Windows 7

Well I'm using the Windows 7 beta now having finally got hold of it and the serial number, thanks to a tip on TweakGuides.com. I can't say I'm too impressed with it to be honest but that's not because it's awful or anything - it runs stable and it's very fast - it's just that this feels like a Service Pack for Windows Vista rather than a brand new operating system.

As such, it seems damn cheeky that Microsoft are soon going to be selling this as a new product at £150+ when Windows Vista could have easily been upgraded to this version. I mean most of the drivers I'm running are the same ones I'm using for Vista x64 and the interface bar the new taskbar is almost exactly the same as Vista too.

It is a bit buggy too although it hasn't crashed yet. For example, while I was tidying up the programs in the Start > All Programs I came across some corruption with filenames turning bold and then overlaying themselves over other filenames. Log off then on fixes it but it's something I've not encountered with XP or Vista.

Also I restarted the PC at one point and the computer stayed on the desktop for over 15 minutes with no drive activity and I couldn't press Alt-Ctrl-Del to bring up Task Manager either. I had to turn it off at the power switch.

Finally, while installing the drivers, I noticed that I had some eight or nine entries in the Device manager for "System Interrupt Controllers". Turned out they were I/O Hub drivers for the Intel X58 chipset but I'd already installed those. I ended up having to manually install the drivers for each entry by pointing the drivers to the Intel X58 chipset folder.

I've not had any crashes yet but the audio sometimes stutters or pauses when I'm installing programs, something that doesn't happen with Vista x64 yet they are the same drivers. It's all a bit underwhelming really and not something I'm prepared to buy given its startling similarity to Vista. It's the same gut-wrenching disappointment I had when I moved up from Windows 98 to Windows Me really. It works well for a beta but then Vista x64 works better because it has been out two/three years now so most of the bugs have been ironed out and the drivers are stable.

The problem with moving to a new operating system is that there are bound to be issues people have yet to come across so I'm happy to wait a year or two before moving across to it; by then the operating system will have been thoroughly tested and drivers will be easy to get hold of.

I'd give it 6/10 personally because it isn't doing much that Vista isn't doing already. £150 for a new taskbar and little else... no thanks!

 

I don't know where you got your £150+ for Windows 7, Microsoft has no given any details on pricing.

 

Windows 7 loads up quicker for me but then it should as I don't have all the stuff installed that I have with Vista yet. I'm betting that once I do it'll boot up slower. I have noticed that there's less drive activity once Windows loads but I don't think it is worth buying a new operating system just for that! Cheaper to just wait a few minutes!!!

I do like the way the gadgets work now though without having to have the sidebar loaded but, again, it's a small improvement and one I feel that could very easily have been added to Vista as a Service Pack.

Windows 7 is Vista SP3 in my opinion, or it could have been had Microsoft not been so greedy and decided to release as a new operating system.

 

C'mon... the Windows 7 beta is the Ultimate version and I've never known Microsoft sell any of their previous versions of Windows for less than £150 for the complete packages.

Sure the OEM and upgrade versions will be a lot cheaper (I picked up an OEM version of Vista Home Premium for £70) but this is in all honesty little more than a Service Pack for Vista and, in my opinion, paying any amount for it is too much. I've yet to notice any real differences between it and Vista... performance seems to be about the same for me but then I have a very fast PC with lots of memory and a high-end graphics card.

 

Where the HDD diagnosis feature is in windows 7?

 

games keep using more and more ram. some now have a recommendation of 2 gigs, then you still need some for your OS.
also, the more you have, the better you can run a game without Superfetch putting OS data back onto your hard drive and then back into ram again later.

when i had 6 gigs, it was awesome cause i could literally have 2 games open and minimized, browse the web or do other stuff and hit SLEEP mode, later resume and open either of the games and continue right where i left off.
the benefit to that is you dont have to wait for the game to load, read disk..etc. i had Crysis and Oblivion on for 2 weeks. i'd just Alt/Tab out of one and open the other....now that was really sweet. i got different ram now though but should still work with some games that dont use much ram.

so its just as much for enthusiasts as business's, its just a shame many enthusiasts dont know how to make good use of all that ram, those with such still has the bad habit of shutting down games all the time even though it doesnt hurt performance at all cause once minimized, it just sits there in ram idling.

dont understand what you mean

i agree, though i'm using SSD drive, so no OS would really feel faster cause even loading vista stuff is near instant and boots in 13 - 19 seconds anyway. so may never benefit much more but who knows.

though for all intents and purposes, it is in reality a SP, it would be fine to say its a new OS if they would at least not reuse stuff like Icons and Cursors, thier just so bland and ugly and frankly i'm tired of looking at them but thats just me. i'm also tired of Explorer cause there just arnt enough options to customize look and feel.

just once i'd like to beable to delete a folder like IE for example instead of Windows saying i cant. an OS isnt about restricting people and thats MS's problem, though they are getting better with W7

 

Yeah but you have to take into account the current economy, they'd be idiots to price it that high. It just wouldn't sell..


