Windows 7. public beta and upgrade service info, last page

[Not Pink]

I checked around here (read: scanned the 1st page) and saw no one has talked about windows 7 yet. Today I started the journey of Beta testing this beast and so far I have nothing but praise.

first off lets start with some rules:
-this will not turn into a mac vs pc debate, there's already one going around in here, go there to vent. go ahead compare contrast, but I dont wanna see any fanboyistic behavior going around
-if I hear one "windows is just copying mac" I'm gonna scream. I could go on forever what both companies have been inspired from the other guy. and if your such a mac fan, why hate something that's almost the same? it's like being a blueberry pie fan ragging on a cherry pie that keeps adding more blue food dye.

anywho lets get down to business

I have not installed itunes, zune, or any of the creative suites yet, that is soon to come though.

the new taskbar:
yeah, its like a dock, you can put on whatever shortcut you want on it and take off the ones you dont. the best part though, is that Developers can now place buttons in the preview windows that pop up when you mouse over a tab on the taskbar, I had a song playing in Windows Media Player and there were fastforward, play/pause, backwards, and mute buttons all in the preview window.

the new taskbar is a MAJOR improvement. clicking on the wifi button doesnt just tell you that there are wireless networks nearby like vista, it now displays those networks and lets you choose from them, right from the task bar.

the one problem is I do have to say its a little bigger than vista's, Probably just 6-7 pixels thicker, I'm not used to it yet, but on a 12.1" laptop screen, the real estate is priceless.

Explorer:
dragging a window's top bar to the top of the screen full screens it (like hitting the maximize button) pulling it down does the same as restore. shaking the window will minimize all the other windows that are up, and doing it again will reverse it. dragging it to the right, makes it take up the left half of the screen, and the same for the right to the right of the screen. really nice if you want to move things between two windows.

the side directory isn't labeled like the tree anymore (C: to these folders, to these folders etc.) it's grouped to favorites (most used folders), libraries (like the old user name folder: music, videos, pictures etc) and homegroup* (more on that later), the tree is still there under that, giving you access to the rest of the computer, but it does help to get to where you wanna be quicker.

Security:
I haven't installed anything as of yet, most likely gonna go get avg free in a bit but there is alot I can talk about.
the UAC is revised thank Bog. instead of on (every thing causes a screen dim with a permission box) and off (no security) like vista, there are levels fine between those settings. which is awesome, and less annoying.

Graphics:
coming from vista premium into 7 ultimate I have no idea if this is because of the x64 change but I'll say it anyway.
Before 7, I ran World of warcraft alot. I'm on a HP tx2100cl and I have a Nvidia 6150 goforce graphics chip with 152mb on it. honestly, wow played horribly. youtube videos would even lag. I can now run 2 world of warcrafts fairly well and have (the most I've tested so far) 8 youtube videos running in HD without lag. It's a serious improvement.

extras:
the new paint is awesome, opacity and brushes, it's like the annoying little sister of your best friend photoshop that you would bang but she's not old enough, y'know? okay, maybe that was a bad metaphor, but I think you got it. Wordbad, is an improvement, adding office 2007's ribbon (with missing features of course), spellcheck, etc.
The calculator is awesome, it has a setting where you can put in a distance and gas mileage and it'll tell you how much gas you'll need etc. tips, unit conversions, calender stuff. it's awesome.
if you've ever used the program juggler, or any others that juggle your wallpaper on intervals then you'll be happy to know that that feature is built in. yes you can selct more than one wallpaper and it will cycle them around on the interval of time of your choice.

tablet people:
if you've used vista before with a tablet, you know about the writing area and virtual keyboard. it's been improved, the keys are larger, separated and lightup when the pen is on them, instead of you having to check exactly where the white dot is before you press it. the handwriting recognition is also a leg up. in vista it took a while writing with it for it to get used to me and recognize my style of writing, 7 is doing pretty well so far.

*homegroup is one thing I would like to give more info on, but I just dont know enough, from my understanding it's basically an easier way to share files/folders between everyone on the network. I'll look more into it.



