Windows 7

[Alpha1]

Been using it for a few weeks now, so far so good quite stable and a bit faster than Vista. Didn't have any driver or hardware issues either, I like the look and feel of it.

 

[spitlizard]

Definately very slick and has some really good features; there are a few niggly bugs but that is to be expected (they are pretty petty though) and i'll be giving Microgates my input.

Still going to stay with Vista until the proper release of W7 comes out however as I think it's going to be one of M/S's sweetest O/S's released in years.

CAN'T WAIT.................

 

[P.A.F.C]

Partitioned the hard drive on my laptop so I have both Vista + Windows 7 Beta on it at the moment. Have had no problems at the moment with 7 and it looks very sleek. When the full version comes out, i'll probably get it for the main computer.

 

[mrjamierocks]

Has anyone installed win 7 on anything less than the minimum specs?
I ask this as I have a laptop with 256 ram memory and the cpu is lacking, I was hoping i could squeeze it on.
thanks

 

[TheGhostOfJohnBelushi]

Has anyone installed win 7 on anything less than the minimum specs?
I ask this as I have a laptop with 256 ram memory and the cpu is lacking, I was hoping i could squeeze it on.
thanks

I've heard that required specs are less than Vista... can run a clean install of Vista fine on a 512MB... 256MB might be pushing it, though.

 

[giantroo]

The hardware requirements for 7 are less than they were for Vista. You never know it might work on your system.

I'll give it a try.

 

[Pie eyed]

Has anyone installed win 7 on anything less than the minimum specs?
I ask this as I have a laptop with 256 ram memory and the cpu is lacking, I was hoping i could squeeze it on.
thanks

What are you running at the moment?
If you have XP I would use the money you will be throwing away on Windows 7 beta and put some real RAM in you laptop. 2GB.
The added RAM makes XP mucho better.
If you still have a hankering for Windows 7 then by the time you have saved up for it again they should have worked out some of the myriad bugs.
Personally I would wait until Windows 8 comes out and then buy Windows 7. They should have it stable by then.

 

[mrjamierocks]

What are you running at the moment?
If you have XP I would use the money you will be throwing away on Windows 7 beta and put some real RAM in you laptop. 2GB.
The added RAM makes XP mucho better.
If you still have a hankering for Windows 7 then by the time you have saved up for it again they should have worked out some of the myriad bugs.
Personally I would wait until Windows 8 comes out and then buy Windows 7. They should have it stable by then.

I have win xp on the laptop, at the moment it just runs too slow, clicking on something to open, eg browser takes forever, I formatted it and it starts off well but eventually bogs down, I tried defragging with third party products and windows but it never seems too help, thats why I thought I'd try win 7 beta, but it looks like more memory is the go.

 

[weevil]

What are you running at the moment?
If you have XP I would use the money you will be throwing away on Windows 7 beta and put some real RAM in you laptop. 2GB.
The added RAM makes XP mucho better.

The 7 beta is free, and RAM is almost free these days. Pissing around with 256 meg is ridiculous, you can get 1 gig from Umart for $24. Your laptop will run 1000 times better with any OS.

If you still have a hankering for Windows 7 then by the time you have saved up for it again they should have worked out some of the myriad bugs.
Personally I would wait until Windows 8 comes out and then buy Windows 7. They should have it stable by then.

Until they get all the issues with computers sorted I reckon you should stick with a typewriter.

 

[spitlizard]

HOW QUICK IS IT

I've been doing time trials with my Mac leopard system and so far seems to be faster (in all fairness to Mac, this PC is a little but more potent then the Mac one).........but the acid test remains, SECURITY , from all the sites i've visited it seems considerably improved.

Anyone had any serious crashes with the beta yet? I have had it freeze whilst trying to setup the backup but thats about it(so far); pretty good for a beta

I particularly like the slider bar for the UAC

 

[Rod Stroker]

HOW QUICK IS IT

Bloody quick! Thanks to the stripped down kernel.
what I've noticed on Win7 is that if you don't do anything then the machine doesn't do anything. Totally idle and obedient. Unlike all other windows versions where even if you don't do anything there is still some mischievous processing going on in the background and consuming resources unnecessarily.

Anyone had any serious crashes with the beta yet? I have had it freeze whilst trying to setup the backup but thats about it(so far); pretty good for a beta

Had mine running for nearly a month now and not a single crash, hang, hiccup or hissy fit.

I particularly like the slider bar for the UAC

Bit gimmicky if you ask me.
What I really like is that in previous windows versions, applications would appear in the bottom task bar sequentially from left to right in the order they were launched and couldn't be moved. Now, you can drag open applications all over the task bar and have them in any left to right order you want! Great for when you are flipping between 2 open applications, you don't have run the mouse from one side of the screen to the other any more.

 

[Pie eyed]

The 7 beta is free, and RAM is almost free these days. Pissing around with 256 meg is ridiculous, you can get 1 gig from Umart for $24. Your laptop will run 1000 times better with any OS.


The "Windows 7 beta" was an accurate way of describing Windows 7 retail. At least for the next 2 years or so.



Until they get all the issues with computers sorted I reckon you should stick with a typewriter.

It is not an issue with computers. It is a very well documented deficiency with Microsoft OS's over a very long period of time. They consistently release their OS updates in an unfinished, buggy and unstable condition, relying on users and third party software companies to identify and in many cases find solutions to the problems

 

[spitlizard]

It is not an issue with computers. It is a very well documented deficiency with Microsoft OS's over a very long period of time. They consistently release their OS updates in an unfinished, buggy and unstable condition, relying on users and third party software companies to identify and in many cases find solutions to the problems

Perhaps M/S should take a leaf out of other belligerent Nazi O/S's and hold a far greater dictatorship on what can or can't be passed as "their own" under the guise of "open source".........

