The Windows Seven Thread

[Carcrazy]

Anyone else used it yet? If so, what do you think? Talk about whatever features you do/don't like, or anything of the such.

No Vista vs. XP disscussion, no Windows/Microsoft dissing, etc... keep it clean.



If you post a screenshot of your Win7 desktop, be sure to provide proof it's the model you say it is, by taking a screenshot of the Command Prompt showing the build number, as shown:

(This is most easily done using the 'Window' Tool of the snippet program.

[Stereo]

Since when is Windows 7 out?

[Carcrazy]

Alphas/Betas... that's running on a VM which is why it doesn't have any Aero; haven't found a way to give it more graphics processing power...

You'll notice a few of the more, eh... noticeable features there. New calculator, Paint (Wordpad, etc...) now use the '07 Office Ribbon design, no sidebar (gadgets can go anywhere,) and the more user-friendly 'Superbar,' as most have named it.

[vellu]

Curious that it is (atleast for now) actually Windows 6.1 ...

[Carcrazy]

Well, officially it's "Micrsoft Windows 7 Pre-Beta1 Build6956", but you can call it what you want, I guess.

[Stereo]

Looks like Microsoft took a bite out of the Apple... Does this "Superbar" remind you of the Mac dock?

[Carcrazy]

Don't know... to be honest I've never used a mac, lol.

[taz947]

No, it doesn't. It's a like an old Windows bar, whose icons light a bit.
I've tested the 6801 build 4 weeks ago and I have to say that it's better than Vista. It takes only 5% of my CPU and 600MB at idle. Having some applications opened takes some more 5%.
The Superbar it's cool, but can't be compared to the Apple Dock.
I've tested the old 2.8Ghz Macbook and it's the real shiz. It responses very quickly and looks very neat, at the same time.
Definitely the best OS out there.
As for this new Windows, I'm waiting for the final version to see if Microsoft did its job properly.

[powerof1000]

I want

[Andre_online]

Windows will forever be Windows.. I'm not blown away. To be honest, it looks very very much similar to Vista, and I never liked Vista.

[prince1142003]

Windows 7 looks to me to be what Vista wasn't. It has faster installation and boot times, as well as a lower memory footprint on startup. However, I can't really judge the performance yet.

The first time I saw the new taskbar, I was like "Whoa, Mac dock!" Yeah, it does resemble the Mac docks, but it's also significantly different. Really like some of the features of Win7, like being able to run startup processes in parallel and having less startup processes. There are still about the same number of processes as its predecessors, but most are set to manual instead of automatic by default.

At first glance, it seems like Microsoft got some things right after the failure that was Vista. Only time will tell.

[powerof1000]

fap fap fap

[Carcrazy]

Hmm... how's it run for gaming?

[Carcrazy]

*bump*

The OFFICIAL Windows7 Beta1 came out on Friday (01/09/09), (sorry, got a little behind on it - had no idea until now,) and can be downloaded from the official Windows 7 website in multiple languages in both 32 and 64-bit versions. You cannot, however, use your own download manager (such as uTorrent, etc.) as you could with the Windows Vista beta downloads, you must use the manager supplied by Microsoft. The operating system comes in only an ISO (.iso) disk image, and is only available to the first 2,500,000 (2.5 Million) people for download. You will be supplied a Product Key upon download, which I'm sure can only be used a limited amount of times, (with Longhorn/Vista this was 10, I believe.)

One more thing, don't try to download it using Firefox. This is Microsoft, remember? It's only going to work using Internet Explorer. Unluckily for me, I never upgraded from the IE8 beta, which was unstable as crap. Yay.

Anywho, links and sources:

"Information on Downloading and Installing Windows 7 Beta" from the Windows 7 Team Blog

Official Microsoft Windows 7 Webpage

Official Windows 7 Beta1 Download Page, containing download link (32 and 64 bit,) Installation Instructions, FAQ's, and other info relating to the Windows 7 Beta(s), and Windows 7 RTM Progress.

