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At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: Transcend on January 24, 2009, 08:48:04 PM

Title: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Transcend on January 24, 2009, 08:48:04 PM
Is anyone else using this other than myself and Adam.M?

I am actually going to buy this so far things i can point out that are an improvement are

Fastest windows yet (possibly even as fast as mac & Ubuntu for responsiveness and general operations)
Most stable (and its only the first public beta)
and it looks darn good.

So yeah even if it costs like £450 like vista did i shall buy it as its great and i get a 40% discount anyways :D
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: MDV on January 24, 2009, 08:58:45 PM
Where can I get it, and how can I install it without formating?
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: MDV on January 24, 2009, 08:59:55 PM
Sratch that, I'll wait till I know for sure that it works with what I need it to.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: dave_mc on January 24, 2009, 10:18:19 PM
might be worth saving that £450 for your house deposit...
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: _tom_ on January 25, 2009, 04:00:46 AM
Yeah my mates just installed it and said its way better than Vista. I would give it a go, but I cant be arsed with backing up everything, formatting then reinstalling.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: JDC on January 25, 2009, 04:10:12 AM
Where can I get it, and how can I install it without formating?

MDV you need a virtual machine, so you can run an OS in a window on your desktop

Sun do a completely free one, I think it's called virtual box or something like that

you also need a lot of ram since you'll be running 2 operating systems at the same time
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Transcend on January 25, 2009, 09:13:26 AM
might be worth saving that £450 for your house deposit...

This wont be coming out until the back end of this year i arent that supid :P
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Transcend on January 25, 2009, 09:14:16 AM
Where can I get it, and how can I install it without formating?

you can get it from

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

And theres no need to format

i just backed up and did the upgrade took about 30 mins in total
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: WezV on January 25, 2009, 11:26:29 AM
ok so vista is clearly a pile of poo... but it does really piss me off that this seems to be the opposite... basically they advertised vista based on its features - all of which made it a cumbersome beast... now they advertise this based on its lack of features and speed.  to me thats a clear admission that vista was a flawed product

i think all us vista users deserve a free upgrade ;)

i might try the beta - but before i do,  is it working with things like itunes?
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Will on January 25, 2009, 11:55:07 AM
I don't think vista is that bad, I have been using 'basic' for a while, which actually seems faster on file transfers than 64 bit home premium and a faster computer :?

I will be happy to try this though, what are the minimum spec requirements for it?

edit: just looked it up, and it seems it would be a very good match to a netbook, which I have been looking into :)
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: _tom_ on January 25, 2009, 12:02:38 PM
Vista is great for me as well, I've never really understood all the complaints.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: indysmith on January 25, 2009, 12:11:31 PM
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. What is the point?
I can't see how it's any different to Vista in anything other than a couple of non-important superficial thing (ugly new taskbar for example).
The killer for me is that it still uses approx. 500MB of RAM whilst seemingly idle. I've tested XP, Vista and 7 over the last few weeks on the same machine, and the fact of the matter is that XP runs RIDICULOUSLY faster, is more compatible, more stable (yeah I really think it is - the only one that hasn't crashed on me), and it does anything I need it to. Vista and 7 have a better installation process (both identical btw), but that's about it.
I know that Windows 7 is still only in very early BETA stages (although they have been working on it for >6 years now), but all this marketing claiming that it's the anti-Vista is bullshiteeee, pure and simple. It's Vista's evil twin, albeit minus some of the features.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: WezV on January 25, 2009, 02:40:58 PM
Vista's not bad if you have the spec to run it or if you have all its features turned off. 

Sadly i happened to buy a £500 dell the week after vista was released so thats what it came with, and i think it was a special deal that they were offering the home premium edition free... in reality i should have opted for XP or vista basic since a low-mid priced dell really shouldnt have been sold with the premium version...the minimum spec bit was always optimistic

i am speaking as someone who used to build and mod PC's but has really left that all behind to focus on guitar stuff instead ;)  so a lot of what i knew has been pushed out by more important stuff -  certainly no computer expert anymore
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Philly Q on January 25, 2009, 02:46:40 PM
I don't keep up with this stuff, I'm still using XP, but Vista seems to have only been around for 5 minutes. 

