Windows 7 RC1 Released!

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Well, I've got Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) installed a bit earlier than I expected. So how about some RC1 talk then?


The installation is almost exactly the same as the beta, I booted to the DVD, a blue screen came up...and then nothing for about 3-5 minutes...you can move the mouse pointer around, but nothing else until it decideds to go. The blue screen is different this time around; it's a rather feminine image of what looks like grass and the image of a bird. Anyway, once that wait is over you can click a few times to get to the installation screen where you get to wait another 3-5 minutes for it to respond. Each time I thought my system had frozen, but sure enough, if you just wait, it will eventually start.

Once the actual installation starts, it is quite speedy. Just as in the beta, I left everything connected to my computer, and once installation was completed, it downloaded the latest drivers for my videocard and my printer and installed them. Once again, everything worked!

I haven't had much time to look around, but it looks like nothing has been dropped from the Beta...which is good. I can't confirm this right now, but I think IE8 is the official release, instead of the special beta that came with the Win7 beta...

How about some benchmarks?
I ran 4 tests using 3D Mark 06 – 2 tests on XP and 2 on Win7 RC1. The only thing different in the system setup was that my XP installation is on a RAID 0 array of two 300GB drives, whereas Win7 was installed on a single 300GB drive...if I had another spare 300GB HDD, I would have made sure that the tests were exactly the same. Here are the images for the 4 tests I ran:



Windows XP - 1280x1024 (no AA)



Windows XP - 1680x1050 (4x AA)



Windows 7 - RC1 1280x1024 (no AA)



Windows 7 - RC1 1680x1050 (4x AA)

So according to those tests, Win7 lags behind XP...even on the CPU tests. The tests may be biased towards XP since it was running on a RAID 0...but one thing I don't like about 3D Mark06 is that it requires DirectX 9.0c...and since Win7 runs Dx11, I don't think the benchmark takes full advantage of that. We shall see...I'm sure that there are dozens of websites and publishers that are more versed in performance benchmarking than I am, and they'll most likely have their results up soon.


Once again, I'm offering to probe any issues you want to know about the new OS, and I'll answer any question you may have that weren't answered in the Beta thread.

 

Considering how old 3D Mark 06 is, and especially considering that the two results are so close as to be within a margin of error, it doesnt seem important to me. A better benchmark would be say Vista SP1 against W7, or even better Vista pre SP1 against W7. I mean, it would probably never be as fast as XP, being more of a heavyweight OS. But hopefully its faster than Vista.

I didnt read the beta thread, so if this question was asked before just ignore it. How do you find the new taskbar? I remember hearing they had changed it significantly.

 

I like it...a lot. It has extremely useful improvments.

I never had, and never will have Vista...so there's no way for me to guage the speeds between Vista and Win7. 3DMark06 came with my mobo...so that's what I use since it was free.

 

I downloaded the RC yesterday, and I'll am likely install it instead of Win7 beta the next days. Or instead of Vista. I like Win7 generally, much more so than the curse that is Vista Home Premium 64bit

 

Yep, that more like it. Upgraded my vista whit it and kept all the drivers and stuff i had with vista. Even kept kaspersky on during installation.

One issue so far, windows 7 does not like the way kaspersky reports that it is turned on. I keep getting the white flag on the lower right taskbar. The system runs fine and kaspersky works so no treat there. Still a bit of snooping at the website proved in vain. will try it later again.

 

Should I replace Vista with this then? Is it worth the effort?

 

In principle there is nothing that speaks against it as it is superior to Vista.

There is just this one point: I don't know whether Win7 RC has a lifetime limitation.

 

It is not final, so there is risk. If Vista works without problems, and you are not used to install windows don't.

If you do not mind to re-install vista and have an original version of vista on a disk, NOT a recovery disk from dell, HP, Packard Bell etc etc then why not. It is good to regularly install windows fresh on your pc to get rid of unwanted programs like corrupted drivers or malware.

First you download it from the microsoft site, second burn it on a dvd using a progra suited for burning ISO file. A link can be found on the download page from microsoft. Burn it, and run it in the pc.

It gives you two option, one being to upgrade vista, the second a clean install. I used the upgrade. Just to be sure I copied my files to two usb sticks before the whole operation. I am glad I did it. The taskbar is improved, files open faster. You can see that it is an improvement over vista. Release candidate runs until march 2010. By then the final version of it will be in stores. Then you must decide to install vista or 7.

 

I just got this email from M$, and I thought I'd share...

Code:

The rest of the dates in the mail were correct. Here’s a quick summary: 
[B]Version: [/B]		[B]Starts shutting down every two hours:[/B] 		[B]Expires:[/B] 
•Beta 			•July 1, 2009					•August 1, 2009
•Release Candidate	•March 1, 2010 					•June 1, 2010

So the respective versions are going to stat automatically shutting down after 2 hours after the set date...that's a subtle way of letting folks know the clock is ticking down....

 

Basically it is Microsoft's way of saying buy our new product or you will not be able to use it. Gotta love Microsoft.

 

Icewind Dales appears to be a no go in Windows 7. I can't save any games. Any saved games that are loaded just starts the game from the beginning. Has anyone else had this problem with ID in WIn7?

 

I'll install IWD, IWD2, and their expansions sometime between now and Tuesday to see what hapens.

 

Thanks, Kit. After installing HoW expansion the game would not start at all. When the first scene appears I get a message that the game is paused and "waiting for text." All the characters stay frozen in place.

 

Ok, so I have the same problem with an unpatched IWD game. As soon as I load a game, it just starts all over. However, as soon as I installed HoW, the problem was fixed. I didn't even have to install the HoW patch.

Unfortunately, my IWD2 case has gone missing...I'm thinking I may have loaned it out...

Did you do a full install on both games?
Have you been allowing Win7 to update itself? One of the updates I noticed it did a few days ago was a new ATI driver...so that might be the cause...I'm not really sure why I was able to reproduce the problem with IWD, but not HoW.

 

Kit - I tried a clean install of both IWD and HoW and it fixed the problem. But I had to delete the old BI folder first before I could get a good install of HoW. But now I have artifacts and ghosting on the graphics, although the game is still playable. It's odd, since I didn't have any of that with just IWD installed. It's either a graphics card driver issue, or an installation issue. The graphics card is an nVidia 9800GT. I'm going to try the updates for the OS and check on the nVidia drivers. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

OK, I discovered that there is an issue with the newer nVidia cards and Infinity Engine based games. And it is, in a way, Win 7 related. One has to go into the nVidia control panel and enable "appilcation controlled" quality for IWD. The default in Win 7 is 4x anti-aliasing, which causes odd artifacts in the game. ATI users probably don't have this issue with IE based games, atm. Now it works fine. Nevertheless, it appears HoW must be installed for proper functionality for IWD in WIN 7.