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[H-kon]

Today,around noonish Microsoft is releasing the first public beta of Windows 7.  Vista was a big "meh" to me, but this is the first version of Windows in years that actually got me excited. Being an OS addict, i am of course going to try and get a copy today.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

Reports so far indicate that it is superfast, very stable and there are a lot of improvements under the hood.

I am hitting the F5 key to land a copy today so that i can do a forum review here

The beta is said to expire on August 1st, although that isn't confirmed yet
So prepare for a H-kon.net usability review

If you would like me to test things, shoot me a question

[Elf]

Looking foward to the review.

I was think to getting Vista on my next upgrade but didn't know how it would go with games.

[H-kon]

The Microsoft sites are pretty hammered at the moment, but i think i did get myself a legit copy in the end after many hours of hitting F5,  it's installing right now, so i am typing this from Ubuntu.

Vista has few problems with games, but it does require a bit more resources in my experience, although i haven't tested a Service pack 1 install so it might have gotten better.

I am hearing that the current beta of Windows 7 is even better than the release version of Vista.

[H-kon]

Finished installing it and i am now posting from it. Been using it for all of 10 minutes.

The install was easy. Just a few easy dialogs where it asked me for my password, language etc.

The system:

MSI P35 Mainboard
6GB PC6400 DDR-II
LGA 775 E8400 3.0GHz @ 3,6 GHz
Radeon 4570 512MB
250GB T166 IDE

What surprises me is that it is snappy, and doesn't feel as sluggish as Vista did on the same system, except for that it had 4GB memory.
I am posting using Internet Explorer 8 which is new which i am going to use extensively just to get a feel for the default system during the mini-review.

Only installed one program "Spotify" which is a music service (Got 3 invites left if anyone wants one, first come first served) which worked great.
Compared to the old XP-64-bit install, sound quality seems to have been taken up a few notches. Sound quality is much better in my opinion coming from my Cambridge Soundworks THX system but this may also be true for Vista.  Just for the much improved Audio quality, it's definatly worth it in my opinion.

Startup memory use with this window of IE 8 open, BOINC,  and Spotify, it uses 1,13GB of memory and virtually no processor use at all.

Windows 7 isn't very different from Vista. Just a bit more polished, and it looks cleaner. I will get to that later with lots of screenshots.

If you got questions, i am going to answer them to the best of my ability.

[Elf]

One thing I would like to know...Does the 32bit version of Windows 7 support more than 4GB ram?
I know the 64bit versions of XP and Vista does but the 32bit versions do not.

[H-kon]

The 32-bit version does not support more than 4GB of memory which is too bad considering that since every processor made in the last 10 years has supported (Physical Address Extension) and can support up to 64 GB,  I think Linux does support PAE correctly.

But there is still the 2GB process limitation in 32-bit mode, but few of us encounter that unless you do some heavy Photoshopping etc.

I have a Duron 1200 system with 512MB that is also getting Windows 7 installed down the road. I am going to see how it behaves on a minimal system

[H-kon]

I have been playing a bit more with Windows 7. There are some nifty things around that i really never thought about before.

Wordpad and MSPaint has been upgraded and they now have the same menu system as found in Office 2007 which is pretty confusing for me having never used it. MSpaint also saves .png files by default:

(Click the pictures for larger versions)




The startmenu is from what i can tell just about the same that is found in Vista:



There are some small improvements in that it saves the history of every "pinned" program in the first menu which is a timesaver if you are using a lot of the same options over and over again.
 
(Continued)

[H-kon]

Have been using it some more, and i got to say that i am impressed. This beta release could have been put in a retail box and sold as is.
My only gripe is IE 8 which has some problems rendering text inside post forms (f.ex, this forum). Other than that, it just works.

If you can download 3,2 gigabytes and have a spare disk drive, do give it a shot, but be quick. The gate closes the 24th of January.
The 32-bit install is a little over 2gb in size.

Some other nifty things that i discovered. The "Aero Shake" which simply means that you can shake the current window you are currently watchin by dragging it around, and all other windows will minimize.
Do it again, and they all come back.

Another thing is the auto-maximize option that is pretty handy. If you take a window and just drag it to the top, it will maximize itself. The reverse happens if you drag it downwards, it will then restore itself to a normal window.
Draggin it to the left, or right, it will automatically take 50 percent of your screen. I love this feature and makes it easy to organize the windows the way you like them coupled with the shake feature above.

The taskbar has been completely overhauled, being more OS X like. Groupings of windows happens automatically, and there is a nifty preview when you mouse over the app in the taskbar.  At the bottom far right, there is a little area that acts like Winkey +D

I haven't really tested the new version of Windows explorer just yet, except for that it lacks an "up" arrow, but the breadcrumb menu works pretty nicely as well meaning that you can just click the name of the folder you desire to go to in the address bar inside windows explorer and it will take you where you want to go.
I don't really care much for the back button, as sometimes back means up, but windows takes you the prior folder used, not the one that is one level up which is to me a bit confusing.

I am going to try to take a few pretty screenshots tomorrow for the forums, so if there are any requests, i'll do those as well

[Elf]

I have a Duron 1200 system with 512MB that is also getting Windows 7 installed down the road. I am going to see how it behaves on a minimal system

You may need to upgrade the ram in the Duron system, or are you going to see what happens with a 512mb system?