There's alot more in windows 7 that I cant just unload everything. But trust me it's a huge improvement from vista, and everything vista is compatible with it so we wont have the same launch issues that have plagued vista with a bad rap it's entire life.

so CA, anyone else looking forward to/have experiences to share of/questions about/etc. windows 7?

[Androxity]

It sounds like a definite step up from vista, and I really do hope it does well. Nothing better for any market than competition, shoot you don't even need economics 1A to know that.

I'm wondering if the security system will be as tight as vista was though? It was a real downer having my own computer attack programs I installed. (Well it is my cousin's computer, but she loves it anyway).

If I hear enough good things about windows 7 I might even upgrade from XP, vista just wasn't good enough for me to bother with though...

Just a random thought, I find it interesting to see that both bill gates and steve jobs will have stepped down from their companies... I am hearing the ringing of bells of change already...

Keep us posted on Windows 7 though, I'm looking forward to hearing good news.

Also, I really hope that someone comes out with a universal media player with options such as the "Real Alternative + K-lite combo pack," to this day I can play any video format I have encountered on it and it rarely crashes.

What does the new high color support entail? Will it really make a big difference? And if so, will digital art be able to achieve a higher level of precision because of it?

[paberu]

I've heard good things about the Beta, but I don't think I'll take the jump from vista 64 until the final is out. The new task bar sounds pretty awesome!

[Brashen]

Have you tried any pro programes like PS and painter and if you have do you notice any boons in performance?

[juczpen]

Thanks for posting, great review on Windows 7, I'm not going to try it out since it's only a beta for now.

[HunterKiller_]

Christ. They're already releasing another OS?

[Not Pink]

I'm wondering if the security system will be as tight as vista was though? It was a real downer having my own computer attack programs I installed. (Well it is my cousin's computer, but she loves it anyway).

Just a random thought, I find it interesting to see that both bill gates and steve jobs will have stepped down from their companies... I am hearing the ringing of bells of change already...

Also, I really hope that someone comes out with a universal media player with options such as the "Real Alternative + K-lite combo pack," to this day I can play any video format I have encountered on it and it rarely crashes.

What does the new high color support entail? Will it really make a big difference? And if so, will digital art be able to achieve a higher level of precision because of it?

the UAC is now customizable with 4 settings, ranging from what is vista's "on" setting and it's "off" so you can still have security without having it dim the screen everytime you want to run an .exe like it used to, without having it to turn all the way off.

Yeah I noticed that, really makes you think what will happen soon, hungh?

vlc. from what I know it plays absolutely eveything, and if it doesnt, there are guides online on how to. it never crashes, it's the lightest utility you will ever run that does so much for media.

I have no idea about the high color support... can you give me any info on that? I'll check it out.

Have you tried any pro programes like PS and painter and if you have do you notice any boons in performance?

not as of yet, But I hope to sometime today.as you can probably tell by now, I dot get much sleep, so I should have time today to do it. so far, I've been running windows 7 on a new partition and I've been able to run programs from the original partition containing vista no problem, I wont be able to reinstall seeing as I don't have anymore license codes for the suite or painter yet.

Love to hear that you all are interested in this, when I started I thought all my typing would be in vain. I'll keep you all posted on anything cool I run across!

[CruShTinbOX]

the new paint is awesome, opacity and brushes, it's like the annoying little sister of your best friend photoshop that you would bang but she's not old enough, y'know?

That's it, I'm sold!

[Hyskoa]

Seems like they're starting the hype machine extra early this time.

It looks like a build upon windows Vista, but severely stripped down.
XP still works fine.
It will require us to buy a touchscreen.
People will be pinching pennies by the time it comes out and companies probably even more.
And more importantly, XP still works fine.

So there is no incentive to buy the new OS, people won't have the cash to buy the new OS(especially since it probably comes with dx10, same commit charge as vista. Forcing people to get a new screen AND a new pc.)
And to get the entire OS to run smoothly on an affordable pc, they'll probably have to turn off a lot of eye candy, making xp still a better choice.

