Windows 7 Beta available to download on Jan 9th

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:44 am

I like the beta a lot. It's running very stable so far, with only one crash related to the video card drivers provided by MS. Using the beta Windows 7 drivers ATI provided fixed the problem. I also like the new taskbar. It takes some time to adjust, but it really grows on you.

DEFIANT wrote:There isn't a way to go back to the classic look of windows UI (like 95,98,2000,XP). WTH?

I beg to differ.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 8:59 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP ... P_Embedded

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Fundamentals

Speaking of modular Windows...

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 9:43 am

snkcube wrote:I also like the new taskbar. It takes some time to adjust, but it really grows on you.

i concur

the more time i use the beta, the more i enjoy it.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:24 am

I got the beta loaded on my system: E6600, 8400 GS, 1GB RAM. I've also used Vista (non-SP1), XP, OS X 10.5, Xfce 4.2, KDE 4.1, etc.

<warning: long post>

I have to say, I'm really impressed with Win 7 so far. Some of the things I like (mostly from XP->Win7):

New task panel blends the best of Win XP's taskbar and OS X's dock. You get icons instead of text by default, and if you right-click->pin a running app, the icon stays even when the app is closed. When you run it, it highlights more, rather than making a separate taskbar entry for it. It combines quick launch with the taskbar. Big advantage over OS X is that the X actually closes the app. The task panel right-click menu thing is nice, too. But I fail to see what's so different from it and application context menus of XP.

The rectangle at the bottom right of the taskbar to turn all your windows transparent beats the "show desktop" paradigm. Great way to see the gadgets quickly. Default of date+time visible on the taskbar is great. Loved that about Xfce. Address bar on the taskbar honors FF as my default browser.

The desktop gadgets snap to grids, very nice. They still suck compared to OS X and even KDE's, but they get the point across. Can't seem to find the sidebar anymore, but it isn't needed. Like Plasma, they stay in the background.

I like the theme simplification. It's silly that I used to dick around with RGB colors for every last little thing. This one has four or five theme options, and they're pretty pleasing for most people. Wallpaper rotates every now and then, and all the default samples are beautiful. interfacelift has such a high signal-to-noise ratio, it's nice to not have to sort through it for good nature pics.

Drag a window off the left-right edges to do a 50% maximize. That's perfect for widescreen monitors, and it's how I run my text editors and web browser already. Major time saver to doing it by hand. Drag to top does a maximize. They should remove the maximize button now, honestly.

Set HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\FeedbackToolEnabled = 0 to turn off "Send Feedback" titlebar clutter.

The double prompting madness appears to be gone. Only gotten one prompt so far.

Memory usage seems lower, OS as a whole feels snappier. The video card double buffering of windows that XP lacks is fantastic.

The left-pane in Explorer works better than Vista, and it's much nicer than how I ran XP with no left-pane. Quick access to all common folders, no need for a bunch of desktop folder shortcuts.

Holy shit!! IE8 can actually render my webpage!!

Things I don't like:

Win+Tab still sucks compared to Expose and even Compiz Secret of Taskring.

Menubars look really, really out of place. Non-resizable windows still show maximize button, only there's no visual clue. Bad design. Menus with no check / radio options still show the check column. A waste of space and it makes it hard to tell if an item is a regular item or an unchecked item.

Consistency keeps going out the window. OS X's biggest appeal. Wordpad looks like it's for another operating system. IE8 isn't far behind. Notepad looks like it did on Win 3.1, still doesn't support LF-only files. I don't even know how to use MS paint anymore.

They killed most classic mode options. No classic titlebar, taskbar or start menu. If you don't like the new stuff, you won't like Win 7. We can't expect them to support the Win95 look forever, I guess.

Control panel tries to rip off seamlessness and back-arrows of OS X, but falls short of the mark. Still gets the job done I guess.

Media Center looks the same as always. Hope they fixed all the Vista slowdown / hanging bugs.

----------

Overall, I like it. I was really impressed that MS offered the beta to everyone as a free download, too. Even with the key botch-job, this is really going to help them out I think. I was planning on sticking with XP forever, too. But now, I'll likely buy an OEM install disk (patch it on everything but my main PC. Not paying $150-200 [$300-600 retail] per PC when I have nine computers, sorry.)

