Windows 7 Beta 1 Released

I don't trust myself to duel-boot an OS with my computer. Neither do I wish a beta of anything to be my main OS. Think I'll just wait till it comes out in a few years.

 

Ooooooo...shiny!

The Start Menu looks nice and crisp. The taskbar could be a little more refined instead of a boring opaque bar...it gets a little annoying with some of the defautl backgrounds. The taskbar here looks better, I like how you have the date & time visible. All in all, it looks a *lot* like Vista...but seeing as how I've heard Windows 7 referred to as "The OS Vista was supposed to be", I'm not surprised.

I'm thinking that I might download it and give it a try on my spare HDD. Maybe post my own screenshots here on SP.


Update:
I'm downloading the 64-Bit version now....

To download it, you have to register with M$ first. You get the option between the 32-bit or 64-bit version. The file is an .iso file that you have to burn to a DVD before you can install it. The .iso file is 3.15GB and is downloaded through MS's Download Manager...which seems like it a variant of Bit Torrent.
I've still got ~5 hours left on the download, so I'll update later today once it's finished.

---------- Added 18 hours, 28 minutes and 54 seconds later... ----------

Well, I dissconected 3 of my 4 hard drives that had my XP install and all my day-to-day files and installed Windows 7 on my spare 300GB drive....and I'm typing this via Internet Explorer 8 Beta. My first impressions are quite good. Everything looks crisp. I'm playing around with several things and taking lots of screenshots.


If there's something you'd like to see, or if you want to know how something works, let me know and I'll play around with it and post the results here.

---------- Added 6 hours, 42 minutes and 21 seconds later... ----------

How about some screenshots?



I've got 22 screenshots posted in my SP Album, and I've got a bunch on my camera from the installation process...I'll post those later.

 

Yep, as it is an incremental update, it is basically Vista with some new clothes. What I like is that they are *finally* implementing some new GUI features to control the different windows and the taskbar. Now you can finally have some control over them, instead of them being a random mess that just annoy you. Something they should have done 8 years ago, better late than never I guess. But it still seems too dumbed down...


Kitrax, I see that you have been messing around with WMP12, I certainly hope you downloaded the patch that fixes the program from permanently deleting the few first seconds of mp3 files. If those were mp3 files that is. I cannot recall what you had to do for that to happen, but it is quite a nasty bug.

 

I've got everything patched and updated. Any music I've put on the drive I'm using for this Beta is actually copied over from my backup drive. I'm prepared to lose anything and everything on this drive should something bad happen.

 

I've had to switch back to XP for awhile...the wife doesn't like Win7.

I installed several programs to test their functionality, here are the results:

• BG1 will install fine, but will *only* run if you’ve installed TotSC. I learned this the hard way, if you don’t have TotSC installed you can get to the screen where you create your character, but the game crashes as soon as you click “accept”. Once TotSC was installed, everything worked fine.
• BG2 - SoA and ToB installed and run fine.
• StarCraft installed and runs fine...however, there are some graphics issues that will probably be fixed with a future driver update. I'll post a picture of StarCraft's "Campaign Selection" screen to show you what I mean.
• Diablo 1 installed and runs fine
• Diablo 2 installed, but I got a pop-up that says Win7 has known compatibility issues with D2...but the game runs fine.
• BioShock installed and runs fine...it looks amazing running on Direct X 11 (even though my video card only supports dx10)
• AVG 8.0 (free) installed and runs fine.
• Adobe Reader 9 installed and runs fine.
• The Adobe Photoshop CS3 demo installed and runs fine...I'm thinking for trying the CS4 demo later this week.
• MS Office 2007 installed and runs fine
• WinAMP v5.541 installed and runs fine
• VLC Player v0.9.8a installed and runs fine
• ZoneAlarm is a no-go...for now.
• Nero 7 doesn't work. I got a pop-up that said Win7 has known compatibility issues with Nero. Not sure if Nero 8 or 9 will work...

Once I switch my HDDs out and get Win7 back, I’m planning on installing BG2, Oblivion, Diablo 1 & 2, StarCraft, MS Word 2007, and Photoshop.

Again, if you have questions, feel free to ask. If you have a program that you'd like me to test, let me know...I'll download the free/demo version and try it out.

 

Unfortunately all my hard drive / Partitions are pretty much full so I can't install it, and I fear it will knock out my Linux .

From the screenshots it rather looks like Vista, what new features are in that aren't part of this new eye candy GUI?

