Windows 7 Beta now available for download (not for novices)

[DainBramaged]

You have to burn an image of the download (2.44 GB) on a DVD, and it is really recommended you do a fresh install on a new system (I am building it this afternoon) not on your primary system. It will be interesting to see how they have corrected the errors and bloat of Vista, the ME for the new age. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

[dkofos]

1. More BLOATWARE from the same morons that screwed up the last 6.

Just what the world needs.

No thanks, I'll stick with Linux.

[DainBramaged]

12. AN assumption without even trying it? How DU of you.

Yes, Vista for business is bullshit. But millions of regular folks who aren't power users are happy with Vista, and I have a notebook, over a year old, as does my beautiful Daughter, that have been trouble free with Vista.

I will reserve judgement on Winblows 7 until I install it to see if they fixed the problems that are business related. BTW, I've done 3 Vista basic installs for people on new systems I built, no complaints, and they are using them for home businesses. But again, this isn't a finalized system, it is a Beta.

[dkofos]

14. 2.44GB That says it all.

[DainBramaged]

17. Again, I'll reserve judgement till it's installed

I'm sure they have included lots of drivers, that's fine, but it isn't even done downloading yet.

[dkofos]

19. Get back to me next week when it's done downloading.

That's bloat ware!!

[DainBramaged]

20. Is there anything DU as a whole doesn't hate? Microsoft, Hummers, Olive Garden, Pizza Hut

the list is getting to be stupid.

Oh and it's 57% done, I started it when I started this thread.

[dkofos]

21. Puppies

[DainBramaged]

24. .............

:hug:

[Phred42]

54. Yes but only with a nice Chianti and fava beans

[Political Heretic]

93. There are DUers looking into hating this, I'm sure.

:D

[Lochloosa]

22. Kittens. If they have called it Windows Kitten I'd be downloading it right now.

[high density]

39. 2.4gb operating system is "bloatware?"

I downloaded OpenSUSE 11.1 the other week and it's 4.5gb. I guess everything is bloatware now, unless you want to just boot up the Linux kernel standalone by itself and do nothing?

[Lithos]

91. The 2.2 GB compressed does not contain anything useful

You would have to download (and pay) for MS Office, Visual Studio and many other programs to include what's on the 4.5 GB.

L-

[Rosco T.]

101. Took 20 minutes to download, 20 to install totally...

.. up and running very nicely thank you :P Uses about 60% of the memory footprint of Vista, about 1/3 the disk space.

If you haven't TRIED it, then STFU bitching about it. Vast improvement on Vista and I like Vista(64).

[Greyhound]

26. Bingo! Two and a half GB of compressed data for an OS?

Once that is installed, I would wager that it establishes an internet connection to then get even more...

For an OS...:wtf:

[DainBramaged]

29. Uses 16 GB of disk space

[TheHeathen]

27. I thought you used Linux?

Most Linux Distros are over 3GB, and Apple's OS X Is over 6GB In size.

[dkofos]

34. I do. So 3GB for Linux is half of the 6GB for Mac OS. and 16GB for Win 7

is BLOAT WARE.

Is it more stable than my Debian Linux OS??
NO

Will it do more than my Debian Linux OS??
NO

Will I waste my time with another MS OS??
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

[TheHeathen]

35. The DVD disc size

Windows 7 - 2.44 GB

Most Linux Distros - Over 3GB

OS X - Over 6GB

:eyes:

[DainBramaged]

36. True, but that's ok. Download done, cya's later.

:hug:

[dkofos]

38. First af all most Linux Distros contain ALL available software for the given

Distro. Of that (which for Debian consists of over 18,000 programs)
I actively use less than 20% of those programs.
I use a net-install so I only have to download 150 MB too get started and
then go to the repositories to get the rest of what I need.
And it is all FREE, and it all works flawlessly, even on a 12 year old
computer.

Sucking up 16GB of disk space for an OS is ridiculous.

[high density]

40. Whining about disk space is ridiculous

500gb drives are the norm now. If the operating system needs to take up less than 4% of that, I don't see the problem.

[dkofos]

41. It's not the norm in my world.

[high density]

45. Well, welcome to 2009

http://www.newegg.com

[TheHeathen]

46. Linux works flawlessly?

You have got to be joking :rofl:

If Linux is such a great O/S, and it's FREE, why don't more people use it?

Linux: Is FREE, will run on most computers, the desktop O/S currently has less than 1% of the worldwide market share ... Why?