To the guy at the top of the previous page saying 64-bit is more expensive... WHAT?

 

I know but blowing time and then having to do it again is a pain, but it was what I thought it was. I removed two gigs of ram and reinstalled a fresh copy instead of an upgrade and it went smooth!

My first impressions are very positive, the system uses slightly less resources than vista and looks to give ram back when not needed. Game performance has been great so far. Grid still runs faster on xp with my current hardware but it is now playable. I love the window management is great. So far I am loving it worth the headach and I am using it as my main os.

 

Kaspersky (KIS) is all ill use!

 

All steam games crash though.. About 4 minutes in, l4d crashes and more... Solid lock up, need reboot... This is being talked about all over the place, including steam forums and more on this issue. All my games are mostly through steam, so this aint good. Dont matter if ATI or Nvidia. The only thing that MAY be common it appears is that its sli or xfire setups but reports have been for single GPU's also.

 

No problem with any steam game, the only problem i got is that Creative drivers are installed fine, but no function at the control center, tried several modded and original drivers, no luck so far.

Even as a beta OS, i'm very impressed but one thing i want to see in the retail that has been promised- CUSTOMIZTION- the ability to unselect or select programm that will be installed into ur Windows before the windows installation process begins.

 

yeah,i'm very hopeful of that one too. however i bet only a few components will be available and i'm sure you can't remove IE8.
i want to like IE8 cause i dont like to install alot of 3rd party stuff, but FF just makes browsing so much more fun and IE8 has crappy options and even a poor ui for selecting those options so i prefer just to not even have it installed.

*fingers crossed*

 

Your lucky, cause as said, there are pages upon pages of steam issues being reported on multiple websites/forums. I even disabled xfire thinking that would help, as it appeared to be a sli/xfire issue among most, but that didn't help either.

The games under steam in 7 as best as i can describe are like jiterry, like skipping yet so fast it doesn't look like it, but you can see it and feel it.. its weird..hard to explain..then about 3-6 minutes in, all locks up and then the only way out is to power down/reboot.

Anyways, 7 sits on its own partition with no issues other than this one. Once this is been addressed, then it just may become the main OS.

 

well i'm not to impressed @ 64bit windows 7 at the moment its not realy any quicker then vista.

 

Just out of curiosity.... is a 3DMark Vantage score in Windows 7 x86 of P7428 around where it should be for my setup were i to run it in Vista, or is it low? for some reason i get the feeling it's kinda low, but not sure.

 

loving WIN7 at the moment, downloaded it last night while running torrents, banged it on a dvd, installed it with ease and the only thing i had to install was my graphics card drivers and thats it . Runs so smooth for my system hopefully will abit better when i get my extra 2gbs and oc my cpu abit .

 

Not exactly.
64bit is faster than 32bit(sometimes difference is dramatic), 64bit can give more than 2gb to one app while 32bit can ONLY give up to 2gb to one app.
64bit Vista is also safer due to kernel patch protection(prevents rootkits), global DEP and few other things.
64bit let's you use your hardware you paid for better AND the more there are 64bit os, the more there are 64bit applications(currently very little..)an this in turn make them faster and again let's you use your pc better.
People should be educated about benefits of 64bit more. IT'S NOT only that 64bit let's you use 4gb or more ram... now when w7 requires less ram some people might opt for 32bit thinking it will be more compatible, when in fact usually it's not. and this is not good form technological point of view.
btw price for vista x86 and x64 is the same.
Microsoft should really advertise 64bit more..

 

Every time i burn the iso image to a dvd and verify, it has errors. Wouldn't this
be caused by a bad dvd burner? And if so, would it also corrupt the downloaded
Windows 7 beta file?

Thanks for any help.

 

try burning at a slower speed,in years past burning certain isos at a lower speed has prevented errors at least in my personal experience

 

Uh when the hell was that promised? Steven said specifically on the engineering blog that they weren't going to do this.