They should have waited longer and let vista die properly first. It's only been 3 years.

[Grumbledook]

windows 7 has been known about for ages, they have pushed it forward due to the bad reception of vista

for the record I had to rebuild my computer last week due to motherboard death and I installed tinyxp on it ;o

[Not Pink]

Seems like they're starting the hype machine extra early this time.

It looks like a build upon windows Vista, but severely stripped down.
XP still works fine.
It will require us to buy a touchscreen.
People will be pinching pennies by the time it comes out and companies probably even more.
And more importantly, XP still works fine.

So there is no incentive to buy the new OS, people won't have the cash to buy the new OS(especially since it probably comes with dx10, same commit charge as vista. Forcing people to get a new screen AND a new pc.)
And to get the entire OS to run smoothly on an affordable pc, they'll probably have to turn off a lot of eye candy, making xp still a better choice.

They should have waited longer and let vista die properly first. It's only been 3 years.

it will in no way require you to buy a touchscreen... where the hell did you hear that?

that reminds me though, apparently they are adding multitouch support for touch screens and the synaptics touch pad drivers on almost every laptop will support it to.

"People will be pinching pennies by the time it comes out and companies probably even more."
what? yeah, if you want something you'd probably save up for it, I wanted a new laptop so I started pinching my pennies, but it's a new OS. if you want it, sure save up the dough, but it's not something you HAVE TO upgrade the day it comes out... I just don't see your logic.

new screen? new PC? nooo... your monitor has nothing to do with the operating system... like the "vista certified" sticker you see slapped on screens? it doesnt matter, I have an old 7.5" CRT monitor from a windows 97 machine and it works fine on my vista computer. s far as a new pc goes, the only thing that dx10 will affect is the graphics card, like all other dx releases. any graphics card that can run vista's dx9 will be able to run dx10, it's a simple driver update lol.

I wish I had some sort of benchmark tool to show you the difference. windows 7 uses less resources than vista. honestly I want to go install it on a windows me machine I still have. it would probably work very well with a graphics card from the XP era.

according to the average knuckle-head consumer, vista's been dead since launch.

remember: windows 7 is to vista like 98 was to 97. everything will be forwards compatible because it's all the same engine. vista's drivers will work on 7 etc. people seem to forget that when we went from the yearly releases to ME/2000/XP, all the drivers weren't forwards compatible. when we jumped from that era to vista the same thing happened again, but every brother and his mother has a blog that can publish their bitching to the world. that wont happen this time because all vista drivers and programs will work on 7. and if they dont, it's an easy fix.

Change is imminent, it always is with technology, and if you're just gonna to complain about that, this really isn't the place. I respect your criticism, but please check your facts first and don't just rag on it, express them so that we can discuss them.

[Not Pink]

oh, I also forgot to mention, but as far as PS goes, I have not been able to use it in windows 7, I tried running it from the vista partition like I'm doing with my other programs but it says that there is a licensing problem.

looks like I'll have to go out and buy a license, it's a good excuse to finally get CS4 anyway.

[Craig D]

oh, I also forgot to mention, but as far as PS goes, I have not been able to use it in windows 7, I tried running it from the vista partition like I'm doing with my other programs but it says that there is a licensing problem.

looks like I'll have to go out and buy a license, it's a good excuse to finally get CS4 anyway.

If you're saying you don't own Photoshop you'll be interested to know that software piracy is a bannable offence around here.

[Hyskoa]

it will in no way require you to buy a touchscreen... where the hell did you hear that?

Multi touch feature will require it, and they're making it a big deal. It'd be like saying "you don't need the touchscreen for an ipod, you can just as well use a keyboard."

that reminds me though, apparently they are adding multitouch support for touch screens and the synaptics touch pad drivers on almost every laptop will support it to.

Will require you to buy a new laptop.