:eyes:

[dkofos]

47. Don't knock it till you try it.

On second thought don't even bother to try it.
It's way to difficult for the average idiot.

[TheHeathen]

50. You should change your

user name to "Mr Clueless"

Linux user here for about five years now.

:rofl:

[dkofos]

52. still haven't figured it out yet.

[TheHeathen]

56. Is that the best you can do?

The last resort of the mentally challenged is to resort to personal insults.


Edit - Do you have a T-Shirt?

Arrogant Linux Elitist T-Shirt
http://www.amazon.com/JINX-Arrogant-Linux-Elitist-T-Shirt/dp/B00100ZP9K

:rofl:

[Greyhound]

48. Because people don't know about it. Americans have also been conditioned to be suspicious

of anything that doesn't cost a lot, let alone is free. Basic marketing.

One other thing, Linux does on occasion require the user to actually know something about how computers work and that is very scary to the uninformed.

[DainBramaged]

62. Our software on our server is Linux, no way I would have installed Windows Server.

Nice and simple. However, the apps we use on a day to day basis are easy to use and make everyone happy chasing inventory and applications. Trying to write apps (or lease) under windows would have been a nightmare, and costly.

[RoyGBiv]

75. Here's the fun thing, though ...

Most of that knowledge is only required on set-up or if you like to tinker or try new things.

I've set up Linux based systems for people who use computers for specific things, and they've not been able to tell the difference except that their machine stopped crashing on them. Now, in putting together these systems, I did all the grunt work, such as making sure as much multimedia worked as was possible and configuring web browsers so that Flash items work as well. One person I did this for occasionally runs across something on the Internet that won't work, this being one of the big, actual problems. (Thankfully, this is getting better. I actually shopped for a bank based on whether its online banking system would work Firefox under Linux. Also, I hear tell Netflix will be compatible with Linux soon.)

A lot of people don't understand the amount of work that initially goes into setting up a Windows based system also. Much of that work has already been done either by Microsoft or the companies that make hardware, but when one puts together a system from scratch, installing drivers and other such things is still necessary. My standard example is a machine with video card from Nvidia or ATI. Before you install those drivers, the display sucks. I could also use networking as an example. I recently put together a system with a motherboard with on-board networking for which Windows had no network driver. I actually used a Linux Live-CD to boot up and download the driver, saving it to a USB disc, so I could get Windows working ... lovely irony there.

If system builders put as much effort into pre-building Linux-based machines, and if so much web content and software wasn't made specifically for Windows, much of the knowledge required for Linux wouldn't be required.

Having said all that, I don't necessarily think not requiring knowledge is a good thing.

[RoyGBiv]

73. As flawlessly as any technology ...

"Flawless" is of course an overstatement, but I'll put it this way. I haven't had to reboot my machine once the OS has been installed for any reason other than a kernel upgrade for, well, years. (Current up-time is 23 days, which coincides with the last time I shut down and booted Windows.) Since beginning to use Linux several years ago, I recall two crashes that required a reboot. One involved a hard drive crash. The other was essentially a database problem involving a program that was written very poorly and itself caused a nearly unrecoverable crash. I say "nearly" because the underlying OS was not really dead, but the program was stuck in a nasty loop that made killing to try to recover insufferable, so at length I hit reset.

Linux, the operating system, tends to work near flawlessly. Some software written for it does not. But, Windows has that same problem.

The biggest problems with Linux are caused by proprietary drivers, software that utilizes hardware in ways that require those proprietary drivers, and web based technologies that are geared toward Windows users.

And that's a big part of the answer to your question.

For the record, I've had very few problems with XP. However, given that I use it at a ratio of maybe 1 days for every 150 days I am working under Linux (this is at home, btw), the fact I've lost count of the number of times the Windows operating system itself has experienced an unrecoverable error requiring a reboot while I know the number and the precise details of my Linux problems says quite a bit about how well they work.

Vista is another thing altogether.

[cliffordu]

82. Cause people are stupid and eat the shit they get fed on their televisions

like you,for instance.

[Solon]

65. Actually, most Linux distros are still distributed on 700MB ISOs for CDs...

Most of the popular ones, particularly Ubuntu, are still distributed this way. They may decompress, on install, to about 1.5-2 GB, if that, and that includes packages like OpenOffice, etc. Software which Windows simply doesn't have an equivalent for, in a base install.

[RoyGBiv]

76. Exactly ...

*Linux*, even if we include the desktop manager and X, is still quite small. Most of that 700MB, as you say, is consumed by other software, and most of the time involved in a Linux install involves installing that software.

