Windows 7 BETA

[Panda On Smack]

just installed it on my old inspiron 8200 and it stayed on expanding files (0%) for ages but eventually got going and all is fine now

seems pretty good even on this relic

[TdC]

ye gods the bandwidth o0 it maxed out my 10Mbit the whole way through the download!

[strangely brown]

The Win7 beta installer caused me no end of grief. I have an older laptop with a promise fasttrack 378 controller in it, and I tried to install from scratch (i.e. blank HDs).

Tried to load up the driver (both supplied and more recent ones I found on the interweb) and although the installer recognised the driver and loaded it, it could not create the system partition. Tried it in both RAID and in ATA mode and the installer just wouldn't have it (another wasted evening).

In the end, I had to restore an old XP image, and then install Win 7 over it (it didn't mind doing this!). To be fair, in this situation, the Win 7 does tidy up and moves the XP stuff to a windows.old folder that was nice and easy to nuke afterwards. But the point is that I shouldn't have to do this.

Maybe I should be blaming Promise who don't seem to have released a "proper" Vista driver, although once you have Vista or Win7 installed, the XP driver seems to work fine...

Regs,
SB.

[Embattle]

Originally Posted by TdC

ye gods the bandwidth o0 it maxed out my 10Mbit the whole way through the download!

You mean you stopped dling Tiddles special clips long enough for it too?

[TdC]

yes, in fact, there is no BT pr0n stream going on at all o0

[Jimmy]

just got it installed and its running quite smothly while i type this

inpressed so far runs all my games even in beta ...looking good

[dysfunction]

Latest version of Windows 7 has been leaked out in the usual places. Build 7100 which I believe is an RC version...

[Cyradix]

This version will be released by Microsoft to the public on May 5th. (M$ stated the RC will be build 7100)

[ford prefect]

I'm using Build 7100 full time now. Almost all the bugs are gone now - was having a slight USB issue on earlier releases, but all fixed now.

Have to say this release feels like what vista should have been but never was, much imrpoved and very fast.

[dysfunction]

This build is going to be free to use with the Beta keys until June 2010 as far as I am aware!

[Dark Orb Choir]

how can i tell when my 6 months is up??

[ford prefect]

Originally Posted by dysfunction

This build is going to be free to use with the Beta keys until June 2010 as far as I am aware!

Yes I have heard that too, but then I saw this article yesterday:

Windows 7 to launch on 23 October | News | TechRadar UK

So not so sure.

[Cyradix]

Yeah, been using the RC release for almost a week now and haven't had a single crash/bug/performance issue/whatever...
Have the 32 bit version running on my work laptop and the 64bit version at home and both are very very stable.
There seems to be a lot more driver support available via windowsupdate now too. It detected most of my hardware correctly and accepted the vista drivers for the bits that weren't....

[ford prefect]

Anyone gone down the upgrading from vista > 7 path?

I have used clean installs so far, but have a vista laptop I'm thinking of putting it on, just wondered how clean the upgrade is? (not one of windows strong points historically).

[dysfunction]

Yes the RC version definitely expires on 1 June 2010...
And you can get your copy directly from Microsoft...

Windows 7 Release Candidate Customer Preview Program


Although:

Watch the calendar. The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. You’ll also need to install the programs and data that you