News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

Jane — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:11:18 GMT

I don't know too much about whatever under-the-hood changes that have been made. However, I'm feeling a little ... cheated that Windows 7 (thus far) feels and looks really like a lightly-dusted off version of Vista. I'm seeing things like more menu options that should be in Vista already and simple re-arrangements that I really didn't care too much for (from a consumer's standpoint). I'm running Windows 7 beta under VPC 2007 and I'm not fully appreciating how "beautiful" it may look if I were running it on 'real' hardware. In any case, I just purchased my laptop (Aug 2008) with Vista Ultimate and I sincerely hope the upgrade price will be tolerable. Just my little tidbit.

Jane

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

KevinRemde — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:20:10 GMT

Hi Jane. Thanks for the comment.

I think if you like or even simply tolerate Windows Vista, you're probably not going to see as much on the surface that makes you think "Wow! It's about time!". That reaction is really going to be coming from the people still running Windows XP because either they or someone they know (or someone THEY know) had or claimed to have heard about this-or-that bad experience. Yes, when Virtualized, just as with Windows Vista, you're not going to see the AERO interface or even some of the newer AERO features (some that I think are pretty useful as well as pretty). If you can spare a physical machine, you'll be better able to appreciate that part of it, as well as get a more realistic impression of how it performs compared to Vista or XP.

As for upgrade price - I hope it's tolerable, too. Nothing's been announced yet, of course.

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

Bret — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:05:37 GMT

Where can one download Windows 7 beta using web method? (Restricted site)

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

Doug — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:25:20 GMT

HI Kevin

I don't have the biotech software so that I might use the touch screen part of Window 7 Will I still get ths benifit of the 7 without it. Where can I get a free copy of the biotech now.

Second will I have to buy a reg version of 7 even if I download the bata & now?

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

Mike — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:35:07 GMT

I don't agree with the upgrade to Vista now idea. I use Vista everyday on my work laptop and it's the only desktop OS for daily production at my company save two machines. We are running a Server 2008 domain and yeah, there are a lot of neat and productive things you can do with Vista, especially in a 2008 environment, and I still rave over the ability to search and find ANYTHING almost instantly, but it pretty much ends there. In my experience productivity boils down to how well apps run, much of them 3rd party, on a given OS, not all the bells and whistles of the OS - most of which the average consumer/corporate user are never going to realize a need for, and so far Vista gets a C- from me. It seems Microsoft wanted a flashy, inherently useful OS out of the box, without recognizing that people run Windows to put other stuff on it. Microsoft needs to tame it's ego a bit and understand that, because us IT people do and we are the defacto sales (unpaid) force for Microsoft and we cannot push this product in good conscience.

For example, our primary software packed we use is our accounting system, and CRM. Solomon (MS product) and Microsoft CRM to be exact. Both of which run slower on Vista than XP and generate a lot of user complaints. I mean how much RAM do you have to throw at Vista to make it run well? How much "tweaking" do you have to do? It's frustrating.

I'm not just a user I'm an MCSE going back to NT and have kept them current up to MCITP Enterprise. We are a software consulting company, gold blended partner in fact, and do not recommend to our customers that they upgrade to Vista. Everyone who has done it anyway has had mixed results.

I hate saying these things - I've been a staunch defender of Microsoft products and have based my career on them so I have a major vested interest in the success of Microsoft - but Vista really frustrates me. I use it daily at work but even with a Core 2 Duo and 4Gigs of RAM I boot it up then go get a cup of coffee and chat for 10 minutes before I even think of using my computer. There is no cost benefit to a company owning an operating system like that.

And everyone knows I'm not alone - major corporations have opted to not adopt Vista and with good reason. Lets all hope Windows 7 (yes, already downloaded both the 32bit and 64bit version) does a better job. Despite all my issues with Vista I do believe it's a platform with great potential - it just needs to run good!

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

KevinRemde — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:24:08 GMT

Mike,

Thanks for your honest review. Everyone's mileage varies a bit based on so many different variables. Depending on the applications and their compatibility... to hardware issues... all of these things cause some people to love an OS, others to hate it, and most of us somewhere in between.

The main point about "don't wait" really is that, if you're having application issues with Vista and you think Windows 7 is going to fix it - it's likely not going to. Windows 7 isn't going to fix driver or software compat issues. Will it run better? Maybe. It appears to right now - and this is beta. Does it have cool new productivity improvements over Vista? Some.. but nowhere NEAR the jump in productivity from XP to Vista. So that's why you should just get Vista with SA, so you can start taking advantage of Vista NOW, and then have the Vista-based-OS-plus-improvements in Windows 7 later.

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

Bill — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:08:04 GMT

One thing I've found quite contrary to Vista, is 7 beta loads and runs very well on older hardware. I installed it on a notebook with 512 RAM and a 2 ghz processor, and unlike it's predecessor, ran very well with that hardware.

of course I couldn't get the video driver to work, but other than that there is hope that it will run satisfacorily on many older platforms

re: News: Windows 7 Beta Download Limits?

KevinRemde — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:17:27 GMT

That's good news indeed, Bill! Yes, let's hope the trend continues.

What video driver? All the machines I upgraded had absolutely no driver issues.

Hmm.. I've got an old desktop here collecting dust... maybe I'll try that one next. :)

News: Windows 7 Beta Download Period Extended

Full of I.T. — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:25:33 GMT

Good news!  The Windows 7 Team Blog announced that they’ve yet again extended the period in which