Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I signed in to Technet this morning and I see that Microsoft has posted an official Windows7 beta. I am downloading it now.
Windows 7
- Thread starter Mercutio
- Start date
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Let us know how it compares to Vista (I know this one is a beta).
ddrueding
Fixture
Sweet. I gotta get in on some of that...do you think a power pack would work? Or do I need MSDN?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I can access it through either the ID associated with my work account (Microsoft Partner PRogram) or through a personal address, which only has a Technet Plus subscription. I think that if you can get in the MSDN downloads area, you're fine.
The file is 3.15GB. I plan to install it on either an X2/4800 or an E1200, though probably not until Monday or Tuesday.
The file is 3.15GB. I plan to install it on either an X2/4800 or an E1200, though probably not until Monday or Tuesday.
ddrueding
Fixture
Just bought a Technet Plus...waiting for it it go live.
Gotta love this warning:
Are they sticking some DRM in there or what?
Gotta love this warning:
Are they sticking some DRM in there or what?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I'm not sure. Maybe WMP automatically updates ID3 tags or something.
udaman
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2006
- Messages
- 1,209
If you're a SDK member, you'd have had beta of Snow Leopard since WWDC back in June. SL is/will be shipping by summer Apple has said (though rumors have it shipping sooner since Open CL spec is finalized and nvidia provides support now), Winblows 7 won't make it until later in the year, if not 2010...yawn, Balmer @CES is so boring. The other "Steve", now that's showmanship
Stereodude
Not really a
Udaman, no one here cares about Apple, except for you apparently.
ddrueding
Fixture
It's actually interesting. Before, Apple actually sucked, and its fanboys tried to say it didn't. Now, it's irrelevant, and the fanboys try and say it isn't.
Stereodude
Not really a
More like magician-ship. He's sold all the loyal faithful a well polished, but very overpriced, PC and they love Apple and him for it. It's mind boggling. The RDF (Reality Distortion Field) is real.The other "Steve", now that's showmanship
Macbook Wheel
ddrueding
Fixture
Awesome. One of the "auto complete sentences" is "The ass asked for aspirin."
Stereodude
Not really a
And "The abortion went well."
There is so much subtle humor in that clip (as well as the obvious humor) like the price of it, the length and typos in the e-mail the guy spent 45 minutes on, the fact that when you pick a letter, the letter is not the first choice, etc...
ddrueding
Fixture
Adcadet
Storage Freak
Leave it to MS to screw up MP3s.
fb
Storage is cool
http://xkcd.com/528/ :scratch:
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I just spent all goddamned morning screwing around with a G5 tower with no OS on it. Turned out someone had replaced the original DVD drive with some generic unit the machine didn't support.
That only took two and a half hours to figure out.
I swapped it for a Pioneer drive and everything magically started working.
Who the hell builds a machine that doesn't purposefully doesn't work with every IDE drive ever made?
ddrueding
Fixture
People who like to have a monopoly on hardware. You know, idiots.
Stereodude
Not really a
Yes, but at least we get to laugh at them too.
I had downloaded the windows 7 beta yesterday from MSDN and installed it in a VM. It didn't seem to take that long to install (I didn't time it) and it feels snappier in a VM compared to how vista feels.
The menu bar takes some getting used to, but it otherwise reminds me of vista (visually). I was toying around with it on a 1 CPU with 1GB RAM on the vm. I have done much else with it. I like the shaking of applications minimizes the other ones in the background.
The menu bar takes some getting used to, but it otherwise reminds me of vista (visually). I was toying around with it on a 1 CPU with 1GB RAM on the vm. I have done much else with it. I like the shaking of applications minimizes the other ones in the background.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
There is an MP3 patch posted for Windows 7.
ddrueding
Fixture
There is indeed a media center. The beta is the Ultimate edition. I'm typing this from Windows 7 installed on the beast I recently built. I'm torn between calling it Vista SP2 or what Vista should have been. It certainly isn't revolutionary enough to be a new OS; but I didn't really want a new OS anyway, just new features added on to the old one.
This does boot faster than XP x64 on this hardware. It is actually fast enough that I am considering using it as my only OS (trial by fire). All my hardware works out the gate, and I didn't have to deal with that signed driver BS that was in Vista x64. If it will take PS CS4 and FSX, it will be my only OS for the moment.
No WinFS that I can see.
This does boot faster than XP x64 on this hardware. It is actually fast enough that I am considering using it as my only OS (trial by fire). All my hardware works out the gate, and I didn't have to deal with that signed driver BS that was in Vista x64. If it will take PS CS4 and FSX, it will be my only OS for the moment.
No WinFS that I can see.
ddrueding
Fixture
Nevermind. Photoshop installed and ran great, and so did Firefox 3, SpaceMonger, and Flight Simulator X. But it is just that moment slow...everywhere. If it is slow on this machine, I don't want to know what it will be like on something less. Prepping a new slipstreamed copy of XP x64 as we speak.
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
So what are you saying, DD? That Win 7 itself is fast, but installed apps are slow?
ddrueding
Fixture
I'm afraid the news isn't that good. It starts up and shuts down very quickly, but everything in the OS takes a moment longer than it should. Much like Ubuntu and OS X; you are always waiting for your clicks or drags to register. I'm sure it isn't slow, and if you were to benchmark it, the performance might be great. But I suppose XP has spoiled me. Even with all the eye candy turned off, 7 isn't as responsive as XP when it comes to the UI. I'm now back in a fully-tweaked fresh install of XP x64, and the difference is stunning. I don't know what kind of hardware it would take to make 7 as immediate as XP, I didn't see any bottlenecks while it was lagging.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
I don't think it's fair to compare the performance of beta software to a final release. There are a lot of things that developers can do to fix performance before the final release hits the shelves/servers.
ddrueding
Fixture
As soon as I have a retail copy I will make that comparison as well. It's just that reading the reviews online got my hopes up, so I didn't evaluate it as a beta.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I really wanted to try Windows 7 on a modest system, but the 32-bit version of Windows 7 bluescreens during install on this Acer notebook I have. I'm still going to load it on something nicer in desktop-land, but bluescreens aren't very good for a first impression.