"People will be pinching pennies by the time it comes out and companies probably even more."
what? yeah, if you want something you'd probably save up for it, I wanted a new laptop so I started pinching my pennies, but it's a new OS. if you want it, sure save up the dough, but it's not something you HAVE TO upgrade the day it comes out... I just don't see your logic.

Why upgrade at all? Xp works fine.

new screen? new PC? nooo... your monitor has nothing to do with the operating system... like the "vista certified" sticker you see slapped on screens? it doesnt matter, I have an old 7.5" CRT monitor from a windows 97 machine and it works fine on my vista computer. s far as a new pc goes, the only thing that dx10 will affect is the graphics card, like all other dx releases. any graphics card that can run vista's dx9 will be able to run dx10, it's a simple driver update lol.

"On your vista computer" I have an xp computer. And so far, everything I use doesn't require an upgrade EXCEPT the OS itself, that's just.. ridiculous beyond belief.

I wish I had some sort of benchmark tool to show you the difference. windows 7 uses less resources than vista. honestly I want to go install it on a windows me machine I still have. it would probably work very well with a graphics card from the XP era.

You're not giving any reasons as to why to upgrade. Does it come with free dopamine shots?

according to the average knuckle-head consumer, vista's been dead since launch.

Preferably yes.

remember: windows 7 is to vista like 98 was to 97. everything will be forwards compatible because it's all the same engine. vista's drivers will work on 7 etc.

You're making it seem like it's the same OS.

people seem to forget that when we went from the yearly releases to ME/2000/XP, all the drivers weren't forwards compatible. when we jumped from that era to vista the same thing happened again, but every brother and his mother has a blog that can publish their bitching to the world. that wont happen this time because all vista drivers and programs will work on 7. and if they dont, it's an easy fix.

You almost sound as if they're paying you to advertise for it. And with a postcount of 12, it's very likely.

Change is imminent, it always is with technology,

Recession is imminent, change is a choice, we can chose not to if it's pointless.

and if you're just gonna to complain about that, this really isn't the place.

You're right, I should post in the other Windows 7 thread. Oh.. wait..

I respect your criticism, but please check your facts first and don't just rag on it, express them so that we can discuss them.

Fine, here's a point. Why would anyone with a perfectly working XP buy Win7?

It was like transferring from Win2K to XP, it's only been 2 years that xp has been awesome to use, and now they want to mess that up by forcefeeding people another bugridden new edition with every new pc they sell and discontinuing older products like they did with vista.

[Not Pink]

If you're saying you don't own Photoshop you'll be interested to know that software piracy is a bannable offence around here.

I own CS3, but it's installed on one partition of my hard drive that has vista, I'm attempting to run it on a new partition using Windows 7. It's not letting me because I don't have all the files from my vista partition accessible to Windows 7, so it cant find the license file. Nothing is stolen here, move along.

as for Hyskoa:
right they're pushing it, never denied that, but their aren't requiring you to use a touchscreen. They puch they're tablet features to, and they don't require a tablet. the multi touch feature will be a simple update to the driver. nothing to buy or replace. unless your using a laptop like 6-7+ years old that doesn't have a capacitive style touchpad, the same tech thats in a iphone.

if you like XP great, dont upgrade, I like XP to, my desktop still runs it, but I still like all the new features vista and further more 7 has. I'm not forcing you to upgrade, I was just telling the people who do actually care. you came in here to start a ruckus so sheesh.

its the same OS to vista as 98 is to 97, yeah same engine, BIG overhaul on it's GUI and resources and other random system files.

again, Im not forcing you to upgrade I started this thread for anyone who was interested to hear what Windows 7 is up to. Stop shutting down windows 7 for whatever reason you have, whether it be you just dont like change, or dont have the change to do it. Shutup if you dont want to do it. this isnt a "BUY IT LOSER" thread this is a "hey, I have windows 7 beta, anything you'd like to hear about it? I'm here to help"

Fine, here's a point. Why would anyone with a perfectly working XP buy Win7?

because they want to. it's not up to you to decide why people should upgrade, you only have control over yourself. stop bashing

so please, I'm asking you, begging if you want me to, if you dont want to discuss Windows 7 in a manner respectable to my original vision of this thread, the don't say anything else. I'm not hating on you, or your position of OS's, I'm simply here to let people who are interested in what 7 has to offer know just that.

if you want to continue to argue me, go ahead and PM me, I wont reply, But I'll atleast read it for you.

