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Pomphobetus

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#29459 7-Jan-2009 17:41
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I know that this is not yet formally in beta. Curiosity and temptation were driven by aggravation at not being able to fix my genuine Vista installations and I will sign up for the beta when it comes out. I have made a dual boot to try this out and see if my hardware was broken or if it was JUST a feature of Vista to drop the internet constantly, lock up when shutting down needing a hard reset, run slowly etc even upon fresh reinstallations. I have a good PC with Core2Duo, 4GB RAM.

Windows 7 installed like a dream on an old hard drive, with the Vista Drive unplugged so that it couldnt be munted in any way. I then put back the Vista drive cable, booted to the Vista DVD and started setup/repair and 'repaired' startup. It found Windows 7 and installed the Vista and Win7 Dual Boot which works well. The only problem with this is that when Windows 7 starts up it loses the nice startup screen in place of the moving Vista bar.

First impressions: Rapid startup after an easy installation. My home network didn't seem to work but the internet does (couldnt find any of the networked computers), but when I shared directories (much easier to do) the networked computers found them straight away and then Win7  found them. Win7 couldnt find any of them until I looked from those computers first. Strange but it works now.

McAfee Antivirus, the free version from Telecom, doesnt work. Googles Chrome doesnt work. There was a very annoying iTunes installation that seemed to double up my music and lost my cover art, despite using 'My music' being on a separate disk, but it works fine and my iPhone synchronises fine.

I have an HVR2200 TV tuner. In Vista it would only go with PowerCinema. I view Freeview and also Sky on the S-Video connection. Win7 used the drivers from the Hauppage CD (v1.3, PowerCinema HD edition with AAC+) by searching on the CD and I didnt have to go through the CD setup. PowerCinema will not work at all with the TV tuner in Win7. Even after later going through the CD setup. It just cannot find the card. Sad. But  Freeview channels are all nicely set up in Win7 Media Center, and predictably the guide wont go. The sound and picture is probably better than in Vista, and of course the card didnt work with Vista Media Center. Big negative is that I cannot get the tuner to setup the S-Video channel to view Sky in MC. Reading about it seems I need a Media Center remote and IR blaster and it may then go. Haven't found anyone to sell one yet.
User Account Control is nowhere near as annoying and I have actually left it going!
But the BIG plus is that my network is ROCK stable. No hint of dropouts, faster downloads and everything feels faster. Other than the three programmes above everything seems to work.


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Ropata
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  #188111 7-Jan-2009 21:45
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Pretty much the same here. It looks promising.



geekiegeek
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  #188120 7-Jan-2009 22:32
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anyone using on a netbook yet? I have a brand new Lenovo S10 which I might try it out on.

Ropata
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  #188126 7-Jan-2009 23:31
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geekiegeek: anyone using on a netbook yet? I have a brand new Lenovo S10 which I might try it out on.
From what i've read it looks geared toward them.



nathan
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  #188134 8-Jan-2009 04:48
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geekiegeek: anyone using on a netbook yet? I have a brand new Lenovo S10 which I might try it out on.


Going great here on an EEE 1000, feels way snappier on this machine compared to Vista

Tockly
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  #188138 8-Jan-2009 07:27
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I have it running on my two year old Sony Vaio. WAY faster than Vista and it even detected just about all of the hardware. The only thing it didn't detect was the Memory Card reader. No biggie don't use it anyway.

As I said much faster than Vista. Boots up in about 20-30 seconds and logins in faster also.

I like the new interface, took a little while to figure out what was where and how it all worked, but lovin' it now.

This would be the best beta I have ever used from MS. The Vista beta's were just rubbish and only lasted a matter of hours on this laptop, but I can see this staying put.




 


old3eyes
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  #188145 8-Jan-2009 08:31
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So how does one get hold of a legit copy of Windows 7 beta??




Regards,

Old3eyes


Mattv
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  #188150 8-Jan-2009 09:13
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old3eyes: So how does one get hold of a legit copy of Windows 7 beta??


Last rumour/guestimate I heard was Jan 9th for the public beta (so Jan 10 our time) Should be soon anyway...

 
 
 
 

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freitasm
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  #188151 8-Jan-2009 09:15
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The official beta is not open yet. The "beta 1" copies around are torrent files with no official keys.

People attending last year's PDC received a preview version. Some not attending the PDC also had access to a private group to download that version. I have access to that and have it running on my HP Tablet PC and HP Mininote. They both work well - including the DVB-T, but I am waiting for Beta 1 to arrive so I can upgrade my Media Center with that.




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freitasm
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  #188159 8-Jan-2009 09:36
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grant_k
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  #188175 8-Jan-2009 10:42
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nathan: Going great here on an EEE 1000, feels way snappier on this machine compared to Vista

Great news!

My wife has a 2GHz Toshiba laptop with Vista and she just hates how slow it is compared to her older 1.3GHz Acer which was running XP.  As soon as Windows 7 is available for public release, I will looking at buying an upgrade version for her.

magu
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  #188180 8-Jan-2009 11:08
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It's been a while since a Microsoft beta impressed me as much as this one did. Put through its paces in VMware on Mac, it actually performed better than XP. I am *actually* waiting for this release.
But I still would like to see an option to revert to the classic Start Menu.




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freitasm
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  #188225 8-Jan-2009 15:45
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Windows Vista 7 Beta will be available now from MSDN and Technet and tomorrow from Microsoft.




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freitasm
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  #188228 8-Jan-2009 15:48
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Also I am working to bring some more information about this soon.




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boby55
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  #188231 8-Jan-2009 15:55
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Windows 7 Public will be released to the Public on Friday (US time), Balmer Said in his keynote speech

gulfa
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  #188236 8-Jan-2009 16:18
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http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/01/microsoft-relea.html#more

heres the link to the speech Its going to be a public release from Microsoft

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