Windows 7 Beta Discussion

You'd think by Windows 7 they would allow you to put different wallpaper on each monitor connected without the need of a third party program. They allow you to bring windows over to the other one using a simple shortcut (Win + Shift + Left/Right I think it was) and yet they don't allow this? It boggles my mind.


[quote name='Serik']Sorry if I missed an earlier post, but how do games generally perform under the Windows 7 beta? I might be interested in eventually buying a license if games run noticeably better.[/quote]

I tested Crysis and it ran pretty much the same as when I played it on Vista. Although the game plays the game on XP as it does on Vista too. However Windows 7 overall feels a little smoother/quicker than Vista, but not really significantly so. I did do a very short writeup on it a couple pages back.

I think the people who would benefit most from it are people with medium (not med-high) to low end PCs that run a bunch of shit in the background that hump your processor and mingle with your RAM such as anti-virus programs. Not to mention possible spyware and adware they may have that is further bogging down their system. That's over Vista though... Can't really say if it would be smoother than XP, probably not by much if at all.
 
I'm trying to install and it's stuck at part 1: collecting information. The progress bar isn't really moving at all. Help! :roll:
 
[quote name='hero101']I'm trying to install and it's stuck at part 1: collecting information. The progress bar isn't really moving at all. Help! :roll:[/QUOTE]

Fresh install? Maybe your burn was bad or your dvd-rom drive is bad.
 
Finally got 7 up and running on a spare partition a few days ago, and finding myself annoyed that it's been sneaking things off my XP partition, where XP has left 7 alone. Other than that, it's actually been really good and stable. No crashes yet *crosses fingers*, despite installing some older programs, and it even likes my wifi.

I think maybe later today I'm going to install some older games to test compatibility since everyone's focusing on new/intensive games. The scoring is annoying though. I got 5.1s all the way down the board until it took a look at my hard drive and then laughed at it, so I only got a 3.

The new Start Menu hierarchy and 'odd' new file system coming from XP will take some getting used to.

Finally, Windows 7 is also tested and approved with my cat. She loves Aero and batting at the screensavers.
 
[quote name='gokou36']I just bought a GTX 295 and Windows 7 simply isn't worth it for me atm. In WEI, I get a 7.9 in Graphics and 6.0 in Gaming Graphics. 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage both crashes me. If I leave Multi-GPU support on, Left 4 Dead will crash me as well. I'm guessing the drivers aren't much compatible with Windows 7.

Besides the drivers, the other thing that I don't like about Windows 7 is that it is missing the classic Start Menu. Any idea when they'll add that in?[/QUOTE]

Never. They've stated it flat out.

The new menu design is a huge improvement once you develop the proper reflexes that you previously dedicated to the old style that didn't change much since Win95. Give it time.
 
I too just installed this on a separate partition and tbh it's not much different than vista. I do love how it uses less resources though :D

I'll test out some games in a bit, but I just may have to buy win 7 when it comes out, I like it.
 
So I decided to try Windows 7 as a partition since the VM made me interested. HOLY fuck is this thing awesome. I have never once said that I loved a version of windows except for Windows 7 (and I am the guy who hates windows most of the time). Excellent.

Also it was my first dab into Crysis with Direct X 10 and oh my god it was awesome.

All I have to say is I am more than impressed and will be buying windows 7 when it comes out.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']It sucks that my Windows 7 install on a separate partition can not see my Windows XP partition.[/quote]

You can fix that easily.

Start Menu -> Right Click "Computer" -> Select Manage -> Select Disk Management -> Right click whatever partition volumes don't have a letter next to them and select "Change Driver Letters and Paths"

At which point it's pretty self explanitory. Although I wrote down the instructions from Vista, which should basically be the same as Windows 7 since I'm too lazy to pull up Windows 7 just to check for specifics. Granted I also posted this earlier in the thread but am too lazy to find that too. :p
 
That's weird, when I installed win 7 on another partition the windows bootloader gives me the option to boot into vista or win7. Unless it doesn't do it for XP. I wouldn't know, I stopped using XP and it feels too damn dated for me.
 
[quote name='Draekon']You can fix that easily.

