Windows 7 Beta

[Meredith]

What is your sound card A model from 1902?

Sound card drivers are as basic as they come - I can't think of any that shouldn't work out-of-box with Vista or 7.

We're talking Microsoft here I've had speakers/sound cards generate static before on earlier versions of Windows.

I can't get the driver that you can use to play WAV files over pc Speakers to work under Windows 7......

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

x1,000,000 on the Creative thing. I went to a lot of trouble to disable any ways for the driver to get updated under XP. Any update causes the remote to not work properly. Great sound card, crappy drivers and support. Idiots.

I didn't get to the computer at all today, so no new info. regarding W7.

 

[Arrqh]

You can't blame Microsoft for updating their driver model unless updating an OS is inherently wrong.

They're allowed to update the driver model; but as part of doing so, things are going to break, either by not having drivers, or by developers needing more time to develop drivers as good as "classic" ones. When this happens, it's not fair to lay blame entirely at the developer's feet; they didn't force the changes.

Yeah, Creative should probably have waited until their drivers were better quality before releasing. But if it's that or no drivers at all...?

They had plenty of time to update their drivers. It's not like as if Vista was a shocking surprise when it was released, Creative knew that MS had been working on it for five years. Beta 1 was released a full year and a half before Vista's launch, and Beta 2 was released 8 months in advance. They had plenty of time to get things in order so that their drivers were compatible with this new OS, but they just didn't try hard enough.

MS is by no means a perfect company, but it is not their fault that third parties released shoddy drivers for Vista.

Not only that, but Creative generally doesn't release more then a single driver a year. There's no way you can cast that as MS's fault.

As a counterpoint, take nVidia. The initial Vista drivers were bad, had a lot of crashes, etc. What did they do? They kept working on them and releasing updated versions, including beta non-WHQL drivers until they got it right and in about 6 months the drivers were solid. There are still issues with some Creative products and Vista. So, yes, changing the driver model can cause some initial shocks when the OS launches. That's expected. Having driver issues 2 years later? No.

 

[Twilight]

Ha!

Wondering what's up with the default fish desktop?

I mean, sure, it's pretty - but it's a little random to have as the default desktop for Win7.

What you may not be aware of is that it's a Siamese Fighting Fish. Otherwise known as a "Betta" fish.

http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/01/12/the-bumper-list-of-windows-7-secrets.aspx

 

[USS Triumphant]

Creative should probably have waited until their drivers were better quality before releasing. But if it's that or no drivers at all...?

Sometimes, that's exactly what it is with Creative. No drivers at all.

I bought a Video Blaster RS200 right before Windows 95 came out. It came with drivers for Windows 3.1/3.11, and they promised they would release drivers for 95 shortly. I figured out that I could get the card working under 95 anyway if I installed it under Win 3.1, and then upgraded to 95 over 3.1. It flat would not work under a straight-forward install of 95, and they never released a new driver.

I still call them from time to time and harass them about when they'll be releasing that. That reminds me, I haven't done that in a while.....

 

[SalvorHardin]

They're allowed to update the driver model; but as part of doing so, things are going to break, either by not having drivers, or by developers needing more time to develop drivers as good as "classic" ones. When this happens, it's not fair to lay blame entirely at the developer's feet; they didn't force the changes.

Yeah, Creative should probably have waited until their drivers were better quality before releasing. But if it's that or no drivers at all...?

They had plenty of time to update their drivers. It's not like as if Vista was a shocking surprise when it was released, Creative knew that MS had been working on it for five years. Beta 1 was released a full year and a half before Vista's launch, and Beta 2 was released 8 months in advance. They had plenty of time to get things in order so that their drivers were compatible with this new OS, but they just didn't try hard enough.

MS is by no means a perfect company, but it is not their fault that third parties released shoddy drivers for Vista.

Not only that, but Creative generally doesn't release more then a single driver a year. There's no way you can cast that as MS's fault.

As a counterpoint, take nVidia. The initial Vista drivers were bad, had a lot of crashes, etc. What did they do? They kept working on them and releasing updated versions, including beta non-WHQL drivers until they got it right and in about 6 months the drivers were solid. There are still issues with some Creative products and Vista. So, yes, changing the driver model can cause some initial shocks when the OS launches. That's expected. Having driver issues 2 years later? No.

Creative must be the worst company out there as far as driver support is concerned. Absolutely terrible.
These days i try to avoid their products

 

[Marc]

Additional: Back in XP for now. W7 was getting flaky, disk cleanup was going nowhere, IE kept locking up, "rate my computer" got an error message and wouldn't complete. I'll fiddle more later or tomorrow.

There's not much that you can about IE lockups. I read a review on the Beta (think it was on Ars Technica) where IE8 was touched on.

Basically the IE8 beta is a major dog and it's inclusion in the Windows 7 Beta is going to be a major stumbling block. They've got what's appearing to be a very stable OS Beta that's been let down by a crappy browser Beta.

In relation to driver's it's been mentioned the driver model is the same between Vista and 7. If you device doesn't work under Vista it's not going to work under 7 but works in Vista will work in Windows 7.

Which is a bummer in a way because I have to track down a driver for the Wireless card in the computer I'm running it on (though anyone's who used Vista with wireless knows the wireless card support is very mediocre).

 

[ATimson]

Does anybody know if/when the beta expires?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Does anybody know if/when the beta expires?

I believe it's August... or so I've read.