 

[weevil]

It is not an issue with computers. It is a very well documented deficiency with Microsoft OS's over a very long period of time. They consistently release their OS updates in an unfinished, buggy and unstable condition, relying on users and third party software companies to identify and in many cases find solutions to the problems

It’s not an issue with computers??? Tell me about these computers that don’t have any bugs or errors. Unless you can find one your typewriter is a much safer option.

It is also very well documented that the Windows 7 beta is extremely stable and robust.

 

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

Interesting fact. The term 'bug' was first used in the 1940's when a moth found its way into the Harvard Mark II computer causing a hardware failure.

 

[Borgsta]

It is not an issue with computers. It is a very well documented deficiency with Microsoft OS's over a very long period of time. They consistently release their OS updates in an unfinished, buggy and unstable condition, relying on users and third party software companies to identify and in many cases find solutions to the problems

You obviously haven't used Windows 7 and by the sounds of things haven't even bothered to read up about it. So why are you pretending to know anything about it?

I have had 1 crash on it and that was in the games section it would crash explorer every time I hovered my mouse over the 3rd games listed. Have since removed said game from list and now works fine.

 

[Pie eyed]

I respect your opinions on Windows 7 but given my experience with Windows 3 through Vista I will stand by mine until I see the proof of the pudding. I am getting a new Laptop on Tuesday and will be running Windows 7 until I either install XP, or it does in fact prove to be the first ever stable OS released by Microsoft. I get both the Laptop and Windows 7 free and would definitely not bother paying for it until, at the very least, the 16gb service pack 1 is available....sorry being a bit sarcastic there....At any rate I will be installing programs steadily waiting for the inevitable "This program is not compatible. You must spend an inordinate amount of money to upgrade it to the Windows 7 version, if such a thing exists." notification.

 

[weevil]

Hate to sound like a fanboi but the Compatibility Trouble Shooter in 7 rocks da house. You can configure apps that do not natively run in 7 to work the way they do in earlier operating systems. I’m sure it will not work with some things, but I had 3 apps that it totally nailed for me.

...I totally understand you being cynical; MS have spent years ignoring everyone’s criticisms. But it is really clear that this OS represents a fundamental change in direction for them.

 

[Borgsta]

I respect your opinions on Windows 7 but given my experience with Windows 3 through Vista I will stand by mine until I see the proof of the pudding. I am getting a new Laptop on Tuesday and will be running Windows 7 until I either install XP, or it does in fact prove to be the first ever stable OS released by Microsoft. I get both the Laptop and Windows 7 free and would definitely not bother paying for it until, at the very least, the 16gb service pack 1 is available....sorry being a bit sarcastic there....At any rate I will be installing programs steadily waiting for the inevitable "This program is not compatible. You must spend an inordinate amount of money to upgrade it to the Windows 7 version, if such a thing exists." notification.

You make it sound like everyone here who is saying Windows 7 is great is a Microsoft fan boy. Yet the complete opposite is true, everyone here has said how shit Vista was (much better now but far too late), how pointless windows ME was, how unsecure Windows XP was/is.

Basically EVERYONE agrees with you but we are all shocked at how good Windows 7 is.

 

[spitlizard]

My Windows 7 beta seems on installation to be altering my MBR hense the HDD won't restart after the initial install process of copy the boot folders onto it.

I have to reformat the HDD, install Vista then upgrade to W7.
Anyone else having this problem?

 

[Borgsta]

Dunno i did a clean install.

 

[spitlizard]

Thats the thing Borgs, so did I
After it copied the initial files to the Hard Drive, it rebooted then just hung after the "do you want to boot of CD/DVD" screen.
After a bit of investigating I concluded it must have corrupted the MBR.
After repairing it the only option I had was to then install Vista and upgrade which worked fine.

The same thing happened to my mates install and he had a different downloaded version to mine.

 

[Borgsta]

oh weird. I d/l build 7000 I think it was and had no issues.
Rod had a link to some MS forum which was dealing with problems, perhaps hit that up.

 

[Pie eyed]

You make it sound like everyone here who is saying Windows 7 is great is a Microsoft fan boy. Yet the complete opposite is true, everyone here has said how shit Vista was (much better now but far too late), how pointless windows ME was, how unsecure Windows XP was/is.

Basically EVERYONE agrees with you but we are all shocked at how good Windows 7 is.

LOL. I don't intend to make anyone else sound like a "fanboy" but as you probably realise I am not a fanboy, at least of the first several releases of any new Microsoft release.

Your right that I have not read up on Windows 7 but I have used the beta in conjunction with several colleagues who run significant IT business's. There are numerous bugs and glitches, which is par for the course in all previous new Windows OS releases.
The opinion was asked. I gave it.

Also the ability to run programs under prior OS conditions has been in the OS's since XP and operates with varying success but is better than nothing.

 

[weevil]

LOL. I don't intend to make anyone else sound like a "fanboy" but as you probably realise I am not a fanboy, at least of the first several releases of any new Microsoft release.

Your right that I have not read up on Windows 7 but I have used the beta in conjunction with several colleagues who run significant IT business's. There are numerous bugs and glitches, which is par for the course in all previous new Windows OS releases.
The opinion was asked. I gave it.

Are you trying to say that the 7 beta is no less buggy than Vista beta 1 or XP beta 1???

If so I am going to have a lot of trouble taking you seriously. They were both total train wrecks (Vista in particular).

Also the ability to run programs under prior OS conditions has been in the OS's since XP and operates with varying success but is better than nothing.

Err...yes...however it is significantly improved from previous versions. 3.11 had icons and stuff too, but things have improved a little since then too.