BTW, at one point in your life on these boards, you had a post count of 12. I may not be a frequent on these boards, but the ventrilo knows me quite well, Bapsi, Robert, and others can attest to that. I'm no Advertisement, I'm just someone who is too lazy to post his own art, and someone who happens to be beta testing windows 7. make what you want of that. TrollFail lol

Alright, now that that's out of the way.
any other questions on windows 7?

[Brashen]

Hysoka your either trying to start a fight or your acting like a putz......the guy told you you don't have to upgrade and you quoted him and answerd the quote with (and I quote) : Why upgrade at all? Xp works fine.

Are you fuckin kidding me????????

Oh and thank you Not Pink. Take your time man I'm a PC buff myself...just built my core i7 EE setup and it's nice to see more people around like you in our forums oh and welcome to the boards...have you started a sketchbook?

[Hyskoa]

Edit: Brashen, no. I just really believe the operating system is here too soon. That it won't make the user experience more worthwhile, rather more frustrating. Because they'll do the same stunt they did with vista and bundle it with every new pc.
Forcing us to search every crevice of the internet for those xp drivers or use crap. Doesn't sound quite fun.

--------------
Very well.
Couple of questions.

1) How stable?
2) How many bugs left?
3) How many... unlisted "features"? (ex. You have to adjust window width to be able to select a new screensaver.)
4) Win7 vs XP, both basic install, nothing disabled. How much cpu/ram usage on average.
5) Any eyecandy/pointless-integrated programs? Like aero for vista.
6) What programs are standard?
7) They said something about changing the taskbar in a youtube clip, what did they change besides what you already mentioned? Or is it still in development?

Thanks.

[HunterKiller_]

According to some beta tests, Windows 7's performance tops that of Vista and XP in every way.

[tsujni]

If you're saying you don't own Photoshop you'll be interested to know that software piracy is a bannable offence around here.

Reminds me of someone asking for a pirated copy of Maya in Alias' own fucking forum!

[CruShTinbOX]

I'm interested in Windows 7... I mean, all this stuff about "why upgrade", well, why upgrade from Windows 95 to 98? Why upgrade from 98 to XP? Why upgrade anything at all? It's a poor argument and completely unnecessary in this thread. If you don't want to upgrade, then don't. What's the problem?

With that said, I wanted to upgrade to Vista, but I kept hearing about how shitty it is and then I heard they were already developing Windows 7 and decided to wait and see. From what you write it sounds pretty good, so I'll definitely be keeping my eye on it. Thanks for the info.

[Justin.]

With a little research you will find "benchmark" tests (the reviewer can't run actual benchmarks with timing and numbers because of the EULA, but he "ranks" them) and 7 is the frontrunner in all but 2 or 3 tests. Ex, XP can transfer 100 megs across drives faster than 7, but 7 can transfer 2.5 gigs faster than XP.

I assume the actual release is plotted for 2010? I wanted to buy a tablet PC this summer but I might put it off a while longer.

[Not Pink]

I assume the actual release is plotted for 2010? I wanted to buy a tablet PC this summer but I might put it off a while longer.

The Beta ends July 1st of this year, and I've actually heard rumors of a Q2/3 launch, just in time to load the new os on all the new pc's for people going to school.

According to some beta tests, Windows 7's performance tops that of Vista and XP in every way.

Like I said I wish I had the tools, but I totally agree with this. Windows 7 boots in under 16 seconds, take that compared to the 24+ on vista and even more on XP. I'm thinking about installing it onto a partition on my xp machine to see how much it revives it.

