Apple is the 'one to mimic' today.

Except Windows 7 carries the internal version number of 6.1. :-?

Windows NT 4.0 = 4.0
Windows 2000 = 5.0
Windows XP = 5.1
Windows Vista = 6.0
Windows 7 = 6.1

Anyway, it is the 7th incarnation of the Windows NT line, so it makes some kind of sense from that point of view.

It is kind of odd, though -- personally I thought going to your 'year' numbers (95 / 98 / 2000) was a smart move because it made it obvious to everyone that they had an 'old' version, while many people have no clue how a 'real' versio number really compares to another one. then they change it to something cutesy with XP and Vista, and now back to the ancient numerical versioning again.

Seriously? Windows 7 this year? I didn't think it would come out till 2010 at the earliest. ?

After all the crap they got for postponing Vista several times (on top of the horrible reviews, particularly in the corporate market) you'll bet they'll do everything they can to release Windows 7 on time, if nothing else.

(Timely release dates are a *huge* deal for large companies that sign on with the Microsoft enterprise agreement, where you sign a three year contract for an enterprise-wide license for 'free' upgrades for Windows / Office. Imagine the fun for the people who signed up in 2003-2004, and got exactly diddly-squat for their money because the next Office wasn't released until 2007, and Vista was also a 5-year wait)

Yet another UI refresh without added stability or proper features like automatic installation of software (the kind linux has had for years)? I have no idea why people would use this or Vista over XP, which is atleast pretty fast and stable OS.

Why would you use XP over Win98SE?

Why would you use Win98SE over Win95?

Why would you use Win95 over Win3.1?

Why would you use Win3.1 over DOS?

Only a luddite would stay with what they know when its almost ten years old, rather than accept that better options have appeared and move on to them.

Yes, you have to eventually move on, since software support is slowly fading away. That doesn't mean that XP won't be usable for another year or two atleast. I'm not using any Microsoft operating systems because they suck, but if I would I wouldn't switch for a year or two. At that point they should be at service pack 2 or 3 and be somewhat usable.

Vista is usable at Service Pack 1. But you wouldn't know this since you aren't using any Microsoft operating systems.

My Vista setup is pretty fast and stable, granted it had teething troubles, which look like many of them have been addressed with the first SP.

But natually, there cannot be a discussion about a windows product without at least one 'MS are shite' post... It just wouldnt be the same otherwise! ;)

Dabz

Everyone seems to have forgotten that XP was crap prior to SP2, yet they still expect new versions - even Beta versions, to be faultless on day one.

So, what's up with that??

Seems so, I do recall you couldnt use USB2.0 on XP until you installed SP1..

The monsters that they are..

:D

Dabz

I guess financially Microsoft simply can't afford to say "hey look, this XP version is actually quite good... apart from see-through windows it has everything we really need... let's stick with it for a while". No, they have to bring out a new version no matter what, to keep the money pouring in. In this sense the relative failure of Vista is a good thing for them, because now they even have a *reason* to bring out the next version without delay, making twice the money in about the same period. This also works because there isn't really an alternative.

At the same time I have to admit, it's a built-in resistance to new things in general that also contributes to the negativity towards these new operating systems (in my case). ;) A kind of nostalgia. Or, "this works fine so I don't want to hear about your new solution.". Or "ok thanks for making that php program, which took you about 2 months, but after thinking it over I think I'll stick to my pencil and paper." (This happened to me.)

Sorry for going a bit off-topic.

There is a lot more to Vista than see through windows lol. I use Aero with the tranparency turned off since I don't like it. But would never go back to XP. The difference is night and day in Vistas favour if you use it for a while.

Apart from ram the resources required really aren't that high. A64 3000+ and 6600GT and 2GB DDR ram or better are what I would recommend as a fairly base system.

The release date was originally going to be 2010. Good luck releasing it this year with the economy down the toilet lol.

Hi. Can You try B3D on Windows 7?

Thanks

What are these better options than XP?

XP will be officially supported until at least 2014. Its not going anywhere soon.

It depends on your definition of "usable".

I still run the original release of XP on most of my systems and it still works great. I never had a problem with it even when it was first released.

The only version of XP I have ever had problems with is SP3. Not shocking since major parts of SP3 were backported from Vista.

So, getting back to the original topic....

Just installed Windows 7 Beta on my laptop. Laptops are funny with drivers at the best of times so I was quite surprised when everything just worked straight after the installation, which took about 20 minutes.

Windows update downloaded two OS updates, plus three driver updates.

All good stuff, so far! It doesn't even 'feel' like a Beta version.

[edit] Blitzmax works perfectly in Windows 7. Had to update my Intel GMA drivers as GLMax2DDriver wasn't working (the old white square problem), but I half expected that.

Project Studio, MaxIDE, MinGW, OpenAL etc - all working nicely.

Downloading Windows 7 now...

