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Hmm, interesting. With my new-found abundance of hard drives, I think I shall try it...

sturner wrote:

2.44 GB download. Ouch!

And you kan haz lots!

Why have just one install of Windows 7, when you can have, say, a dozen for free?

Microsoft's Windows 7 beta has been on torrents since a couple weeks ago, but last week at the Consumer Electronics Show 2009 in Las Vegas, the Windows 7 beta went official and was released to the general public.  Initially, there were 2.5 million copies available for download.  The public went wild with enthusiasm, racing to download copies, placing so much strain on Microsoft's servers that they crashed. 

Rather than responding by further limiting downloads, Microsoft decided the wild demand is a good thing and it has moved in the opposite direction, dropping the download limit entirely.  Says Microsoft Windows communications manager Brandon LeBlanc, "Due to an enormous surge in demand, the download experience was not ideal so we listened and took the necessary steps to ensure a good experience.  During that time you will have access to the beta even if the download number exceeds 2.5 million."

Users can now download and test as many copies of the Windows 7 beta as they want.  The beta brings many improvements over Vista's user interface, including jump lists, a revamped task bar, and easier networking.

Now with Comcastic bandwidth throttling! ..

Microsoft Offers Free-for-All with Unlimited Windows 7 Downloads

After far too many attempts over the last couple of years I accidentally managed to get this "Live" thing to work. Or something. I don't really know. Whatever, I was able to get to the point in the Win7 Beta download procedure where Microsoft gives up and routes me to a Live Search page with links to a bunch of pirate sites where I can get a key and download an ISO. So I did.

Windows 7 is much more developed than the first beta of Vista was - the installer did not BSOD twice, not even once.

After poking around for an hour or so I shrugged, said, "Oh well, it is a beta after all" and am now back on Vista. I'll wait for a few months after Win7 hits the shelves then maybe look at it again.

The network connections are truly restricted. MS is still playing games with you, you can't customize your connections to how you need to work.

I never got to looking at network stuff. Media Center is THE killer app for me. I could live with Win7 not displaying a usable image on my television but once I saw I couldn't just copy and paste my Recordings.xml file to set up TV recording I shut down and swapped the Vista drive back in. If it happens a hole in my TV recording schedule matches up with a couple days/nights off I will probably put Win7 back in and configure my recording prefs manually so I can see how it works.

Windows7 is still a beta so I don't expect everything to be perfect and I didn't see any other real deal-breaking problems with Win7. Performance is OK though it does grind to a halt and become completely unresponsive for 2-3 minutes at a time every so often for no apparent reason. RAM use seems slightly less than Vista though it is hard to be certain - the difference was maybe 20-30 MB and RAM use goes up and down enough with any OS it is hard to say if there is any real difference. The only software I installed was Avast! and it works fine.

Oh yeah, I installed the 64 bit version of Win7, obviously. My PC is a 3 year old Socket 939 AMD64x2, 2.2 GHz with ATI R200 chipset, 3GB of PC3200 RAM and 256MB X800. Not exactly cutting edge hardware but it has proven stable and responsive with Vista and didn't seem to stumble under Windows7.

Last edited by test (2009-01-13 9:51 am)

sturner wrote:

The network connections are truly restricted. MS is still playing games with you, you can't customize your connections to how you need to work.

Could you explain this? I don't see any restrictions...
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As for my own impressions, I will first say that Vista is actually a good OS, so long as you have the hardware to run it, and good drivers for that hardware. Both were lacking when Vista was released, which is why far too many people have this vehement hatred of it. Oh, and the media didn't help much either. Also, like sturner, I'm running this through VMWare Fusion until I get unlazy enough to put another hard drive into the desktop. I'm also running the 64-bit version.

Installation was even easier than the Vista install, which was already pretty easy. Everything looks pretty purty, but that's to be expected. Pleasant-looking default background, but I still think that Ubuntu's default background wins.

The new taskbar is really cool, and the best description of it would be a fusion of the Vista taskbar + OS X's dock. By default, windows are not shown like in previous versions of Windows, application icons are. And you can rearrange application icons at will! It only took them a decade or so! You can pin applications to the taskbar, just like the Dock too. The notification area has been cleaned up, and they've implemented a system-wide notification icon. I expect that programmers will need to add support for that, but it's a good idea because it cuts down on clutter.

The Windows menu is nearly the same as Vista's. Thank god for the integrated search. Also, they changed the Vista Sleep button to a configurable Power button, that is configured as a Shut Down button. More small but useful changes.

There are very very few UAC prompts. You only get a prompt when it's really necessary. The ones that do show make total sense, such as 'You are going to install an application' and 'You are changing the computer's name'.