SuSE, for example, is often cited as a Linux distro that takes forever to install and is huge. Well, yes it is. You get pretty much every damn thing you can get (in its OSS version) with the distro itself (OpenOffice, four or five web browsers, many e-mail clients, dozens of multimedia programs, what is needed for a LAMP server, etc., and you can have it all installed in the beginning.

I would really like someone to compare, honestly, the amount of time installing all this from a Linux distro and on a Windows machine actually takes. I've spent entire days installing software on Windows to make it work the way people want. I can do a Linux install, including getting the non-OSS and proprietary media crap installed, in an afternoon.

[DainBramaged]

77. The OS is EXACTLY 16GB, but I am sure (because it is the ULTIMATE version)

it has a lot of media features (I disabled them, all of the MSM, Windows Live, Messenger, media junk etc.)

[RoyGBiv]

79. Really?

Damn.

As a comparison to Linux, that 16GB includes a helluva lot of stuff that that's not actually a part of Linux as an operating system, e.g. the desktop manager, etc., so naturally it would be quite a bit bigger. That's still pretty frickin' huge.

For comparison's sake, my current Linux installation is ~10GB, which includes all software installed except for some small apps and scripts I keep in my /home/bin directory. I install tons of crap I use once and forget I have, which is bothersome. I'm a software packrat.

Anyway ... so, after using it for a few hours, is it as some have suggested Vista SP2, or is it markedly different?

[DainBramaged]

80. It's different, it's not as "clunky" and it is using way less memory than my Vista laptop

which I fired up as a comparison. It's more like XP in the way it is using memory. This is using about 560MP, my laptop (Home Premium) 730. But the laptop has antispyware running in the background too and Norton AV 2009 (which is the best version they ever made).

[RoyGBiv]

85. Well, that's an improvement ...

If it uses memory more efficiently, it's already a success over Vista.

[RoyGBiv]

87. Most?

Wow. You don't know a damn thing about Linux do you? There's a simple website: distrowatch.com. I mean, you're already *on* the Internet. You could at least look shit like that up.

Free advice ...

Familiarize yourself with things before you comment on them.

[anigbrowl]

42. Not really

I don't find it that bad, especially considering it's beta code thus likely has a lot of #pragmas enabling debug...plus windows has traditionally shipped with a huge driver library, whereas when I'm running Linux I expect to have to download and/or recompile third-party drivers for lot of hardware.

[CRF450]

51. Honestly why should the space it takes up be an issue?

Hard drives are cheap these days, you can get a 500gb HD for less than a hundred buck now.

[RoyGBiv]

83. It's not space consumption ...

That's not the problem really.

It's what some of that represents. Most simply put, the problem with such a massive footprint is what it suggests about efficiency. In short, there's a lot of crap in a Windows installation that's put together so inefficiently that you need a high performance hardware just for it to function properly. This is where you get into the disconnect between what Microsoft says is "required" for their OS and what is actually needed for acceptable operation. Yes, you *can* run Vista Home Basic, for example, on 512MB of memory, but you won't like it at all.

Note: I'm not suggesting a direct comparison between hard drive footprint and efficiency, because that would be silly. I'm suggesting that the hard drive footprint of a Microsoft program is quite often an indicator of how efficiently it will perform, but there are exceptions.

Of course a bunch of all that stuff that consumes that space is "extra," so it's hard to know without running comparative benchmarks to what degree efficiency is actually impacted. One doesn't often see the problems with this on high-end systems.

[jgraz]

2. Here's a walkthrough of the Windows 7 experience

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. "It's better than Vista"

At least the hitlerOS doesn't pretend that you're actions are somehow tied to results.

I hate Vista. I'm typing this on Ubuntu.

[dkofos]

15. I use Debian myself.

I've used it for about 7 years now.

Never had a virus.
Never had to sweep for trojans or malware.

Hell I don't ever reboot, unless I get a kernel upgrade.

[L0oniX]

58. FreeBSD here.

[Duckhunter935]

3. Faster blue screen of death? just kidding

[dkofos]

16. I heard they are changing to red.

[Zech Marquis The 2nd]

4. for the past 8 months

I've had to use a Dell laptop with Vista :puke: by the 1st of March, I will have a MacBook or MacBook Pro :bounce: I refuse to pay any more money for this M$ shit :argh: and Windows &? Fuck no !!!

[JeanGrey]

6. I've used Vista for a year and half. Not a single problem,

not ONE. No blue screens, just easy operation.