I got the product key and I'm now waiting for the download to finish (350 kb/s.) I'm using Free Download Manager because the direct links at the top would close at 16% in FF3.

EDIT: Uggg. Free Download Manager isn't working either. Trying Internet Download Manager.

I did have problems with the "download now" button reopening the same page. Right-click>>View Source and copied the URL, pasted it manually into address bar. Worked fine then.

It downloaded all the way? Were you using any download accelerators?

It installs an activex download manager when you click "download now" - used that. Took about 90 mins.

Heres some information for anyone still having trouble downloading it:

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=Windows_7

@Gfk, you said BlitzMax works perfectly... did you have to run as admin to get stuff to compile? On mine BlitzMax loaded fine, but when I tried to compile any of the examples I got a denied message....

Didn't try compiling any examples - just my own stuff.

[edit] Just compiled firepaint and it worked fine. I have UAC turned off, though?

That could be it... Ive left it on - it does seem better than Vista, its only asked me a couple of times to click yes...

Ill check it out tonight... when I get home... stuck at work atm!

BTW here is a link for some Win7 tips:

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=Windows_7_Tips

*Add the Run button back to the Start Menu
*Make the taskbar look like the one in Vista
*Bring back the traditional Quick Launch toolbar

Don't use the links in the OP to download Windows 7. They work but only up to a certain percentage. Those were the original links to Windows 7 download whern it first appeard. But as everyone know within 2 minutes of them appearing (and MS only allowing 2.5 million beta keys etc) the entire planet (almost) tried to download it and get a beta key. That's what crashhed the whole servers and delayed Windows 7.

You should go directly to the Windows 7 page to download and get a beta key. MS is no longer restricting it to 2.5 million beta keys etc since they borked the initial release. It's open to everyone now and download link and beta keys are available from a new location.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

Since MS are keen to stess that Win7 is designed to run on low-end machines (right down to the eeePC) I would be interested in whether anyone can compare Vista <> Win7 in the following areas

1) What sort of WINDOWS EXPERIENCE POINTS are you guys getting compared to Vista?

2) What's the total installation size? Still lots of bloat?

3) Does it 'feel' faster to use than Vista?

4) Boot times? Can you still make a cuppa and decorate the spare bedroom before the O/S is "ready"?

My big concern is that Win7 will simply be Vista SP2 with a different name

Yep it was UAC... when I totally disable it the samples work fine... anything above off I got the error:



1) Since Ive only installed it on a really old PC and a VM... I cant really tell you if its better... on the PC it got a score of 2.0 (when I installed the Vista graphics driver - up from 1.0), on the VM it couldn't get me a score!

2) Well it needs at least 5.5GB free to install... I found that out when I set up the VM with only 5GB hard drive space!! DOH!

3) On the old PC with aero off... its feels very quick!

This isn't true.

You can right-click an icon on the taskbar to bring up a context menu, and open as many instances as you want that way.

You better sign up to Whirlpool and correct it Gfk ;-)

[Edit: Just tested it... well they are right in a way, it isn't the same functionality, in Windows XP you left click the quick launch icon and it launches instances of the program, in Win7 if you did that it would launch the program and if you did it again it would minimise... so it is different... but as you say you can right click on it to launch multiple instances]

[Edit 2: Updated it for your Gfk ;-)]

My take on Windows 7 is that it is more than windows Vista SP10. I know Vista is only at SP1 and in full release and that Windows 7 is still in Beta. That tells you something.

I thought Vista was a borked release and SP1 sort of fixed it. I now know that to be true as Windows 7 even in Beta kicks the crap out of Vista and completely obliterates XP.

It should, considering that it's two major versions ahead.

The fact that Vista didn't speaks volumes by itself.

> Why would you use XP over Win98SE?

I used Win98SE as long as I possibly could before MS dropped it. I still used it actually up till the point I left England. WinXP eventually became the best of a bad bunch but became better because other versions of Windows become obsolete. But still I have an XP machine that I have never connected to the Internet and it still has the bare minimum XP, it has never been updated. And boy, for a 4 year machine, it zipped! I only ever play games on that machine because it is so fast, it hasn't been ruined yet by updates and all the bloaty shitty crap you get by browsing the Internet.

> Why would you use Win98SE over Win95?

USB wasn't properly implemented in Win95, plus Win98 was actually better.

> Why would you use Win95 over Win3.1?

Win3.1 suddenly become imcompatible with stuff, besides it was horrible and Win95 made it much more easier , and dos games did run better (as in less hassle and n o boot disks getting games to work.

> Why would you use Win3.1 over DOS?

You're just been silly now :)

But I have an XP and Vista laptop, they're next to each other right now. I use XP 90% of the time and Vista 10% of the time. The Vista laptop isn't on. I can be reminded everyday why I hate Vista and why XP is better when I use them together. There is nothing that Vista can do that XP can't, except piss me off constantly. And Vista can't even do the same tasks XP can as fast. (Except pissing me off though, in which Vista is certainly faster at!)

http://xkcd.com/528/

I finally got around to installing the Win 7 x64 beta on my laptop this morning. I've replace the XP installation though sadly I couldn't perform an upgrade due to the move from x86->x64.

