Windows 7 Public Beta

lifeisbetterwithketchup · Post by **lifeisbetterwithketchup** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:49 pm

Bioshock and Assassin's Creed refuse to install for me (both retail copies).

I'll go through the installer, select options, etc, and once it gets to actually installing the game, I get a progress bar that refuses to move. All my Steam games work fine though.

adam_d · Post by **adam_d** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 2:41 pm

I got the 32 bit beta and installed it on my old laptop (had a messed up XP and I'd backed up). Specs of it are:

1.5 Ghz Celeron
1gb ram
64mb UniChrome Pro Graphics
40gb Hard Drive

And surprisingly enough, it runs brilliantly. Almost as fast as XP. I have to use the XP drivers for the graphics, as there aren't even Vista ones available, and this lets it do normal Office/Internet tasks, but any games or anything cause it to lock up, as it does with the Windows Media Decoding stage of the WEI test. Apparently this is a common problem though with Direct 3D on older integrated graphics.

Anyway, I installed the 64 bit version on my main PC in a dual boot with XP MCE and it really goes like stink, performs far better than Vista did on it. The 32-bit version even runs well on my Acer Aspire A110 netbook from the SSD. Overall, I reckon this is definitely what Vista should have been, and I'm very happy with it

Super Cameraman · Post by **Super Cameraman** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:13 pm

Okay, I'm a total newb when it comes to OS's and stuff.

Installing this WILL require me to reinstall all my programs right? What else will it do? (Or am I wrong?)

EDIT: Also, is it even worth it? Here's my specs:

2.01 GHz Athlon Processor
2GB RAM
~120GB free total on 3 drives.
(27GB free on C)

Post by **bicostp** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:35 pm

Yes you will probably lose all your stuff.

And you're going to have to reinstall another OS come August, anyway. (When the beta expires.)

I recommend installing on a spare hard drive, and completely disconnect your good drive. That's safest because there is absolutely no way to screw up your existing information. Get a cheap one if you want. Just remember it's about 10 gigs installed.

Super Cameraman · Post by **Super Cameraman** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:43 pm

Can't I just make a partition?

ghosstt · Post by **ghosstt** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:29 pm

Ya. I did. You can even run the installer from the zip file.

MrTroy · Post by **MrTroy** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:43 am

I have windows 7 installed. I tried to skip Vista cause it ran like crap on every machine I've used it on. And I ran into several networking issues... So today I installed Windows 7 Beta....

... I can't connect to the internet to get any drivers

I've been fighting with this thing and googling like crazy for the past 4 hours. I guess I'll play with it in some way shape or form for about 30 days till it deactivates. :-\

Post by **bicostp** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 8:51 am

What's your NIC card? Have you checked the vendor's website (in XP) for Vista drivers? They should work. For example, RealTek doesn't have Win7 drivers for my video card, but the Vista ones (and Catalyst Control Center) work perfectly.

Post by **benheck** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:42 am

Well I have it on my laptop, partitioned, and I haven't really bothered with it.

It's got some neat features, but I don't want to relearn how it works since I'm already used to Vista.

Just my .02

-Ben

MrTroy · Post by **MrTroy** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:42 am

Well. I downloaded the Vista drivers. So it knows there's a video card. I just keep getting that stupid "Limited Connectivity" problem that I've seen on no answer to. Strangely enough I keep seeing that it happened with Vista as well. Does that mean this wasn't fixed?

It's a NetGear FA311. It's a PCI card as opposed to being on board (which is another annoying thing for me). I have to connect to MSI's website to find the drivers for my sound card... which I can't do because of my NIC. I swore that XP had default drivers that you could use in case you didn't want all the "Cool" features of a sound card like surround sound.

========================
Update.

So I borrowed a laptop for a few weeks and I installed the Beta on that. Thus far I am impressed. Maybe it is because I don't know everything about Vista(And there may be some huge similarities between the two that I don't see).

The tower I installed it on runs pretty poorly. It studders a lot. I eventually gave up trying to get online with my router, so I plugged my cable modem directly in to it. Once I got online it installed all the updates for all of my hardware... except the network card. The machine works, but I won't get to experience everything about Windows 7 on that. I'm not sure exactly why but every now and then, the system seems to choke on doing simple things like opening up an MPEG. Tonight I'm going to try to load a few games on it and see how they play.

The laptop works like a champ. The original Windows OS had a virus on it that somehow managed to sneak past AVG(go figure) so I installed Windows 7 directly on top of it. I'm guessing that Microsoft has managed to prevent certain processes from running on boot. Because I reinstalled AVG and it wiped the virus right out before it could do any damage.

Anyway... On first glance I'm happy with the OS. I tried Vista on three different computers and I didn't get a feeling of a performance boost like I got when I went from Windows 98 to Windows XP. I felt I was taking a step backwards. The rumors of Windows 7 may be true that it's faster than Vista. But I don't think it's faster than XP. A little more testing is going to have to be done.

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 12:16 am

Phew, finely got around to Re-Installing Windows 7 on my new computer today. I already had the disk I made before the cut off date lying around. Just had to find my code. And when I found my code. Everything installed as it should. And no what I like to call "The Black Screen of Doom" showed up while installing

Anyways, It runs Better than Vista. And looks somewhat nicer too. And it's nice not having the side bar.

Had a few problems getting my built in wlan to work. I ended up having to I hook this pc to the main internet cable and download the updates necessary to my computers hardware drivers for my motherboard and audio. I think the driver for my motherboard contained the driver for my built in wlan. Because when the motherboard driver installed. My built in wlan started to work.

I also got Google Chrome running after fixing a small problem it has with Windows 7 64-bit. I also still got to fiddle around getting my HP Multimedia Keyboard driver to install properly. (Someone on HP's forum's has a "how to" on how to get it to work.)

Anyways I really like Windows 7. If 7 stays as good as it is now at release. I'll be happily switching to Windows 7 sometime after release.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:59 pm

I finally got a DVD burned. I installed it on my laptop and it completely failed. I couldn't find drivers for the wifi card or the video card, so it was pretty much useless. Solitaire lagged because of the lack of video drivers. Thats just my personal problems, I know it isn't Microsoft's fault. I don't really like the way its set up (I've never used Vista), seems like every setting has its own page, so you have to go through submenu after submenu to get to what you want.
A newer laptop is hopefully in my future, so I'll try Win 7 on that when the time comes.

Super Cameraman · Post by **Super Cameraman** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:15 pm

Yeah, I got it working, but my soundcard isn't recognized...

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:24 pm

Super Cameraman wrote:Yeah, I got it working, but my soundcard isn't recognized...

You may need to get the optional updates then.

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