[taz947]

Got it from *cough*torrents*cough*.

Didn't have time to install it.

[prince1142003]

It's fast. Ridiculously fast. Less than 20 minutes to go from first install screen to fully functioning PC.

[Carcrazy]

If Microsoft stays true to their word, that time will be cut in half.

@taz: The fact that you would torrent a free download is pretty lame. Some of us actually went through the trouble of getting a key, and sometimes only to find someone's generated the same key from a torrent.

[Stereo]

I'd rather have a semi-long install than another fail OS like Vista (although it's shaping up quite a bit now and I'm using it)

[Carcrazy]

I need another hard drive to run it on. I would set it up on a Virtual Machine, but I can't figure out how to give it more graphics rendering power, and I want to try the full-fledged.

Maybe I'll find one this weekend, if not I'll have to buy one. I'll probably partition it into two halves, and run a 32-bti and a 64-bit version on it.

[Carcrazy]

Update:

Because of the enormous surge in demand at launch for Windows 7 Beta, the download experience was not ideal. We listened and have taken the necessary steps to help ensure a positive user experience. Because so many of you want to download and use the Windows 7 Beta, we have decided to remove the 2.5 million download limit on the public Beta through January 24. As a result, between now and January 24, you will have access to the Windows 7 Beta even if the download number exceeds the original 2.5 million unit limit.

Not sure about technet subscribers or consumers using the CPP (Customer Preview Program,) but this came up on my partner page, figured I'd post it.

[Cipher]

lol, Im using VIsta and Ubuntu Linux and I must say, I'm willing to download this 7 Just to see what I can do.
*downloads*

[Hydro_PT]

Hmm this looks too familiar... looks like Vista. I hated Vista... XP forever lol.

Let's see how good the final build is, though. It's a bit too early to say something... if this new Windows "eats" less memory and CPU, and if it works better... I might actually think about changing my old XP to the new one.

[Carcrazy]

Hmm this looks too familiar... looks like Vista. I hated Vista... XP forever lol.

Get used to it. Vista is like the old Windows 95, all the ones to follow are going to be like it.\
Didn't like the MS Office '07 interface? Might as well get used to it too - almost EVERYTHING in Windows is going to have the ribbons.

Let's see how good the final build is, though. It's a bit too early to say something... if this new Windows "eats" less memory and CPU, and if it works better...

It's supposed to, atleast.

[prince1142003]

Vista was a less radical change than Win7 is. If you knew how to use Win95 and Win98, you could basically use XP and Vista. From my experience with Win7, that's no longer the case. You really have to get used to the new app launcher, and a lot of things we used to take for granted are either missing or hidden deeper than the average user can find.

But still, I personally like Win7. It may not be the most polished and easiest to digest change, but it certainly does make certain things easier. I can definitely see where some of the more annoying features can be useful for touchscreen computing (which is going to be the future). To me, Win7 is what Vista should've been in terms of performance and resource management, and what the future of the Windows OS could be.

[Hydro_PT]

Get used to it. Vista is like the old Windows 95, all the ones to follow are going to be like it.\
Didn't like the MS Office '07 interface? Might as well get used to it too - almost EVERYTHING in Windows is going to have the ribbons.

By saying that I hate Vista, I mean, I hate how it was build, how it works. Because actually I really liked all the visual style. I have a theme for XP that looks exactly like Vista.

I just didn't like the resources it uses. Overall it seemed to me to be a better Windows, with a better interface, a good looking visual, etc. The only problem was really its use of the PC resources... for a gamer, that ain't too good. Oh and Direct X 10 was really good, I tried some games with it and you can see some nice differences.

And I simply LOVED Office 2007. Not only the visual style, but also its functions. It's much more easy to use, and it has a lot of cool features, way better than Office 2003. Since I tried it out, I never changed. I'm pretty happy with it.

It's supposed to, atleast.

I hope it is. That's what kept me away from Vista.