Windows 7 Beta 32-bit edition

[Love4Boobies]

Downloading Windows 7 (64-bit) at 900 KB/s while having my bandwidth occupied with downloads on 2 of the computers

[DerekDouglas]

I have it installed in VirtualBox so I don't have all the aero stuff. But it seems to be not bad. I've been running Vista Ultimate for more than a year and it's been fine for me, but I recommended my dad wait for the Win 7 release before he upgrades from XP for the i7 he just bought.

The taskbar is something to get used to, but it seems to work better than the old one.

[Love4Boobies]

I've been using Vista (Ultimate) for quite a while myself and I haven't been experiencing any crashes or freezes. However, I did notice that sometimes if a Vista machine is on for a few days, it becomes laggy (memory somewhere leaks perhaps?).

On this machine I have SP1 but haven't tried the above.

[Colonel Kernel]

I haven't tried Windows 7 yet... Not sure if I will for a while (too busy to play around with it now). I installed Vista Ultimate 32-bit on my iMac a few weeks ago and it seems much faster than XP. I think it runs like a dog on systems with too little RAM, while on a fast system the hardware acceleration makes the UI way more responsive. Even my games seem to have better frame rates than under XP. Vista even seems faster than Mac OS X on the same hardware, at least when logging in and launching applications.

[Troy Martin]

Anyone on Vbox: grab 2.1.0, it has 3D acceleration, 64-bit, AND virtual PC disk support.

[eddyb]

installed it a few days ago. It's awesome!!! I can't say anything else!

[DerekDouglas]

I find Windows 7 boots a lot faster than Vista, but I also don't have all my crap loaded in. I may have to partition my hard drive and install it for real and dual boot between it and Vista so that I can check out all the goodies with Aero enabled and try to break with driver installs.

[...] However, I did notice that sometimes if a Vista machine is on for a few days, it becomes laggy (memory somewhere leaks perhaps?). [...]

Hmmm, haven't had that issue yet.

Anyone on Vbox: grab 2.1.0, it has 3D acceleration, 64-bit, AND virtual PC disk support.

VBox Additions 2.1.0 won't install under Windows 7, says it's an unsupported Operating System; so no 3D acceleration for it. I was hoping it would just install the Vista version of the stuff, but it didn't.

I think most people dog on Vista because they jump on the bashing bandwagon because of what they've read and not actually having any first hand experience or running it on adequate hardware.

They only issue I had pre-SP1 was zip files took FOREVER to extract with the built in zip folders and copying was slow. I don't have any issues now with SP1.

[inflater]

I've documented the test result here: http://inflater.wz.cz/site/pc/win7.htm .

In English now: The differences between Vista is a more speedier boot-up, "quiet" installation program - but actually I like when the installation program will let the user know what it's doing or will let him to review changes (look at Windows 95's installation for more info.. ). No more "Sidebar" - my sister has an laptop and the sidebar thing just adds two more minutes till full boot up - you can customize all from your desktop with all that crap such as animated clock, calendar currency viewers etc - but you already have the current date and time in the traybar, don't you?
And the traybar looks more "cleaned up", compared to Vista, altough the Start button bar now looks like Quick Launch mini-bar from WinXP, no program titles.

It has some minor changes too, as you need to e.g. download Windows Movie Maker from "Live Essentials" and so on.

Overall rating from me: 6/10 - is more faster than Vista and seems more stable, but there aren't that many improvements.

[Love4Boobies]

traybar

Actually, it's called the system notification area

Anyway, wanted to note that applications integrate better with the taskbar. While work on this started on Vista (e.g. Windows Media Player gets a special player look and applications show an animated thumbnail if you hold your mouse cursor over them in the bar), it just got better: you see when you have new IMs (Apple did that before MS, I know), you get tab support for browsers, etc.

[kmtdk]

well
another place they have made some imporvements, is in the wireless connection.
But of cause win 7 crases like a little more often that expected. (but remeber IT is only a beta)

about speed:
i have this computer (my fastes computer):
3,4 ghz dual core pentium d ( but motherboard only supports hyper threaded, so it runs hyper threaded)
2 GB ddr2 ram ( kingston)
1 GB ddr3 nvidia geforce 8600
soundblaster Audigy
and a normal slow hdd ( 7200 RPM) with 160 GB
2 screens: 1 running at 1280 * 1024(60 Hz) , the other is running at 1440 * 900 (75 Hz)

Here is how win 7 handles the memory:
aproxcemently 700 MB goes to shared memory to Graphic card ?????????? ( Why the hack this ??? , not even win xp does this, but win 7 does ?????????????)
and then windows uses from 34-40 % of normal ram. ( this is ok with me, cause it just page more if i run other app..)

The screen nr 2 is faster that on xp( why does win xp handles this screen with only "aproxcemntly" 30 FPS, while the other screen can run at 100 aprox.)
and if i dont remeber worng, then xp's FPS is acturely lower than here on win 7.

the funny part is: IT IS A PRE realeashe driver! !!!!

I have not tested win vista on this computer, only on my latop witch deffently ran slow with vista, and a lot faster, after i tried with win 7. ( it got however only 1 GB ram)


a Minnor thing M$ shuld have thought about in win 7, it the power saving.
my normal compuer does not use a battery, but its power scheme is "balanced" , why not high ???

KMT dk

[Love4Boobies]

Oops, I just noticed that this topic was supposed to be dedicated only to the 32-bit edition of Windows 7 I take everything I said back... NOOO!

[Troy Martin]

VBox Additions 2.1.0 won't install under Windows 7, says it's an unsupported Operating System; so no 3D acceleration for it.

Run the installer for the adds in XP or Vista compatibility mode.

[Laksen]

The screen nr 2 is faster that on xp( why does win xp handles this screen with only "aproxcemntly" 30 FPS, while the other screen can run at 100 aprox.)
and if i dont remeber worng, then xp's FPS is acturely lower than here on win 7.

Multimonitor support in Windows XP and before was a joke. Mostly it worked, but rather often you would have nothing but problems

On topic: It runs like a dream. No problems at all. Lower RAM usage than Windows vista and further extended battery time on my laptop. It's also alot faster to boot. I have a few problems with my sound but I believe this can be attributed to a crappy sound card driver(damn you realtek)

[pcmattman]

I downloaded the 2 GB disk image, and the promptly found out the image was corrupted when I attempted to install it.

I blame my attempt to grab it from a non-MS website (because EVERY time I pressed the "Download Now" button I went around in circles, stupid MS website...).

[DerekDouglas]

VBox Additions 2.1.0 won't install under Windows 7, says it's an unsupported Operating System; so no 3D acceleration for it.

Run the installer for the adds in XP or Vista compatibility mode.

Why didn't I think of that? lol. Thanks! I'll give it a shot tonight.