Edit: Brashen, no. I just really believe the operating system is here too soon. That it won't make the user experience more worthwhile, rather more frustrating. Because they'll do the same stunt they did with vista and bundle it with every new pc.
Forcing us to search every crevice of the internet for those xp drivers or use crap. Doesn't sound quite fun.

--------------
Very well.
Couple of questions.

1) How stable?
2) How many bugs left?
3) How many... unlisted "features"? (ex. You have to adjust window width to be able to select a new screensaver.)
4) Win7 vs XP, both basic install, nothing disabled. How much cpu/ram usage on average.
5) Any eyecandy/pointless-integrated programs? Like aero for vista.
6) What programs are standard?
7) They said something about changing the taskbar in a youtube clip, what did they change besides what you already mentioned? Or is it still in development?

Thanks.

you wouldn't be looking for xp drivers, like I said 7 is based off of Vista's system, so all vista drivers will be forwards compatible (if not then with a small update should fix that)

This operating system is in BETA and I have to say it's User experiance is better than that of vista, an OS that's already into it's 1st service pack. and of course it will be bundled on to every new computer, they haven't changed their methods, and I wouldn't expect them to do so anytime soon.

1.very, I know that's a shit answer, but really there is no way to answer this without answering #2
2. only bug I found is that, I was messing with 7, pushing it's limits had 3 World of Warcrafts, 18 youtube videos going, and the internet cut out, and I couldnt get it back until I restarted. I'm using wifi, and this actually used to happen to me all the time in vista just doing 1 or 2 youtube videos.
3. as far as window width, I dont know what your talking about lol. but I covered most of all the extra features. the sticky notes from vista are back and they're a lot better, I usually just make a new .txt to make myself a note, but I see myself using these a lot more now.
4. with no programs running I have anywhere from 0-3% CPU usage and around 21% physical memory. I cant tell you what XP and vista are as I'm kind've in a rush right now, but from memory that's a huge improvement.
5. the window bar movements I explained are nice, and so are the integrated controls in the taskbar I mentioned. all the silly customization features are all still there but now you can make select themes. you can chose window color, wallpapers (plural because of the wallpaper shuffle thing I explained, or singular if you only want one) and a screen saver. when you go into personalization you can just click on the theme you want, save your own and you can have a new one every day or hour that you want. Oh, and I believe the aero viewer is gone (being able to see all the open windows in that scroll through sort of way), and is replaces with the aero shake taskbar movement.
6. Programs I cant say, I know everything that vista was standard with is here: media center, notepad, wordpad, paint, calculator, WMP, IE, standard games, and some extra MS utility software, but everything else is usually dependent on how you buy it and who made it.
7. most of the taskbar I already explained, it's now more of a dock, people can intergrate controls into the preview window (i.e. WMP's play/pause/next/etc), the more streamlined toolbar and the date and time are now displayed together, no mousing over to see the date.


Just remember though as most of all of this will still be here in the final build, anything can change up to then.

[Jazz]

Awwwww crap. -_- I got Vista for my new computer, though I have to install it. But...mmmm, didn't know about Windows 7, and it's too late to send Vista back. Though, I'd probably wait for the release that isn't Beta, and if they have an upgrade maaaaybe...

I'm iffy regarding the PS issue, but it sounds like a secure measure in the licensing case, which is good! I think...is it?

[Parka81]

As with all technology, except for entertainment ones (XBOX PS3 etc), it's easy to see if they will be adopted from 2 factors.

1. Is it going to help save time?
2. Is it going to help save money?

That's relative to Vista and even XP. Vista wasn't so hot because it didn't do anything extra to help people compared to what XP can already do.

So if Windows 7 can answer 'yes' to both questions. It's going to be a major success — eye candy aside.

[h2rra]

Vista isn't that great but come one guys, you can't neglet the fact that vista can use more than 3.5 gigs of ram. That's a pretty major feature.

I'm really looking forward to windows 7.

[paberu]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3236&page=2

Well looking at this I think I might jump ship to 7 as soon as public beta hits.