From my layman's perspective, the rapid appearance of Windows 7 seems to be an unspoken admission that Vista is seriously flawed (or it least that it's perceived to be).
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Transcend on January 25, 2009, 03:24:07 PM
ok so vista is clearly a pile of poo... but it does really piss me off that this seems to be the opposite... basically they advertised vista based on its features - all of which made it a cumbersome beast... now they advertise this based on its lack of features and speed.  to me thats a clear admission that vista was a flawed product

i think all us vista users deserve a free upgrade ;)

i might try the beta - but before i do,  is it working with things like itunes?

so far it works with everything that works on vista & xp that ive tried so i shouldnt see itunes being a problem
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Roobubba on January 25, 2009, 04:22:47 PM
I'm in the process of building 10 machines with a mate for his company. Sadly for us, XP is not an option, as it ceases to be supported to most users in April this year (ie you get security updates, but none of the remaining hotfixes, which are available if you buy the support contract thingy (but that's not really an option for us, given our budget).
This puts us in the impossible position of *having* to use Vista, with which neither of us is as accustomed to as we are with XP. Some things on Vista are okay, but personally I find the copy function over network shares or between physical drives seems to be really slow, and a lot of the visual features seem completely superfluous to me. Then again, I use XP stripped down to look more like 2000, so I guess it was always going to be a shock!
I also use a Mac with work, and there are some things which OSX has which are much, much nicer than Windows OSes (and some things which are MUCH more horrible, like the diabolical search capabilities of the Mac - these are truly AWFUL in comparison to Win2k upwards).
I have to say, I was very impressed with Suse 10.2 when I tried it a couple of years ago. Most of the Linux distros I've used have been in many ways superior to both OSX and Windows versions (and in some ways more hassle). On the whole, I would go for these if given the choice, and if the games I play at home also ran in that environment!!

On a separate note, I'm surprised you bought a Dell, Wez, having built your own machines in the past! I've personally had so many bad experiences with Dell through various workplaces, and for most of the machines they build, I disagree with the specs they choose (and the price they come to, on the whole), that I wouldn't touch one with anyone else's money, let alone my own!!

Roo
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: WezV on January 25, 2009, 04:43:52 PM
On a separate note, I'm surprised you bought a Dell, Wez, having built your own machines in the past! I've personally had so many bad experiences with Dell through various workplaces, and for most of the machines they build, I disagree with the specs they choose (and the price they come to, on the whole), that I wouldn't touch one with anyone else's money, let alone my own!!

Roo

priorities change is all, the dell was a relatively cheap convienience at the time my last desktop died and i really couldnt be arsed fixing it... there is only so much stuff i can do at once!!! ;)
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: _tom_ on January 25, 2009, 04:46:08 PM
Yeah OSX is great, I've never really had a problem with Finder though. I just wouldnt pay for the overpriced apple hardware, complete ripoff imo.

XP is just horrible after getting used to Vista, it looks all clunky and childish whilst Vista is more refined and sleek. The integrated search bar in the start menu is really handy. Aero is completely pointless though, I just dont get it. Changing the theme to Vista Basic and disabling a load of the animations/other useless stuff. I followed this guide and it made it feel a lot snappier and nicer to use- http://www.thelittlecomputershop.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=n63u4rpudntvjj8hsredughuq3&page=14

I had heard about the new taskbar in Windows 7, is it really as bad as indy says?
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: indysmith on January 25, 2009, 06:03:59 PM
all i said was it looked bad, lol.
Functionally there's not really anything new there, other than the quick-launch buttons on it being well confusing because you can't tell what's open already and what's not.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: MrBump on January 25, 2009, 07:24:32 PM
Dells aren't so bad!  Not for home use anyway - wouldn't use them in the workplace, but that's really only because HP, IBM and Sun are de-facto standards.

It can be pretty damn pricey pulling a decent spec PC together from parts if you're only building one, much like guitars I'd imagine.

Saying that, I'd probably build my next one from parts when my DELL finally gives up the ghost.

 :wink:

Mark.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Transcend on January 25, 2009, 07:51:04 PM
all i said was it looked bad, lol.
Functionally there's not really anything new there, other than the quick-launch buttons on it being well confusing because you can't tell what's open already and what's not.

You can tell theyre open as they get like a glass box over them (that has awesome reflection effects as the mouse passes over them) and also if you hover it will expand to show all open windows for that program and if you are also using the Dock then it brings up a list of previous files or yuo can pin things such as playlists etc in there.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: headtheball on January 26, 2009, 12:19:41 PM
Dells are are proper nightmare to do repairs on, though. Nearly as bad as macs. Dell's purchasing power etc. has led to some very irritating and downright perverse choices of components and connectors to fox the generic PC repairman.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: dave_mc on January 26, 2009, 05:17:32 PM
might be worth saving that £450 for your house deposit...

This wont be coming out until the back end of this year i arent that supid :P

haha, no worries :)
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: _tom_ on January 26, 2009, 05:22:09 PM
Whilst we're on about OS's, I just used Ubuntu for the first time today and really like it. Seems very quick and looks nice. Dont know if I'd bother putting it on a main computer though as I dont like the looks of Ardour, I'm too loyal to Reaper now :P
Title: Re: Windows 7 Beta
Post by: Transcend on January 26, 2009, 05:59:48 PM
Whilst we're on about OS's, I just used Ubuntu for the first time today and really like it. Seems very quick and looks nice. Dont know if I'd bother putting it on a main computer though as I dont like the looks of Ardour, I'm too loyal to Reaper now :P

i believe that a inux version of reaper is in the works.