Minimum Specs for Windows 7:

1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
1 GB of system memory
16 GB of available disk space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme)
DVD-R/W Drive
Internet access (to download the Beta and get updates)

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

[H-kon]

It is said to be possible to install 7 with just 512MB

But that remains to be seen

Thanks for the heads up

[Elf]

I downloaded the 32bit iso for Windows 7. 2.18GB in size.
When burning to a DVD I get the error message from Nero Burning rom.
"The entered block size doesn't correspond with the image length. The block size may be wrong. Do you want to correct the value or ignore the problem?"
There is a "correct" and "ignore" button. I tried the ignore button and it burnt the image but it displays another error message when the disc is inserted about invalid spwizeng.dll file.

I think I will download it again.

[H-kon]

Try burning at 2x using "Imgburn"

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

[Elf]

Burnt at 2x using Imgburn and still got the same dll message.

[Elf]

H-kon, did you try Windows 7 on your Duron?

I had to download the iso again.

I am running the 32bit version on

AMD 2800+ "Claw Hammer"
DFI K8M800-MLV mainboard
512mb DDR ram
128mb Geforce mx 4000
40GB Quantum IDE HDD

It installed ok and runs ok on this old system most of the time. It's a bit slow if you have several windows open.
Windows installed it's own drivers for everything but the video card. It says "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter"
I haven't found Vista drivers for this card and the XP ones don't work. May have to try another video card.

Firefox 3, AVG free anti virus and Ccleaner all work.

[H-kon]

Phew. Been busy beyond belief lately. Sorry for the lack of posts recently.

What do you think of Windows 7 so far?

The Duron failed during install so i never got to see the desktop. It might be a failing mobo doing it. Not sure yet.  I have a Sempron here that i might install it on, but i am having problems with this computer too which i think has to do with some bad memory. Got tons of SDRAM around, but just a few sticks of DDR.

MagicIso seems to cause me some problems. It doesn't want to remove itself so i am looking for a solution to that.

[Elf]

Windows 7 has been good so far. I haven't had time to play with it for the last 2 weeks.

I want to duel boot it with Windows XP. Might try that today.

I know Windows 7 works with 512MB of DDR memory. I guess your Duron has SDRAM?

I googled "remove magic iso" and got this. http://uninstall-magiciso.qarchive.org/

[H-kon]

OO. Excellent link.  Have you tried any of these uninstallers?

The Duron uses SDRAM, currently 512MB i think. I should give it another go tonight

[Elf]

How did you go with running Windows 7 on your Duron?

I got Windows 7 to duel boot with XP. Each os is installed on a separate drive.

[H-kon]

The duron just won't start it. Not sure if its because of graphical limitations (just Geforce 2MX 32mb) or other things but i haven't been successful so far. 

[Elf]

Just for fun I put in a 2MB PCI video card into my Windows 7 computer and turned it on. It booted into windows ok but only installed the standard vga graphics adapter driver.

[H-kon]

What kind of card was that?

The duron machine was given a Matrox G100 PCI to work with, but the card might be broken.

How is the experience with the pci card? Does it work ok?

[Elf]

The card was a S3 Trio 64v+. It also has Diamond Multimedia on the PCB.

When you load Freecell there is no hardware acceleration and the moving the card takes a few seconds.

I didn't do much else with it. Just to see if Windows 7 will load with a old PCI card.

[Elf]

The beta version of Windows 7 will expire soon. I received this email a few days ago.

We are sending this mail to remind you that Windows 7 Release candidate is available and to make sure you plan ahead for when the Beta expires on August 1, 2009. On June 1, 2009, the PC you are using to test the Beta will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will send you a notice a couple of weeks in advance, and that will be the ideal time to rebuild your test PC with a non-expired version of Windows, such as the RC or Windows Vista. This will be a clean installation, so be ready to reinstall your programs and data.

Windows 7 RC can be downloaded from here.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

[H-kon]

i never got this e-mail.

Hmm. looks like i need to rebuild this week 

[Elf]

I got this e-mail from Microsoft this morning.

Special Beta Edition -- Correction

Because you signed up to test the Windows 7 Beta, we recently sent you mail about the expiration dates for the Beta and Release Candidate. Unfortunately, we made a mistake.

We said the Beta would start shutting down every two hours on June 1, 2009. The correct date is July 1, 2009.

[H-kon]

My computer was down for a while since i still ran the beta until two days ago.

I am now running build 7232 which is very close to the release version as far as i know. Not much in terms of applications installed yet, but i do notice an improvement in terms of file copying, general responsiveness etc.

Come October, i'll be one of the first in line for a copy. Windows 7 just works.

I haven't researched much of the changes since the beta, but i will try to take a look at that.

Any features you know of Elf that i should look into?

[Elf]

I downloaded the RC1 version but haven't installed it on a computer yet. Been to busy with work and fixing friends/family computers.

Come October/November, I will buy a copy as well.

[H-kon]

Rc1 is much faster than the beta according to those who have used both. I skipped the RC 7100 build and went straight for 7232 which has behaved extremely well.
This is what Vista should have been from the start in my opinion.

I can't wait to start migrating all Vista users over to Windows 7 at work hehe.

[bookworm]

Have you taken advantage to pre-order Win 7 at a reduced rate ?

[H-kon]

Great to see you here bookworm

We don't have that offer here in Norway, so i am looking at around $300,- pr OEM copy late October