Start Menu -> Right Click "Computer" -> Select Manage -> Select Disk Management -> Right click whatever partition volumes don't have a letter next to them and select "Change Driver Letters and Paths"

At which point it's pretty self explanitory. Although I wrote down the instructions from Vista, which should basically be the same as Windows 7 since I'm too lazy to pull up Windows 7 just to check for specifics. Granted I also posted this earlier in the thread but am too lazy to find that too. :p[/QUOTE]

Thank you sir, I'll try that.
 
I'm liking it so far. Its the only OS on my notebook right now. Visual Studio / C++ 2005 express is the only compatibility issue, but that same window would come on on Vista as well. The only thing that I can't get working at all is OpenVPN. No crashes yet though.

Love the new calculator.
 
Found a bug this morning... or rather Thursday and didn't notice until today. I tried to defragment XP from XP's safe mode and wound up in 7's safe mode instead (7's boot loader removes all of the extra boot options for XP from its menu). So the next time I loaded 7, it stayed with its safe mode GUI instead of aero.
 
I just reinstalled as 64-bit yesterday. I'd intended that in the first place but accidentally burned the wrong ISO and decided to leave it be for a while. After upgrading the machine from 4 GB to 6 GB it became imperative to get the right OS version in place. (I expect to go to the maximum 8 GB for this board when another really good price on 2 GB units comes along.)

Things went a bit oddly. The 32-bit install was utterly effortless. The only thing not supported immediately was the Intel Management Engine, which wasn't a big surprise. They never seem to get that one right during installs. On the 64-bit install, there were several odds hiccups. It was like trying to put a drawer back in a desk but being unable to get it lined up correctly for a smooth insertion.

The most annoying was that the Nvidia beta driver from Windows Update wouldn't install and the error had no meaningful explanation. After a half-dozen failures, Windows Update stopped admitting the driver existed for further attempts!

Going into device manager and telling it to update driver worked perfectly. This is pretty odd since it had to go to the same source for the data. I suspect a bad download that wasn't being cleared from the cache was at fault.

After that the 'alignment' problem seemed to be corrected and everything was going fine.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I later had reason to do the 64-bit install again and found the real problem. I'd neglected to update the BIOS for several revisions and this made a huge difference. Nearly all of the install problems simply vanished on the next go around.

So remember, folks. Those BIOS updates really matter.
 
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I decided to give the beta a try. I've been using Windows 7 for a few days now, it's pretty much what Vista should of been the first time around and about as fast as XP. Although if you know how to tweak Vista by getting rid of unnecessary services along with countless other tweaks/maintenance/etc (which could easily be a whole other thread) you can get Vista up to speed. Anyways, I didn't want to use a virtual program so I used GPartEd to create another partition and used EasyBCD to manage the bootloader. For anyone interested, here is a great site for setting up dual boot systems:

http://apcmag.com/the_definitive_dualbooting_guide_linux_vista_and_xp_stepbystep.htm

It's a pretty cool site that gives you easy step by step instructions for various OS's with screenshots.
 
I have been running the Beta for the last week or so and have very little issues. I have tested Far Cry 2, Tomb Raider Underworld, Prince of Persia, Fallout 3 and have had no issues. I actually think most games are running better in this beta than they did in XP SP3. The only issues I have had is IE locking up on occasion. As of now I am sold.
 
[quote name='insano']I decided to give the beta a try. I've been using Windows 7 for a few days now, it's pretty much what Vista should of been the first time around and about as fast as XP. Although if you know how to tweak Vista by getting rid of unnecessary services along with countless other tweaks/maintenance/etc (which could easily be a whole other thread) you can get Vista up to speed. Anyways, I didn't want to use a virtual program so I used GPartEd to create another partition and used EasyBCD to manage the bootloader. For anyone interested, here is a great site for setting up dual boot systems:

http://apcmag.com/the_definitive_dualbooting_guide_linux_vista_and_xp_stepbystep.htm

It's a pretty cool site that gives you easy step by step instructions for various OS's with screenshots.[/QUOTE]

I'm not sure why a third party bootloader is necessary. I was already dual booting Ubuntu and Xp when I just installed Windows 7 from a boot dvd. Windows 7 recognized my dual boot and just added itself as a third boot option.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']I'm not sure why a third party bootloader is necessary. I was already dual booting Ubuntu and Xp when I just installed Windows 7 from a boot dvd. Windows 7 recognized my dual boot and just added itself as a third boot option.[/QUOTE]


What were you using as your boot loader? