Even though the Windows 7 beta had been available on piracy networks for a while now, it still hadn’t been officially released. During his pre-show keynote at CES, Steve Ballmer officially launched the Windows 7 beta onto the world via TechNet, MSDN, and Connect. It will become available to the general public this Friday.
The Windows 7 beta will expire after August 1, 2009, and the download cap for the public version has been set to 2.5 million. As it turns out, it wasn’t such a bad thing that the beta made it to the piracy networks, as users already confirmed a major bug in the beta, which was been squashed b Microsoft in time for the official release. Windows Server 2008 R2 has also been released as a beta.
OSNews already reviewed the beta earlier this week. Even though Microsoft seems to be on the right track, there are still some bugs that need to be squashed, and the company needs to make sure it doesn’t do anything epically stupid that will destroy the positive image Windows 7 has in the media right now.
In any case, happy beta testing!
Logged into my MSDN account but there are two versions (well there are lot of versions but two which I don’t know the difference between).
What’s the difference between the “Checked Build” and the non checked build… ?
Little googling helps. I think this might be the answer,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms792432.aspx
Checked components of the operating system contain fewer optimizations and more debugging checks than otherwise identical free components. Therefore, checked components run substantially slower than free counterparts.
It is important for driver writers to remember that this slower execution can cause changes in the timing relationships among code paths. Therefore, the checked build can hide timing problems (such as race conditions or deadlocks) that might be revealed in the free build. Thus, you must test all of your drivers on both the free build and the checked build of the operating system before release.
We like to call them “Heisenbugs”
Perfect, thanks champ!
Checked=Debug
Non-Checked=Release
I instaled the beta and what can I say, the hype is true. Windows 7 is a winner, faster than XP, it doesn’t hammer your HD and everything is compatible, it haven’t crashed once.
Is gonna be a wonderful OS once released.
It already is but Microsoft is known for screwing its products once released.
In windows Vista they attended at OsX to “get” some “ideas”.. Now they try to copy from the community Kde project. Try the beta, then try any Kde 4 Linux distribution..
it does indeed look a lot like KDE4. now that can mean one of 2 things.
either Microsoft cannot design a decent interface
or
KDE developers got it right with theirs
If its a good interface, then its a good interface. I’d rather have the largest seller of operating systems distributing a good interface than a bad one. I want free and fair competition of ideas and products.
I wouldn’t want Microsoft to sue KDE, if KDE had borrowed an interface idea from windows. More than just the monopolistic arguments, I don’t think things should be patentable.
Edited 2009-01-08 15:48 UTC
You have it round the wrong way there. The UI on Win7 is a copy of KDE.
But then, for years people have said KDE is a copy of Windows lol
Microsoft cannot sue “KDE” as it is not one entity, but a conglomeration of hundreds, maybe thousands, of developers the world over.
Now on the other hand, it would also be disgusting if any KDE developer sues Microsoft over it.
A good interface is a good interface, ie, most vcr’s, cd players, dvd players have play/pause, stop, fwd and rew… does anyone try to patent them ?
Oh here we go again… The copying game…
I thought we grew out of that one when we realised that ALL POPULAR DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS ARE SLIGHT VARIANTS OF THE EXACT SAME CONCEPT.
I think you were giving people too much credit.
Well you guys have to kind of admit that KDE4 initially looked a bit like Vista. Sure they did their own thing which is the point some are making here. All desktop UI’s borrow from each other, the one that popularized the paradigms we use today (MacOS) borrowed from somewhere else, the original PARC developers borrowed from somwhere else as well, from real world concepts, to UIfied version of utilities that had been around for years.
A great a example is the new device from Palm (Pre). On the surface it looks like the iPhone OS, however on better inspection you see some pretty nifty concepts that they did, but still use a lot of the conventions that Apple introduced. They were clearly influenced by Apple (as have most phone makers) but they took the idea and ran with it, from what I see they didn’t just make a clone.
KDE4 borrowed just as heavily from Vista,the windows previews feature is something that has been around in Vista since the betas. The dark glass theme is something that Vista had well before KDE4. KDE4 had expose from OSX. The integrated search function in the kickoff menu, I can go on and on. Gnome has borrowed heavily from MacOS and MS for example, yet I’ve seen things in Nautilus that were there way before Explorer in Vista had them. That is how the UI has evolved to the point its at now, newer and newer innovations are added on top of what came before. Its a good thing.
I think the main problem people have with Microsoft copying KDE and Gnome is that Linux has low marketshare and “normal” people think that Microsoft invented these new things.
When they come to Linux, they say “Oh, it’s just like Windows 7!” We geeks know it is not like that, but “normal” people don’t.
So it has something to do with fairness.
You actually know some “Normal” people? 🙂
Looks like Vista to me
Honestly when they copied from iTunes in Windows Explorer, I was wishing the feature was in Finder.
I mean, change explorer to details view, right click on Name, Size or Type, “Size All Columns To Fit”.
I wish the platform they copied from “Just Worked”.
Same goes to GNU/Linux/Fedora(other distro)/KDE4
Edited 2009-01-09 00:03 UTC
I’ve installed the beta too and compared the performance in the game ETQW (this game is highly dependant of processor power). On the same machine (E8400, gigabyte P45-UD3, 2gb DDR2) windows 7 is indeed SLOWER than xp (less FPS). So, all this hype about great performance from win7 is BS. Last but not least, it doesn’t boot any faster either.
It could be the video drivers not optimized for the new version, yet. It had also happened with Vista, which had terrible gaming performance at the time of release.
Give it enough time, and it will catch up eventually.
Additionally, boot times may be machine dependent, but all the benchmarks I’ve seen, and my own experience tells Windows 7 boots faster than both XP and Vista.
Edited 2009-01-08 15:21 UTC
I just think thats a the usual excuse, Windows 7 is’nt that much different from Vista unlike Vista was to XP. If graphics manufactures are on the ball you should have just as good performance as Vista.
It’s true that debug will provide a overhead but not as much as people claim, Windows 7 won’t magically give you a extra 30fps(if it does it’s more than lightly directx not the OS itself).
Edited 2009-01-08 15:38 UTC
A test sample of one application does not a fact make.
It’s a BETA! Windows 7 final doesn’t exist yet! Just insert ‘beta’ after windows 7 in your sentence and I’d have no disagreement. You speak like Windows 7 is final and you hold the holy grail of truth that W7 is indeed slower but it’s a BETA product.
Edited 2009-01-08 16:40 UTC
Far Cry 2 runs 20% faster in Windows 7 than in XP on my computer.
I know MS has said that there will be performance gains in Win7 as compared to Vista, but have they even claimed that it will be faster than XP? If it’s got all of Vista’s features, I don’t see how they could pull that off.
I don’t expect it’ll be faster than XP, but I do expect it’ll be faster than Vista.
You’re comparing ONE APP — and then declaring that “this hype about great performance from win7 is BS”?!? What a maroon…
Unfortunately Windows 7 looks like Windows Vista, uses the same Windows Explorer UI (Windows XP Explorer is far more easier on the eyes) and of course no “classic” UI which IMO was perfect in Windows 2000 Professional. Its all downhill from here folks. Its a case of Microsoft trying to hard and delivering a crap GUI that causes eye problems due to excessive GUI candy.
?
Explorer in 7 has a new interface compared to Vista.
I like the new explorer and vista ui. The “classic” UI had it’s moments back in 1999 – what the hell is wrong with delivering something that is pleasing to the eye? Really, with that quad core, 4+gb of ram and whatnot I can spare a couple of cpu cycles for the interface to not look like it’s still 1990. And about Windows XP (default) being easy on the eyes… first thing I ever did after installing XP on any of my computers was to change the default theme to something else. I have Vista on my home PC for as long as it has been there and never felt the need to do the same – i guess they did something right this time around
And my retro terminal interface had it’s moments in the ’70. And i still use it today, it works just fine. When do people who build interfaces start to realize that the most important thing is usability, not looks or features.
And there is nothing wrong with pleasing the eye (i use the osx-candybar-shiny-button computer myself), but it should never be a major goal. usability comes first. Never mind how good something looks, if i can’t use it it’s useless.
“pleasing to the eye”
In my opinion, the classic GUIs have the advantage of being very neutral. There are grey, rectangular buttons, and grey, rectangular windows, so it can’t be really “ugly”. It’s just not “pretty”. But it doesn’t get in your way, and that’s why I like it.
Now, if you have something like the default XP theme or the Vista theme, it’s already a matter of taste – because it’s “designed” and it can’t be pleasing to EVERY eye, of course. But the classic, neutral style should at least not bother anybody (though I know it does), because it’s just the bare essentials without trying to be “cool” or “designed”.
That’s why I think there should be always the possibility to have a classic, stripped down, neutral design. And I’d wish that Microsoft would still keep up the classic style, but also hardware-accelerated (so that there won’t be any redraw problems etc). But I doubt they will do that.
not to side with MS on this one, but your last bit about the gui causing eye problems due to excessive eye-candy – do you have any evidence of this?
I much prefer the newer eye-candy filled desktops (particularly kde4) to what we used to have. Sure, in some ways things may be a little slower but the eye candy gives me a richer and happier experience.
Those that dont like it can still easily turn it off
May be covered somewhere, but all the drivers that work in Vista work in 7 right? Be a bummer to have half featured Microsoft supplied drivers to test it out.
So far so good using Vista drivers. ATI 8.12 drivers work great. Audigy 2 drivers work great. Those are the only drivers I’ve tried so far and they work.
Edited 2009-01-09 05:59 UTC
FYI, I’ve been reading on forums that some drivers don’t install unless you start the installer in ‘troubleshoot compatibility’ mode. You do that by right clicking the ‘setup.exe’ installer. Here is one such forum:
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=648081&page=69
Edited 2009-01-09 09:17 UTC
cool good info, will help if microsofts servers ever get unflooded, right now the windows-7 page wont even load for me, just says “service unavailable”.
the video on the right hand side of the Windows 7 homepage is very very funny!
Are any of you successfully installing this beta on machines with multiple hard drives? I have been trying to install it on HD1 as HD0 has my BSD installed on it. So far I can’t get past the partitioning screen.
On the first attempt it told me it had to be installed on a NTFS partition. So I ran up my partitioning software and reformatted the entire HD as a primary NTFS partition. The next attempt after that gave me some other error saying it still could not be installed.
Tomorrow I am going to unplug HD0 and try with just the one drive connected. However, I have to say it is hard to have a positive impression when you can’t even start the installation.
My system is, admittedly three or four years old, but it does exceed the minimum requirements so this does not bode well for the OS even in a beta stage. Especially since MS is talking about 1 beta, one release candidate and then thje final release.
Happened to me too.
This is what I did:
* Removed a partition
* Readded it, and formatted NTFS
* Rebooted, and restarted the install
then it worked, but YMMV
This worked for me: I shut down and disconnected the data cable to the first HD. Booted up and the install then went without a hitch. After I was done with the install I shut down and reattached the data cable to the first drive. I then powered back on and hit the F12 key to bring up the boot device menu and selected the second drive with Windows 7 on it. It booted just fine and GAG comes up if I boot and take no action.
I will try and see if GAG will find the Windows installation next. I did manage to lock up Windows within an hour to the point where the only way out was to use the power button. And I can duplicate it 100% of the time. 🙂
Now if I can just get an activation key for the beta.
Given MS servers can’t cope with Beta demands (probably most Vista users), why not utilise torrent distribution?
Make something like distributative sharing work for them instead of just whinging about it? Much cheaper for them as well as they don’t have to supply the server infrastructure to handle the downloads.
Oneday they will learn. Looking forward to seeing it in action.
I decided to give Windows 7 a try on my old amd64 tower. I’m generally a Mac/Linux guy, but I give Microsoft props for this beta. The install was painless, it found drivers for all my old hardware, the new task bar is really nice, Explorer is now my favorite file browser, and everything has been 100% stable so far. It feels weird to actually enjoy using Windows, and on 5 year old hardware too.
Edited 2009-01-11 06:19 UTC
Got it running in a VM on my MBP and I am very impressed. It’s at least as useable as the XP VM, probably more so. This is what Vista should have been, XKCD not withstanding
So I installed the 32 bit version and my oh my – lovely. In real life however I need lots and lots of RAM to work with which means x64 version was required.
OK brave me went ahead and installed the x64 version. This resulted is more BSODs than I’ve seen in windows 3.1.
tdx.sys breaks more than I would have thought possible. And with no detectable reason. But then it’s Beta software and I have the luck of the Irish. Wht more did I expect !!
You might want to run a memtest on that machine, I’m running the x64 version and it has been 100% stable without a restart since install.
Edit: I just looked up what TDI does, and it sounds like it might be a network driver issue or an old application you’re using?
Edited 2009-01-12 09:15 UTC
Cant wait to see how this bodes for Microsoft.
I’m surprised to read so many positive comments on the W7 beta, i’m actually starting to believe that my waiting for Microsoft to release something that doesn’t suck might come to an end.
Now it’s just a pity that you need a Live ID to download the beta. But i’d rather have my lungs removed with a spoon than register one.
fyi, you don’t need a live ID to download the beta. There are direct links to the download and there are only 5 keys for each version (32 or 64bit). Look around, you’ll find the links and keys on various sites like wired.com and digg.com enjoy