[MercutioATC]

13. If you're not a power user and have plenty of RAM...and don't mind the handholding

every time you want to do the simplest thing, Vista isn't bad.

On the other hand, if you want your computer to actually perform and you don't need it to tell you how to do everything, Vista is a huge pain in the ass.

It's "user-friendly" to the point of being obnoxious.

[JeanGrey]

72. My computer performs just fine and I run tons of programs,

many all at once. Just fine.

[Angleae]

95. Such as?

[Pab Sungenis]

5. I might try it on an old machine of mine.

I was going to convert it to a file server to put in the basement and offload stuff to, but it might be fun to play with Windows 7.

[lapfog_1]

8. Just a guess

but given the history of XP->Vista...

your old machine should be a multi-core 2.5+ GHz processor (2 cores at least, probably 3) AND should have 4GB of memory, and not the slow shit either...

[Solon]

9. Yeah, Windows 7 is definately not for old machines...

I'd hate to see it run on machines that don't meet the minimum specs for even Vista.

[CRF450]

55. With new computers that shouldn't be a problem

Sub $600 computers/laptops run Vista just fine.

[Pab Sungenis]

11. They said it is supposed to run well on older machines

because the OS is "compartmentalized" or something like that. Worth putting to the test.

[thunder rising]

10. If they are not paying people to use (and test) a Beta ... fuck 'em

[BlooInBloo]

18. Idiots should've distributed via bt. Thankfully I've got msdn premiuim.

[DainBramaged]

23. Tech-net

The volume of downloads forced them to add capacity yesterday.

[Kansas Wyatt]

25. Jesus H. Christ! Why do they have a warning label on it saying it isn't complete?

Where it says to try Windows 7 Beta.

[DainBramaged]

28. It's on the installation instructions page

[Kansas Wyatt]

31. If it is suppose to be an improvement over Vista, then why the warning?

[walldude]

37. Because it's a BETA it's in the testing phase.

They release the software for power users to try out and report bugs. This way they get to test the software on a wide variety of systems. They warn you not to download it if you aren't an experienced user.

[Greyhound]

49. Which, in microsoftese, means alpha. The first release will be the beta,

and SP1 or SP2 will be the release.

[tabasco]

64. Hahaha!

Ain't that the truth.

XP worked well for me, though.

[walldude]

96. Which is why I don't upgrade to any Microsoft OS's till the second

service pack is released. Anyone who rushes out to buy a new MS operating system when it is first released is a fool. Did people not learn from Windows ME?

[Kansas Wyatt]

63. So instead of pre-maturely releasing it, like they did with Vista...

They are actually going to get consumers, who are now completely fed up with Vista, to test it for free.

No thank you! However, it is time for Congress to call Bill Gates in for a rectal exam with a microscope again.

[csziggy]

69. Microsoft has released Beta versions of Windows for several iterations

I have Beta versions of Windows 2000, XP and Vista around here somewhere. The only one I loaded and tested seriously was 2000 and had no problems with the Beta version at all. I did not have an extra machine handy for XP or Vista Beta testing - same for Windows 7 but I may download it just for fun.

[KillCapitalism]

30. I'll give it a whirl.

I have a secondary system with the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
EVGA Nforce 780i SLI motherboard
4GB Corsair XMS DDR2 800 RAM
Western Digital 400GB SATA HD
BFG GeForce 8800GTS 512MB
LG 20X DVD-RW

That should run it fine I think. The big problem will be drivers. If I get 7 to install, I'm sure there will be something that won't work properly, but hey that's life when you're beta testing.

[DainBramaged]

33. I JUST put a 9500GT in this system the other day

Along with an AMD Black 6000 oc to 3.6. last week. I am happy.

[CRF450]

68. Theirs a video I saw on youtube of windows 7 a guy upgraded to....

He said it carried everything over from Vista, even the drivers and not a single hiccup so far or compatibility issue.

[DainBramaged]

70. True, but MUCH faster and the install took FIFTY MINUTES

[CRF450]

71. I'm gonna try it out too. So far its at near 50% downloaded

Will go on the laptop. Its an HP with a AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60, 3gb of ram, 160gb HD, and Vista Home Premium 32bit.

[DainBramaged]

74. Get an ISO burner software from download.com

You need it to create the install disk. You will be able to uninstall it, and it is only good till August (but a crack is available for the key already).

[CRF450]

78. Already did, Nero 7!

Though I hope it works in Windows 7 cause thats my favorite burning software.