I got the ISO's but haven't really done anything with them yet and on the media center question I had a duh moment when I realized ultimate is mentioned in the file name. Doesn't seem like a polished beta when all the literature and instructions on the disk mention vista though. I am sure documentation is about bottom priority though.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
I installed the 32bit version on a 4 years old Thinkpad R50p with a Pentium-M 1.7GHz, 1GB RAM and FireGL T2 graphics. The OS feels quick, but programs start-up (particularly IE8 ) are a test of patience. On this kind of hardware, XP was quicker, but I've seen much more powerful laptops being slower with Vista installed, so I'm optimistic about 7. 7 starts faster than XP and Vista too.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
IE8 is absolutely slower on Windows 7 than it is on XP. It actually takes longer to come up and connect to a site than Firefox does. I've got it on a couple machines now, a crummy HP Notebook with a single-core Celeron, 1GB RAM and 945 graphics, and a much nicer x2/4800 with 8GB RAM and a Radeon 3850.
Both machines are by current standards, old. The socket 939 x2 is still an excellent desktop, but the notebook was marginal from the moment it was purchased with Vista on it.
Everything worked out of the box on both machines. 7 is actually a pretty drastic improvement on the notebook. There aren't as many obnoxious pauses as I'm copying files, and Explorer hasn't stopped responding on either machine, something that I see a lot on Vista.
At the moment, I'm installing the small set of applications I normally use and copying over a decent set of personal files on both systems. On these machines I'm not noticing a huge subjective difference in application start time, other than IE8, though for example Word 2007 starts a smidge slower than I'm used to.
I plan to keep both machines on Windows 7 for a substantial period of time. It's not like I don't have other computers to play with. I'm particularly interested in battery and power management performance with the laptop; with a 4200rpm drive, I timed the resume from hibernate in Vista at a hair over two minutes.
I particularly appreciate the Action Center as a replacement for all those damned bubbles that used to pop up. Easily my favorite feature so far.
Both machines are by current standards, old. The socket 939 x2 is still an excellent desktop, but the notebook was marginal from the moment it was purchased with Vista on it.
Everything worked out of the box on both machines. 7 is actually a pretty drastic improvement on the notebook. There aren't as many obnoxious pauses as I'm copying files, and Explorer hasn't stopped responding on either machine, something that I see a lot on Vista.
At the moment, I'm installing the small set of applications I normally use and copying over a decent set of personal files on both systems. On these machines I'm not noticing a huge subjective difference in application start time, other than IE8, though for example Word 2007 starts a smidge slower than I'm used to.
I plan to keep both machines on Windows 7 for a substantial period of time. It's not like I don't have other computers to play with. I'm particularly interested in battery and power management performance with the laptop; with a 4200rpm drive, I timed the resume from hibernate in Vista at a hair over two minutes.
I particularly appreciate the Action Center as a replacement for all those damned bubbles that used to pop up. Easily my favorite feature so far.
Those interested in trying Windows 7 can grab it from here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx
You will need a Windows Live ID. Expires Aug 2009
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx
You will need a Windows Live ID. Expires Aug 2009
mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2002
- Messages
- 5,273
I'm installing it on my Panasonic Laptop spare drive. Appears to have a couple driver issues, not shocking.
It started fine, and the net was working, then installed some updates, and the net connection quit working.
Maybe an issue with my router...
We'll see.
My general feeling is similar to vista, I can't find most of the stuff I want, and, changing the location of the stuff really isn't an improvement.
I'll muck around with it a bit, but, I'm so far wondering if MSFT had a bunch of Apple lovers come in and redo their OS. Feels like OS X on pc software so far...
Second install is almost done. I couldn't figure out why the internet connection quit, and, I couldn't find the settings to change. At a point, you are just hiding simple functions under a lot of GUI stuff that is worthless...
It started fine, and the net was working, then installed some updates, and the net connection quit working.
Maybe an issue with my router...
We'll see.
My general feeling is similar to vista, I can't find most of the stuff I want, and, changing the location of the stuff really isn't an improvement.
I'll muck around with it a bit, but, I'm so far wondering if MSFT had a bunch of Apple lovers come in and redo their OS. Feels like OS X on pc software so far...
Second install is almost done. I couldn't figure out why the internet connection quit, and, I couldn't find the settings to change. At a point, you are just hiding simple functions under a lot of GUI stuff that is worthless...
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2002
- Messages
- 5,273
Blinding on this machine, despite the speed test giving it a 1.0. It appears the internet connection is, even though it says wireless, functioning through the ethernet cable I have connected. Getting over 12 MB/SEC, the down to about 8. That's as fast as my desktop.
Oddly, the connection doesn't show as hardwired...
Haven't noticed it hitting the hard drive much at all. Seems to 441 mb of memory, reserving the rest, of the 1220 mb of ram installed. CPU usage doesn't seem bad, at all
Oddly, the connection doesn't show as hardwired...
Haven't noticed it hitting the hard drive much at all. Seems to 441 mb of memory, reserving the rest, of the 1220 mb of ram installed. CPU usage doesn't seem bad, at all
ddrueding
Fixture
I had a network issue on my install as well. The NIC driver that came on the disk worked fine, but installing the new one using windows update killed it (check device manager). Rolling back the driver and a reboot resolved the issue.