Does it support new file systems (ext4 and WinFS comes to mind) or is it still NTFS? What about networking, is it easy to set up shared folder between multiple computers ? Does it support the new USB 3.0? What about the advantages of directX 11? Is it easy to make partition? Can it support more than 4 GO of RAM ? Is the boot time slower or faster than WinXP ? Does the bootloader makes it easy to Dual-boot multiple OSes, also dual boot other OSes that aren't M$ ? Is UAC less annoying? Can it run legacy software with ease ? Have they updated the Kernel or is it still Vista's ? What about hardware compatibilty out of the box, do you need to hunt drivers ? To what extent can you customize the GUI ?

I can't think of any more questions for now. I'm only curious

 

I can answer a few of those questions now...but I'll wait to answer them all at once. I'm looking in to everything I'm not sure about now.

---------- Added 7 hours, 25 minutes and 12 seconds later... ----------

How about some answers?

Q: Does it support new file systems (ext4 and WinFS comes to mind) or is it still NTFS?
A:IIRC, WinFS has been left out. I never had the option to choose WinFS during the installation or when I created a new partition…you get NTFS or FAT32. But hey, this *is* a Beta…so we can all hope it’s added later…right?

Q: What about networking, is it easy to set up shared folder between multiple computers?
A: Win7 features something called “Home Group” which is basically like Network Neighborhood on crack. It’s very easy to use…and actually works. I was able to access all my shared files on my Win7 PC from my laptop running XP *and* I had set up a network printer in less than 5 minutes…something that I was never actually able to do in XP.

Q: Does it support the new USB 3.0?
A: No…The final USB 3.0 spec is still being finalized, since it’s not going to be ready in time for Windows 7’s release, Win7 isn’t going to natively support it…however, a patch will be available once the USB 3.0 spec is complete and is released to the public.

Q:What about the advantages of directX 11?
A: This 8 page article should fill you in: http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2008/09/17/directx-11-a-look-at-what-s-coming/1 this one was good too: http://www.pcmech.com/article/directx-11-to-reveal-a-new-era-of-graphics/
The basics: "new compute shader technology" “developers can take advantage of the graphics card as a parallel processor” "multi-threaded resource handling that will allow games to better take advantage of multi-core machines" "support for tessellation" which allows "developers to refine models to be smoother and more attractive when seen up close"

Q: Is it easy to make partition?
A:Very easy! From the Disk Management utility, I was able to “shrink” my 300GB HDD by 10GB to make room for a 2nd partition. A wizard popped up and guided me though the process of creating a new partition. It took less than 5 minutes to shrink my drive and create the new partition. The “quick format” took a few more minutes. Once I was able to use it, I deleted it and “expanded” my drive back to 300GB. I’m very happy with this feature.

Q: Can it support more than 4 GB of RAM?
A:Yes…if you’re running the 64-bit version. Good thing too, because Intel’s next gen Core i7 CPUs have the best test results running 3 sticks of 2GB DDR3 RAM in Tri-Channel mode (that’s right, 6GB using 3 channels)

Q: Is the boot time slower or faster than WinXP?
A:To test this, I removed my password from both OSes and used a stopwatch. I timed both from the time I pushed the power button until the time where Windows Explorer had loaded and the hourglass pointer went away. Then I started the timer as soon as my BIOS had loaded and detected my HDD – stopping at the same place. To time the shutdown speed, I timed from the moment I clicked “Shut Down” until the time the power went off. I repeated each test 3 times and took the average.

Windows 7 Startup: 1:11.21 (min:sec)
After BIOS Startup: 45.60 (sec)
Shutdown: 15.34 (sec)
******
Windows XP Startup: 1:23.61 (min:sec)
After BIOS Startup: 54.36 (sec)
Shutdown: 18.66 (sec)

So Windows 7 is a little faster…I haven’t tried ReadyBoost to see if Win7 gains any speed because I’ve heard that with a high-end(ish) PC like mine, ReadyBoost doesn’t do much at all.

Q: Does the bootloader makes it easy to Dual-boot multiple OSes, also dual boot other OSes that aren't M$?
A:I don’t know. I was unable to get XP to install as a dul-boot. Every time I booted from the CD, it would load all the drivers, and when it got to the “Windows is Starting” screen, it would crash to the BsoD. I tried 4 different times, each with minor changes, and always got the same result.

Q: Is UAC less annoying?
A:Yes. Instead of Vista’s ON/OFF mode, Win7 gives you 4 levels of notifications.

Q: Can it run legacy software with ease?
A: I’ve installed and played Baldur’s Gate 1&2, StarCraft, and Diablo 1&2. Is that “legacy” enough for you? The 64-bit version of Win7 has 2 separate ‘Program Files’ folders, one for 32-bit programs, and one for 64-bit.