 

[Twilight]

August 1st, 2009

By then, there will no doubt be a crack available to at least keep the Beta alive if you so desire ...

 

[Marc]

August 1st, 2009

By then, there will no doubt be a crack available to at least keep the Beta alive if you so desire ...

Or they will have a a Beta 2 available dpending on how things go with the current one.

We then might see a release candidate build before teh full product is released towards the end of this year or early next year.

 

[Twilight]

Well, given that Beta 1 is public now, and it's ostensibly fully featured and quite stable, I'd really doubt that we'll be waiting too long before we see RC1 and finally an RTM - and see it on the shelves at MOST by the end of the year or January 2010.

Two reasons:

1. Win7 is effectively Vista with some tweaks. That's not a bad thing - but it also means it's not really a major release. It uses the same driver model as Vista so third party drivers will be fine on launch - Vista went through the growing pains, 7 will have a comparatively easier childhood. So it shouldn't take that long to finish. This is Vista Service Pack two - it will just cost $100+ bucks.

2. Microsoft is largely staging Windows 7 as a public execution of Vista. Fair or not, Vista will not catch on because MS botched the launch when they lost control of the public perception of Vista. There's no undoing that now. Time to start "fresh" - by effectively re-releasing a skinned, slightly better version of Vista under a different name!


Long story short, MS wants Win7 on the shelves ASAP.


Now having said that, it's not clear to me if current beta users will get access to Beta 2 or a release candidate ... I hope so ... I'm really liking 7 and I don't want to go back to Vista (the small differences between the two notwithstanding ... I just think Win7 feels more polished EVEN in beta form).

 

[jkladis]

All fine and such, but if legacy software and hardware friendliness is not met, the masses will still lag.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

Well, given that Beta 1 is public now, and it's ostensibly fully featured and quite stable, I'd really doubt that we'll be waiting too long before we see RC1 and finally an RTM - and see it on the shelves at MOST by the end of the year or January 2010.

Two reasons:

1. Win7 is effectively Vista with some tweaks. That's not a bad thing - but it also means it's not really a major release. It uses the same driver model as Vista so third party drivers will be fine on launch - Vista went through the growing pains, 7 will have a comparatively easier childhood. So it shouldn't take that long to finish. This is Vista Service Pack two - it will just cost $100+ bucks.

2. Microsoft is largely staging Windows 7 as a public execution of Vista. Fair or not, Vista will not catch on because MS botched the launch when they lost control of the public perception of Vista. There's no undoing that now. Time to start "fresh" - by effectively re-releasing a skinned, slightly better version of Vista under a different name!


Long story short, MS wants Win7 on the shelves ASAP.


Now having said that, it's not clear to me if current beta users will get access to Beta 2 or a release candidate ... I hope so ... I'm really liking 7 and I don't want to go back to Vista (the small differences between the two notwithstanding ... I just think Win7 feels more polished EVEN in beta form).

I agree with everything you have said. And, I am not sure there was any way MS could have pulled off a successful public perception launch of Vista because regardless of how good the build may or may not have been, there was no way around the fact that many hardware manufacturers have to take time to get stable drivers for a new platform particularly given the amount of time XP was around. As you pointed out, this should not be an issue with 7.

 

[Marc]

All fine and such, but if legacy software and hardware friendliness is not met, the masses will still lag.

The masses aren't the issue though - it's the corporate/education/government that't the problem - the big licence sites.

A Joe Blow wight buys a new comuter for home and takes Vista becaue it's with the machine and he's not the literate. However Joe is one employee in a company of 10,000 users who are still using XP and won't be jumping to Vista.

I think it was the Gartner Group who put of a survey on business intentions vis a vis Vista and the overwhelming reponse was the skipping of Vista and going to Windwos 7 when it came out.

There are also some compatiablity issues STILL around. In Australia there's a widely used medical program called Medical Director for GPs. It took 18 months before they finally cleared the program to run on Vista (and by doing a version check prevented it from even installing). For the most part there is nothing in Medical Director that would have problems with Vista but the developers just sat their with thumbs in their bums.

Microsoft also botched the release of Vista. There were concerns from the big OEMs like Dell and HP about Vista. So Microsoft launched Vista to business customers on licence programs such as software assurance. Everyone else got it the following January when Microsoft released it to the retail sector, OEMs etc etc.

 

[USS Mariner]

Christ, I wish my computer wasn't four years old so I could try this out...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Christ, I wish my computer wasn't four years old so I could try this out...

You might be able to, required spec is only 1ghz cpu, 1gb ram.

 

[Eeveevolve]

Christ, I wish my computer wasn't four years old so I could try this out...

I have the beta running on my inspiron 2200 laptop. 1.4 512 ram and it boots and runs faster than XP on there.


Also, I am now running 7 on my main system. And it FLYS!!

 

[Marc]

Christ, I wish my computer wasn't four years old so I could try this out...

You might be able to, required spec is only 1ghz cpu, 1gb ram.

You've never heard the response to Microsoft's minimum specs?

take them and double them

I can remember when Windows 95 came out and people believed the claims it would run in 2Mb of ram (boy haven't we come a long way since then If they had to support what they sold they would of burned up all their profits on the support.

Fortunately none of my clients were suckered like that - I just picked up a few pieces from those who'd bought elsewhere.

 

[JoeZhang]

But it does run on those specs - I had it running on my acer netbook.