[DainBramaged]

32. System's done

Intel board. 2.8 skt 775 P4, 1GB PC2 5200, 120GB WD hard drive I had laying around, it booted so I'll do the install after I watch Babylon A.D.

[anigbrowl]

44. Keep us posted, my system is fairly similar to yours so I'm interested in the outcome.

[DainBramaged]

60. ISO is burned I am beginning install. I installed Win XP Pro first as a baseline

It's a typical system, nothing fancy, what most people and offices would have. Since I have no photo software on he system, I'm taking pics, will post when finished.

[Ichingcarpenter]

43. How long did it take to download? I'm still loading

Also, everything I read said you don't need windows on your system.
I'm gonna see if I can run this in bootcamp and play some games on it.

For apple users you might need this application rather than writing a script
that will Burn an ISO file to make an install DVD, its has a 30 day trial on it.

fastiso file: http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/Fast-ISO.shtml

[Lost-in-FL]

57. Really??

I might try it.

[Ichingcarpenter]

59. It is still downloading as far as I can tell but I'm hopeful.

There are only 9 million allotments so if you you want to try
better get in line. You can always remove it and its good till next August.

I would do some searches on google for handy steps for a mac user.
I did see that you need to write the script or use that program I linked to.

[Phred42]

53. You First

[DainBramaged]

61. Install update

Will NOT upgrade from WIN XP only Vista, so it created a new partition on the drive and is doing a clean install.

I made sure drive was defraged and error free, installed Panda and A2 (I had new copy WIN XP SP2 full install). Took about 70 minutes total to install software, system drivers, Cyber link, and the rest.

[DainBramaged]

66. Install complete, 50 minutes start to finish

[DainBramaged]

67. I am now on Windows 7

TaDa!


FAST install, it READS everything on the thumb drive I plugged in (no Vista surprises) and it installed my networking using XP software!

Downloading AVG Windows 7 trial Anti-virus, and the download pane has a scanning feature "Smart Screen Filter" to check the download, so they have built protection into it.

[madokie]

84. I'll be downloading it tonight

Thanks for the link.

[cliffordu]

81. My penguin craps on their download.

[RoyGBiv]

89. Long Live the Penguin ...

[CRF450]

86. I have it on my laptop now.

Been messing around with it for 45 minutes. Install took about an hour. Its a bit more responsive than Vista thats for sure! Memory use hasent gone down much, but it does load programs a bit faster. Firefox works, xfire works, everything I tried so far works.

I installed it over Vista Home Premium 32bit as a 32bit OS. I dont think it would work if I tried overwriting a 32bit to a 64bit OS. Its not as smooth as I hoped it would be, but I guess maybe a clean install would fix that. Its doing good so far:thumbsup:

[Political Heretic]

88. I like Vista just fine, so does everyone in my house -- all engineers and geeks.

Yes, we have Macs and Linux boxes too... but all this propaganda and hyperbole about the evil of Vista is so completely overblown. We enjoy it far, far more than XP for our basic non-geek computer needs, which would include our regular surfin, office productivity work, and gaming.

Of course no one is coding on a windows box. But vista is just fine for a lot of people. I run 64 ultra and I love it.

[The Traveler]

90. This is so weird

I have had Vista on three machines in my house ... I still have it on an HP. It gives us some problems on the HP but really it isn't too bad. It was so sucky on the other two machines we decided to reformat and install Ubuntu.

I don't get ... all these machines had ample hard drive and memory. :shrug:

Trav

[Political Heretic]

92. I've got Ubuntu on my laptop - cause I needed all the performance I could get on that

Old laptop... I didn't even want to put XP on it. But its only for use as a grad school computer - needs wi-fi, internet, email and office tools. So I use Open office and save in Word format and I'm good to go.

[varkam]

94. Agreed. I've been using Vista for a bit over a year now and...

I haven't had any problems out of it. In fact, I like Vista. :hide:

[L0oniX]

97. Winblows 7?

[DainBramaged]

98. I thought I'd kick this for the folks who missed it.

[mkultra]

99. also not for anyone with any sense

try linux

[CRF450]

100. Little update...

I just noticed earlier that when watching videos from my digital camera, the videos don't have blocky pixilated artifacts when the camera view is jumpy. I guess maybe Windows 7 has been written to produce better looking video? I mean, this laptop doesn't have a graphics chip worth a crap and while using Vista the artifacts were showing. My gaming computer with Vista doesn't do this being that it has high end graphics cards.