Windows 7 Beta

[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.

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.

I've heard it (isn't that about specs in general rather than just MS?) and for the most part it's not really true. My cousin, with a bit of fiddling, got XP to run on a DX-100 CPU. It was slow as shit, but it worked. Windows 7 is supposed to work better than XP on netbooks and they're fairly low spec.

 

[MNM]

I've heard it (isn't that about specs in general rather than just MS?) and for the most part it's not really true. My cousin, with a bit of fiddling, got XP to run on a DX-100 CPU. It was slow as shit, but it worked. Windows 7 is supposed to work better than XP on netbooks and they're fairly low spec.

If it's "as slow as shit" it isnt working.

 

[USS Mariner]

I'm due for a new computer anyway, so I'll wait for my next one before I try W7 out, which will probably be in an RC by that point.

I'm just excited about the fact that MS is finally fixing Vista, and the fact that I like what they're doing with the interface, especially with customization. That's always been a sticking point for Vista with me.

FYI, my specs:
eMachines W2785
Pentium 4 @ 2.50 ghz (originally: AMD Athlon 2700+, fried by power surge)
1.00 gb RAM
80 gb HDD, Ultra ATA 100

 

[ATimson]

If it's "as slow as shit" it isnt working.

Considering that the machine was running at less than half the minimum speed, I think "as slow as shit" is an impressive achievement.

 

[SalvorHardin]

I just installed W7. This is my first post here using it (and using Firefox not IE8 yet )

So far so good, installation seemed even faster than Vista, all my devices were recognised and installed and everything seems to be running smooth and fast.

My test system is kind of old, with just 768 MB of RAM and an AMD Sempron 1.8GHz .

The only trouble so far was with the sound card, a Creative Live 5.1
It was installed fine by Windows but the sound coming from it was not Ok at all.
So I used the kx drivers and the problem was solved.

And as for the much discussed taskbar, I think it will get some getting used to but I like it and think I'm going to like it even more once I'm fully used to it.

edit: video codec support seems to have been improved too.
xvid and divx videos seem to be playing in WMP right off the box, without the need for extra codec installation something that didn't even happen on Vista.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I've heard it (isn't that about specs in general rather than just MS?) and for the most part it's not really true. My cousin, with a bit of fiddling, got XP to run on a DX-100 CPU. It was slow as shit, but it worked. Windows 7 is supposed to work better than XP on netbooks and they're fairly low spec.

If it's "as slow as shit" it isnt working.

It worked fine once windows and the program you wanted was loaded up, it was just slow to do so. I wouldn't ever have had it as mine, or tried to sell it as a good machine, but it worked for the purpose he needed it for.

 

[Twilight]

Yup, Xvid and divx is supported out-of-box in Win7. AC3 too, I think.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Another thing is that windows photo viewer now seems to be lacking the editing options from Vista.
But from it you can easily go to Paint which now seems to be a more decent program (it's not photoshop but will do fine I think for the casual users)

 

[Candlelight]

Is anyone running Windows 7 on VMWare (or other virtual platform) and if so how does it perform? I'm gonna try a virtual install in about an hours time when it finishes downloading.

EDIT: Found my answer:

http://blogs.tedneward.com/2008/11/02/Windows+7+VMWare+6VMWare+Fusion+2.aspx

 

[Candlelight]

Well I've had it going for 20 minutes now and I have to say it's pretty good. It's fast, responsive, just have to get my head around where everything is (having missed out completely on Vista I am still learning what Microsoft does these days).

For the record I am running:
- Windows 7 Beta on a Macbook Pro under VMWare Fusion 2.0
- 2Gb RAM
- 20Gb HDD (basic install has used 9Gb of that)
- 2.4Ghz dual-core processor

 

[Twilight]

Another thing is that windows photo viewer now seems to be lacking the editing options from Vista.
But from it you can easily go to Paint which now seems to be a more decent program (it's not photoshop but will do fine I think for the casual users)

I believe that functionality has been relegated to Windows Photo Gallery, which was moved to Windows Live Essentials (along with Windows Mail and Calendar) - which you can download for free.

The idea was to reduce the bloat - or at least the perception of bloat.

 

[JoeZhang]

Open a series of windows and have them floating on the desktop (so open but not full-size). Then grab one of your windows with the mouse like you are about to move it, then.. shake it from side to side...

 

[Twilight]

Yup - aero shake is pretty useful.

I'd still like to see Flip3D simply become an Expose clone. Expose is more useful.

 

[JoeZhang]

Yup - aero shake is pretty useful.

I'd still like to see Flip3D simply become an Expose clone. Expose is more useful.

Here's something else I noticed, if you move a windows off the side of the screen, it "offers" you a half screen resize, the top makes it full screen.

 

[SalvorHardin]

I did some quick googling out of curiosity and there are currently :

1.Patches to activate without a MS key
2.Patches to deactivate the August 2009 expiration date
3.Patches to remove the "for testing purposes only, evaluation copy etc etc" watermark on the desktop
4.Patches to remove the "Send feedback" links from the windows

lol

 

[TheGodBen]

Open a series of windows and have them floating on the desktop (so open but not full-size). Then grab one of your windows with the mouse like you are about to move it, then.. shake it from side to side...

I wish they would wobble like in my Ubuntu.

 

[Candlelight]

2.Patches to deactivate the August 2009 expiration date

Can someone quietly elaborate how this might be done, not that I won't be buying Windows 7 when released cos it's pretty damn sweet so far.

Is this the Orbit30 patch I keep seeing or is that only in reference to the pre-2009 release that had a 30 day limit?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Considering that the machine was running at less than half the minimum speed, I think "as slow as shit" is an impressive achievement.

I once got Windows 98 SE to boot on an 8086 with 640K of RAM, using a laplink connection to a hard drive in a more modern system, and a bunch of drivers (EGA, for one) that I ripped out of Windows 3.11. Just to a desktop. It was worthless after that - I could maybe have used it for Notepad or something, if I were a patient immortal.

I freaked one of my other techie friends out with that one. Not as much as when I got XP running well on it, though. I cheated for that one - gutted the insides and put modern parts in the case. Still looked like the same machine, though.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Another thing I just tested is HD videos.
For example, even with a fresh installation of Vista (sadly I had to format a few days ago) the 1080p Trek XI trailer is unwatchable in my crappy test system.
Under Windows 7 it was far far better, watchable and only got stuck once or twice when I tried to load something in Firefox as well.

Impressive.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

Just installed it, this is my first post. Everything installed fairly painlessly, and like vista it actually runs faster in general than xp on my system.

Specs: Intel q9450, 4gb ram, Nvidia 9800 gtx+.

Unfortunately I only rate a 2.9 on their rating system because I have it installed on an old backup harddrive.

So far the only hang up was during driver installation for my printer. It hung up for like a minute, then finally continued but couldn't find my printer. My one problem I had with Vista was that I couldn't network and file share with my xp computers. It would work but then crash once I tried to access the folders on the other computers.
So far I can't even find the other computers yet so things aren't looking so hot but I haven't messed with any settings yet.

Overall I like it.

Edit: I guess the problem with the printer was that windows had already automatically installed the drivers for it. As for the network, I can see the other computers on the network, I just can't figure out how to set permissions to access files or whatever, even though they should be set open.