Q: Have they updated the Kernel or is it still Vista's?
A:IIRC, it’s a modified Vista Kernel. I’ve seen it referred to as “hybrid”

Q: What about hardware compatibility out of the box, do you need to hunt drivers?
A:Like I’ve mentioned before, I forgot to unplug my LAN cable and my printer before installing Win7…after it had finished installing, it automatically downloaded the latest drivers for my videocard, my NIC, and my printer…and then it installed them all, and everything worked!

Q: To what extent can you customize the GUI?
A:A fair amount…about the same as Vista I would guess.

---------- Added 0 hours, 4 minutes and 31 seconds later... ----------

Heh...it took me several hours to answer all those questions...and my wife's not happy about it because I was supposed to be working on my homework.

She thinks I should get paid to do this stuff.

 

Yes, thanks for taking the time to put all that info together for us.

 

Hey, it's no sweat off my back...I was going to do it either way...good excuse for not doing my homework.

 

My understanding of Windows 7 is that it is basically Vista but with serious improvements to how the OS handles the hardware.

In your test with Windows 7 do you see it using less RAM and CPU while idling or doing basic computing compared to Vista?

Also, has Microsoft reduced the start up time of Windows 7 when compared to XP or Vista?

These are the two biggies that annoyed most users and those were the two biggies they said they aim to improve upon. If they did not do that, than Windows 7 just might become the new Windows ME.

 

I decided to take a shot at Win 7 as well and downloaded the Beta yesterday. It is very much like Vista with some nice added features, which Kit has already covered.

The Beta is missing Movie Maker, which is one of the programs I use in Vista, and I like quite well. Windows 7 Media Player is worse than ever and I loaded Winamp instead, which works just fine in 7.

I loaded Oblivion last night and have had no issues with it. So far I've loaded the basic game, patched to version 1.1. The only mods I've added have been the official add-ons, including Kot9, Battlehorn Castle, etc.

The problem is that it runs much slower than in Vista or XP, which is probably a driver issue. I'm going to play on it a bit more and post on the results.

---------- Added 4 hours, 5 minutes and 40 seconds later... ----------

To follow-up on TES IV, the frame rates were much lower in W7. Here's a brief breakdown:

Computer:
Intel Core 2 E6600@2.4
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
EVGA GF 9800 GT
WD 640GB HD

Settings: 1280X800, HDR, all effects ON

Win XP: Outside: 68 FPS Inside: 75 FPS
Win 7 : Outside: 55 FPS Inside: 60 FPS

All this was using the same install I mentioned earlier (SI nor any unofficial mods installed on Win7). It's probably a driver issue. A quick check of nVidia's website commented that the latest drivers for WIN 7 could be downloaded from MS. So for now, those appear to be the best drivers I could find. I'm sure that by the time the final version is released performance will be better.

No crashes in either OS. And FRAPS appears to work just fine in Win 7.
Screen shots from TESIV in Win 7: http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/album.php?albumid=138

 

Movie Maker and several other "basic" Windows tools have been left out on purpose. Once Win7 is public, you can download all the left out tools from M$'s website for free.

 

Ahem...sorry for that short reply, I was at work and found a computer inside the fab that had full internet access.

Anyway, here's a more descriptive explanation:

Microsoft is planning on making Win7 "modular." You get to choose which pieces you want. I'm not sure if Movie Maker and others will be on the installation disk, or if it will only be available via a free download...but it makes more sense to only offer the "extras" via download, that way you're getting the newest version when you choose to dl it.

Here's some bedtime reading.
Why Windows 7 might go to pieces
Is Microsoft working on a software center for Windows?

 

I installed Windows 7 Beta 64bit and so far I am pleased with it. I didn't install any programs yet. Installation was fast. I installed in in a pre-existing designated partition on my RAID. Accepted that without complaint. Oddly though, it doesn't show my Vista 64bit partition in the drive manager. It shows my XP partition though. It's just not there. Still, my triple boot set-up works just fine.

First impressions: Windows 7 is rather agile, faster than Vista and at least on par with XP; driver management is quite convenient. Windows 7 looks chic. Still, I miss the aero screen from Vista. Windows 7 has some nice options for the desktop as well, but the aero screen was a nice gadget.

PS: How long will I be able to use the Beta? Will I be able to keep it if I like it?

 

IIRC it will stop working on August 1, 2009.

 

Well...that's the *current* date, but that date might get pushed back if MS isn't quite ready to remove Win7 from Beta status. However, MS seems pretty adamant about shipping Win7 *before* the end of 2009...

 

Writing this on the IE of Windows 7 64bit. I like it so far. It is stable and agile. The new task bar takes some getting used too, but it is practical, just different.

Your user impressions sofar?