Everything on my laptop apart from the Ageia PhysX adapter has been detected and a driver automatically installed. Even a fully SLI compliant Nvidia video driver. Wireless was detected at setup time.

Sweet :)

Is there a download which can rate your PC for "EXPERIENCE POINTS" without having to install Vista / 7 ?

I read somewhere that 7 has tweaked the rating anyhow. Has MS done this to blag a false speed increase?

No, it just measures out of 7.9 now instead of 5.9 like Vista.

The rating system didn't mean much in vista anyway. the difference between a Geforce 7800GS and and a 8800GS was the same for regular graphics and only .2 higher for gaming despite the 8800 being upto 5x higher fps in shader heavy games at resolutions over 1280x1024

It also has changed the scale of values somewhat as well, I know there have been some people who got a 1.0 for some things under Vista and now get a 2.0 under 7 and the same goes in reverse.

Finally got it downloaded and working for the most part (using it to type this post.) Extremely disappointed about it not installing my graphics card, but I'm looking for Vista drivers for it now. I don't have the Aero effect. :(

EDIT: All of that work I went through and Radeon 9250 isn't even supported by Vista. Yipee! I'm going to go cry now.

Installed Seven on my laptop just now - stuff appears to work a lot quicker than under Vista (except file-copy is still a little slow). Everything installed as expected and no missing hardware.

Have also installed on my desktop - haven't really used as yet and tried it my media centre PC but my X-FI soundcard from Creative (bah!) didn't work which is a pity as Media Centre seems to have improved.

Quite happy at this point (was also happy with Vista though).

I'm back on Vista now - seen everything I needed to see from Windows 7 and I'm quite happy to wait for an official release now that I know things work.

Hmm, I've found some potentially serious problems in a Blitz3D application running under Windows 7.

There are at least two problems, but I've only managed to isolate one of them so far. The problem is caused by the use of 'LockBuffer' and 'UnlockBuffer', which if used will completely lock up Windows 7. The other (non-related) issue is also locking up the OS.

Note this is in 2D mode, not 3D. The same functions work fine in BlitzPlus applications, but that uses a different version of DirectX.

I'm running Windows 7 in a virtual machine, but I've not had these issues with the same apps in other virtual machine OS environments.

Can anyone confirm the issue? (preferably on a non-VM installation)

Windowed mode or full screen? If windowed mode I'd blame the gfx drivers. If full screen I'd blame Windows 7.

DirectX under Win 7 has some big problems unless you download and install the latest DirectX runtime from Microsoft.

Half-Life 2 and associated add-ons have issues even so.

Both.


It still locks up with the latest DirectX End-User Runtimes.

I would imagine it is DirectX related though.

Well... W7 is still beta and I reckon DX7 compatibility is not really a top priority for MS.

Barney

Well I finally got the thing downloaded and installed. Am pretty impressed with it like most people. I had done some research before and it seems things I thought would bother me (broken Creative soundcard support) hasn't bothered me much at all.

Although I was expecting to get DreamScenes/DeskScapes working because I saw posts about that but I've had no luck whatsoever, so am a little miserable about that <sniffs>

Some things nobody seems to have mentioned before : Improved installer with actually useful status messages and the boot screen is finally animated. Every time I see it I can't help but say 'Ooooohhh... Aaaahhhh...' out loud. Serious.

I like the online repository for themes/desktops/etc. It's about time they had an easy location for that stuff. Everything else has already been mentioned by people I believe...

Oh, gif playback is broken. That's the only really broken thing I've noticed (a few 'oh that's not right's here and there though).

Magicville (which uses DX7) runs perfectly under Windows 7.

I tried Windows 7 on 2 machines (T61p and GF8800 PC), and on both it worked fine. I was able to load Lenovo specific nVidia drivers for Vista 32-bit on the T61p, and nVidia's drivers for the PC.

The FPS under OpenGL 2.1 was a bit slower than on XP on both, but nothing to worry about, plus the benefit of having DirectX11 for Flight Simulator X compensates that fully. And I think the FPS could be even better in the final Windows 7.

You just need to switch to Windows 7 Basic theme to get the full FPS out. The Aero theme eats a lot FPS from games. Besides, the Windows 7 Basic theme looks much better than the Aero theme anyway, the Windows 2000 theme looks not as good on Windows 7 than on XP because of the oversized task bar and other inconsistencies.

I thought the desktop was supposed to be 'switched off' during a fullscreen app since Vista now? The only time a game should be slowed down is right when it goes into fullscreen, as the old memory/pagefile is being flushed out.

That might be true, I only tested windowed benchmark programs.