Along with the benefit of running Windows apps, I like it enough to relegate OS X to my netbook only. Secondary PC stays with Win7+Xubuntu.

Win7 fares bad for OS X / Linux adoption. A lot of Vista hate was unwarranted hate-change rage, and most of the bugs / driver issues have been fixed.

Sticking with WinXP isn't going to last forever. Less and less apps are going to run on it, so realistically you either upgrade or move to another OS.

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:51 am

DEFIANT wrote:I tried this when it was leaked a month ago....still looks and feels like vista. I'm not impressed. Why is it, when people think of progress, I have to relearn a system from scratch....that's progress?? I don't think so.

They should of just fixed XP and built upon a proven operating system. As far as I'm concerned, XP will be my final stop. I might try React OS when ever it gets out of alpha. I'd go Linux or whatever, but I'm a gamer and I need an environment that's friendly to my games. Even XP is bloated compared to Windows 98, but I always Nlite my XP to remove all the crap I don't need. That way I get XP my way without the crap and MORE secure that the default install. One day Microsoft will listen to the people and make Windows modular and stop changing the UI every time they feel the need to make more money.

Yeah,it feels like 'Vista SE' - a polished,fixed and enhanced version of Vista,so it still uses 3x the amount of memory WinXP does and produces large CPU spikes from time to time.That's with nearly every service disabled,classic theme,UAC,superfetch and the rest of the bloat turned off.What's really funny is that Safe Mode uses the same amount of memory as Normal Mode.
Another interesting thing about this OS (and Vista) is that it constantly reads from your HDD -> the DRM in action
The beta also logs a LOT more stuff than XP.That can be a good or bad thing.Just check the event log viewer and witness the huge logging 'machinery'

You need at least 2GB of RAM to make good use of this OS.
That means your old PC with 1GB DDR1 RAM won't be able to run your favorite programs.
With an nLited XP and the same amount of memory,you can even run heavy games such as Crysis.
An nLited XP with only 256MB of RAM can play old games such as Halo 1,while Windows 7 uses more than that just for the core OS.

So much for claiming Win7 will run on any machine bought in the last 5 years.
And to those who say just go and buy some more memory - adding more DDR1 memory to such an old PC is so bloody expensive - it costs the same as DDR3! A full system upgrade is necessary in this case.

Another thing I've noticed in this beta is that it lacks 2D GUI / window acceleration in many areas. Microsoft promised 2D acceleration / Direct 2D for Windows 7.I guess we'll have to wait till the next beta to finally see accelerated 2D in Windows 7.

The ATI WDDM 1.1 driver included with this beta works great with 3D games/apps,but tends to crash and restart on certain Aero UI effects (no BSOD yet),but other than that this beta seems very stable.

Using the beta Windows 7 drivers ATI provided fixed the problem.

I haven't installed those drivers yet.

I've also tried it with an old ATI card and WDM drivers for old (DirectX 8.1) cards (which work great under XP). Sadly,they don't work well with this beta.They install,2D/desktop runs fine,but when you start any game/app that uses DirectX8.1 or lower,the OS freezes.

The Flip3D feature is gone. Was it removed from this beta?

The gadgets don't work if you disable the UAC notifications (bug)

Another interesting thing: the sidebar is loaded on startup,but there's no sidebar at all in Win7.

I like the changes,it's definitely better than Vista,feels a bit snappier,but it still requires a relatively powerful PC to make full use of its features.

All of you should test this beta thoroughly and send as much feedback to MS as you can.This baby has the potential to become the best version of Windows ever.Then we can finally say goodbye to WinXP

Now let's see what happens if I use vLite on this beta.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 11:40 am

Who knows...MS could optimize Windows 7 a lot more when it releases. Remember, this is still a beta. A fairly stable one at that.

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 11:46 am

New task panel blends the best of Win XP's taskbar and OS X's dock.

I've been using an iconized taskbar in WinXP for ages.Easily done with just a few registry tweaks.Nothing new here

They killed most classic mode options. No classic titlebar, taskbar or start menu.

No,they didn't.I've customized the GUI so it looks exactly like Win98,including the taskbar (screenshots coming up)
I just don't know how to get rid of the 'show desktop' button on the taskbar.I hate it.
As for the classic Start Menu - leave that to the tweaking apps

Notepad looks like it did on Win 3.1, still doesn't support LF-only files.

Really irritating,but installing a free 3rd party text editor such as Metapad eliminates that issue.

IE8 isn't far behind.

I don't like the 'favorites' button on the left and 'new tab' button after the tabs.Feels really alien.
There's no way to get rid of the favorites button and place the 'new tab' button on the far left before the tabs.

Sticking with WinXP isn't going to last forever. Less and less apps are going to run on it, so realistically you either upgrade or move to another OS.

On a 32-bit system,it makes more sense to stick with Windows XP (unless MS manages to optimize the OS for the next beta release)
But for 64-bit machines,Windows 7 is your best bet.Skip the 32-bit build.

EDIT: Previous post edited and updated with more info.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 1:40 pm

byuu wrote:New task panel blends the best of Win XP's taskbar and OS X's dock. You get icons instead of text by default, and if you right-click->pin a running app, the icon stays even when the app is closed. When you run it, it highlights more, rather than making a separate taskbar entry for it. It combines quick launch with the taskbar. Big advantage over OS X is that the X actually closes the app.

Yea the taskbar seems pretty nice compared to the Vista one ^^"

byuu wrote:The rectangle at the bottom right of the taskbar to turn all your windows transparent beats the "show desktop" paradigm.

Yes, it is tons better.

byuu wrote:Drag a window off the left-right edges to do a 50% maximize. That's perfect for widescreen monitors, and it's how I run my text editors and web browser already. Major time saver to doing it by hand. Drag to top does a maximize.

cool didn't know about this but still very cool, just make sure that when dragging it, the mouse course has to reach the edge of the screen, not the edge of the program.

byuu wrote:The double prompting madness appears to be gone. Only gotten one prompt so far.

Minwin anyone? this was the whole point in that project. making each security layer not depend on ones above it.

byuu wrote:Memory usage seems lower, OS as a whole feels snappier. The video card double buffering of windows that XP lacks is fantastic.

yes, it is much faster

byuu wrote:The left-pane in Explorer works better than Vista, and it's much nicer than how I ran XP with no left-pane.

yep, improved for sure.

kick wrote:Another interesting thing about this OS and Vista is that it constantly reads from your HDD = the DRM in action.

Check how fragmented your hard drive is, does it say 0% fragmented? hello background de-fragmentation

(aka: no more need for Diskeeper etc.)

My only complaint so far is that Windows 7 detected my monitor and installed drivers for it and decided to use Cleartype fonts when the monitor is a CRT.... everything was blurry like hell.

EDIT: I would think that they removed the "classic interface" to force people into using the "new features" so that they can get a good amount of feedback on them because they should already have numerous years of feedback on the "classic interface".

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:26 pm

Check how fragmented your hard drive is, does it say 0% fragmented? hello background de-fragmentation (aka: no more need for Diskeeper etc.)

The defragmenter service and all auto-defrag tasks were disabled during that test.

Looks like I'll have to do another test - forgot to totally disable disk polling. Even after you disable the shell service and autoplay,it still polls the drives.XP does this as well.Needs a couple more reg tweaks to finally stop.

Not a fan of auto-defragging.I still prefer to do it manually.

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:33 pm

Another advantage over Windows XP:

One very important change in the Windows 7 kernel is the dismantling of the dispatcher spin lock and redesign and implementation of its functionality.The direct result of the reworking of the dispatcher spin lock is that Windows 7 can scale to 256 processors.

The retail version of Windows 7 is going to support up to 256 cores/CPUs O_o

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:38 pm

Microsoft removes the 2.5 million download limit on Win7 Beta:

I know many of you have had issues with the Windows 7 Beta site over the last 24 hours. As you may have noticed the download site has been up and running smoothly since this morning. That said, we apologize for the inconvenience that it caused some of you.

Due to an enormous surge in demand, the download experience was not ideal so we listened and took the necessary steps to ensure a good experience. We have clearly heard that many of you want to check out the Windows 7 Beta and, as a result, we have decided remove the initial 2.5 million limit on the public beta for the next two weeks (thru January 24th). During that time you will have access to the beta even if the download number exceeds the 2.5 million unit limit.

Thank you for your enthusiasm, interest and willingness to beta test. It has been great to see the positive early reviews and feedback. As you know, this is a beta product. We are working hard to get Windows 7 ready and right. Your input is a critical part of that process. Thank you!