[Joshua Fountain]

7 Sounds cool. I actually like when companies borrow ideas off each other. It makes competition a little more fierce and makes for better products for the consumer: us.

Incorporating a dock as the taskbar is good as they are extremely useful. I've used docks in Windows as seperate programs and usually just hide the hideous taskbars native to Windows. The windows shaking/dragging sounds alot like many of the old gui projects for Linux to add "flashy effects" to the UI.

However, my main issue in upgrading is that I feel an OS should be as stripped down as possible while still having a nice aesthetic. It's just the operating system, and I don't need alot of the distraction type stuff that's been coming out with new os'es I used to upgrade every time a new os came out but eventually I got tired of it.

It's why I decided to degrade and use my old Windows 2000 Pro to this day. It is still the core file code being used in all of the new os'es by MS. It's incredibly small. Using a few core code, gui, and registry hacks and a few select programs I have true glass transparency or a metal look on my windows, XP-style image viewing, a slick program and widget dock, high resolution icons, and I can run DX10 and associated programs that "required" Vista to run. It took a while to learn how to do all of this but it's saved me several hundred dollars every few years As for security I still get one or two updates for 2000 every month for security. Mostly because large companies and hospitals still use 2000 for their machines and MS won't drop support for them for a bit.

The best part? It's footprint is still smaller than XP and it's even a bit smaller than the latest release of Ubuntu Linux and runs just as blazing fast. And I can still run Photoshop and Painter, browse the web, sort my photo and music collections, network all my devices at home, fail at learning 3D modelling, and run a game or two without having to upgrade.

What I do like about 7 though is the multi-touch tech being worked in. That would be fun although not terribly practical. Especially for me as I use my PC from my couch as an entertainment center But I can see how it would be awesome for someone doing some 3D modelling or someone who has thousands of files to work through.

Sorry to sound a bit "fanboyish" or "gloating" about my Win2k experience I just like for people to know that there really are practical alternatives for what they do and don't have to feel locked in a box that corporations want you to be in so they can part you with your moneys. The biggest reason to upgrade really is convenience. New devices are coded to work with the new OS'es and vice versa. I sacrifice time for my resource-usage/speed in my OS. Some people would rather just shell out the bucks and upgrade and that's cool too. Just remember, there are always options!

[Not Pink]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3236&page=2

Well looking at this I think I might jump ship to 7 as soon as public beta hits.

there is no "official" public beta, the current build (7000 beta 1) is leaked on torrents if you want it though. MS has said that, as they have limited the beta, they wont stop the leaks because most of the people using it are actually contributing it, and the more contributers, the more problems solved before release.

Windows 7 has been confirmed for a July 1st release as an upgrade for all vista and XP users, with it coming standard on new PC's starting a month later. as for standard purchase, they haven't made it clear, but it should be within that area of time.

the problem with the leak is that it's only a "30 day" trial without an activation code, but even with a true beta activation code, it's only good until july 1st, then it requires a true code. there are ways to get around this (google will help, since i cant really talk about it here), but I haven't tried any since I'm legit

[Brashen]

Hey Not Pink,

So if we buy vista now, will we be able to upgrade to 7 free of cost or at the least at a lesser price than if we were acquiring it newly?

[Not Pink]

Hey Not Pink,

So if we buy vista now, will we be able to upgrade to 7 free of cost or at the least at a lesser price than if we were acquiring it newly?

People who buy a vista machine after July 1st will receive a quick and easy upgrade path, kind've the same deal from XP>Vista. Whether or not there will be a price included hasn't been said yet, but It should be no more expensive than xp to vista upgrade was and I'd like to guess it'd be cheaper.

Well looking at this I think I might jump ship to 7 as soon as public beta hits.

UPDATE:
WINDOWS 7 BETA IS NOW OPEN!!!!

Requirements:
-1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
-1GB of main memory
-16GB of available disk space
-Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)
-A DVD-R/W drive

all less than vista except it needs one more gig of install space.


anyone who has a MSDN or TechNet subscription is available to download the current beta now! it gets open for everyone else tomorrow!