The Control Panel is still a complete smurfing mess. This was okay in Windows XP, because you could learn where everything was. In Vista, they tried to lay over the complete smurfing mess by presenting a user-friendly facade with a search bar... which usually just opened a window to the old-style complete smurfing mess, thus making everything harder. Windows 7 doesn't change this, unfortunately. They need to ditch the old control panels completely, and come up with something new. If Apple can do it every OS revision, why can't Microsoft give it a switch once in awhile?

tldr; Windows 7 is shaping up to be an excellent OS, and I highly recommend that you try it out.

Bat wrote:

You might want to check here: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

There's a link to their 'preview' W7 driver 'package,' possibly other useful tools or software. Stability and perhaps performance might improve, tho with with a 4 1/2 year old videocard, I doubt 3-D perf would be that much better... but it is specifically for Win 7, so I expect it conforms to the new driver model 1.1 (Vista is 1.0). Maybe multimedia graphics will be mo' better in general. And 'package' implies there might be newer/better core logic/other drivers. You are running S939 on an ATi chipset...

I hadn't considered updated drivers from ATI/AMD, given the problems the last several versions have created for me with Vista. I just stick with what comes down the pipe from Windows Update and it works well. I don't care about 3D performance, just that I get a clear signal to my TV. But maybe there is something newer and better available. I`ll give it a try.

Alas, the Ark remains damaged. I'm concentrating now on finishing the fab work on/in the nearby Shield.

(I've had Vista since shortly after it was known H2 would require it; I had more money then. And I 'knew' the recently-acquired hardware would soon be assembled, 1900 and all. More recently I partitioned the boot drive to appropriate sizes for a dual boot. It mysteriously failed first post, then the catastrophic September floods came and meat life tanked completely. I only got a working furnace a week before Xmas; 40F indoors by then. No compy work in that environment).

test wrote:

Bat wrote:

You might want to check here: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

There's a link to their 'preview' W7 driver 'package,' possibly other useful tools or software...

I hadn't considered updated drivers from ATI/AMD, given the problems the last several versions have created for me with Vista. I just stick with what comes down the pipe from Windows Update and it works well. I don't care about 3D performance, just that I get a clear signal to my TV. But maybe there is something newer and better available. I`ll give it a try.

If you haven't, I looked it over, even DLed it. It does have chipset drivers, but only for the recent 780/790 series, IIRC. Anyhoo...

According to a source inside Microsoft, over 25 percent of Vista installations in the US at the end of last year were 64-bit. There were several major drivers for the switch to 64-bit, most related to cheap DDR2 DRAM.

Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice-President of the Windows Core Operating System Division, agrees. "From our point of view we believe that we have accomplished the tipping point in terms of 64-bit adoption. Now, this happened to a large degree because memory prices are coming down, and another dynamic that we've seen in the United States is that the retail channel is looking to use RAM upgrades as a way to boost margin. So what that means is that 64-bit machine run rate is increasing rapidly, and that means our ability to support those 64-bit machines fully in the broad ecosystem is a really important thing."

Any PC with 4GB of RAM or more must use a 64-bit installation of Windows in order to address the full amount of RAM. Typically a 32-bit installation would recognize a maximum of 3-3.5GB of RAM.

Instead of purchasing a 32-bit version and then having to change to 64-bit later when they purchase more RAM, many are choosing 64-bit at the start. Over 75 percent of Windows sales are based on OEM installations of new computers.

The majority of Core i7 platforms are also using 64-bit operating systems, due to the triple channel memory setup using more RAM.
..

Windows 7 is expected to be the last to natively run at 32-bits. The next major Windows revision after it will be 64-bit native, running 32-bit applications through the use of a compatibility layer.

Windows Server 2008 R2, the server version of Windows 7, is already exclusively 64-bit.

Majority of Windows 7 Installations Will Be 64-bit

For others' info:

The Catalyst Windows 7 Driver supports the following products:

• ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series
• ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series
• ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series
• ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series
• ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3000 Series
• ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series
• AMD™ 780 G
• AMD™ 780 V
• AMD™ 790 GX

The new package only adds/ improves support for the listed products, so I expect my old X800 would be alright as well, if I chose to install it on 7 beta.

So, Books/test- what's with DX on 7? The same -10, or some DX11 beta action (as if)?

It'll say what version of DX is installed- so, yeah, 4-5 minutes work, tops, unless you run all the way thru dxdiag.exe (which actually wouldn't be a bad idea). In wich case, 10 minutes away from the FEAR 2 demo you should be playing.

If you use the PC for visuals &/or sound, DX is extremely relevant.