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:47 pm

Awesome. Now I'll be able to try this soon enough.

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:08 pm

franpa wrote: My only complaint so far is that Windows 7 detected my monitor and installed drivers for it and decided to use Cleartype fonts when the monitor is a CRT.... everything was blurry like hell.

Just use the Clear Type font tuner.Clear Type fonts can look great on a CRT as well.
There are multiple algorithms for sub-pixel font rendering.One of them is specifically optimized for CRTs.

If you try Ubuntu,you can see how good 'ClearType' fonts can look on a CRT.

EDIT: Edited the last few posts - even more info

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:36 pm

snkcube wrote:Try out CCleaner

Lovely little app.Works great on Windows 7 as well.

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:10 pm

byuu wrote:No classic titlebar, taskbar or start menu. If you don't like the new stuff, you won't like Win 7. We can't expect them to support the Win95 look forever, I guess.

This one is just for byuu:

Click me:
http://stashbox.org/358226/Win7_Classic.png

Unlike snkcube's screenshot of the 'Vista Classic' theme,this one is the real deal

Classic FTW!

Needs a few more tweaks though: a way to remove that 'show desktop' icon from the taskbar and the search bar removed from the Windows Explorer windows.
And if you really want it,you can remove the gradients from the titlebar and make it look like Win95.

DEFIANT · Post by **DEFIANT** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:11 pm

DEFIANT wrote:There isn't a way to go back to the classic look of windows UI (like 95,98,2000,XP). WTH?

snkcube wrote:I beg to differ.

That's the classic VISTA look. I'm refering to the old tried and true 98, XP classic UI.

@kick
It's a start

Post by **badinsults** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:57 pm

Hey, I just realized I have an extra 33 GB partition I am not using. How much space does Windows 7 take up? I wouldn't mind trying it out.

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:10 pm

badinsults wrote:Hey, I just realized I have an extra 33 GB partition I am not using. How much space does Windows 7 take up? I wouldn't mind trying it out.

8 GB for the OS + additional diskspace for the pagefile / hiberfile depending on your installed memory.

The only problem is deleting the dang thing after you're done with the testing.I had to use a combination of Windows XP and a Linux live CD to restore the previous boot menu and delete all files without formatting the partition.Stupid NTFS permissions.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:22 pm

..and they recommend 16GB when it really takes 8GB because...?

Truth Unknown · Post by **Truth Unknown** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:23 pm

badinsults wrote:Hey, I just realized I have an extra 33 GB partition I am not using. How much space does Windows 7 take up? I wouldn't mind trying it out.

Using about 9.35 GB, a lot by some people, but this is Ultimate with Bells and Whistles on default. Not sure how much can be lightened.

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 7:25 pm

..and they recommend 16GB when it really takes 8GB because...?

The additional diskspace is for the pagefile and hibernation file. Both are variable.

Using about 9.35 GB, a lot by some people, but this is Ultimate with Bells and Whistles on default. Not sure how much can be lightened.

Depends on the version of Win7 as well. The 64-bit flavor needs more diskspace that the 32-bit one.

ZH/Franky · Post by **ZH/Franky** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 8:02 pm

Without all that DRM, I reckon Vista and 7 would be quite awesome. I've heard that they actually handle resources much better than XP, so... without all those drm monitors in place, it'd probably be just as (if not less) demanding that XP.

Does vlite do a lot to remove these monitors and thus speed up vista/7? (by "a lot", I mean "does it remove absolutely every DRM feature).
I ask because though I will be sticking to XP for a long time, I realize that eventually I'll need to upgrade, and even if a machine I have in the future is more than enough to run a non-vlited Vista or 7, I'd like it to be as least demanding as possible. Hell, 3 years ago I was still using Windows 2000 (nlited, as it happens).
The XP install I use is heavily nlited, so..

kick · Post by **kick** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:42 pm

Almost there. Now without gradients,with a tweaked Internet Explorer menu and buttons,no shortcut arrows and no build number displayed on the desktop.Lovely!

Click me:
http://stashbox.org/358468/Win7_Classic_2.png

Just to get rid of that pesky 'Show Desktop' button.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:46 pm

Please use thumbnails... seriously.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:47 pm

thumbnails for less board stretch action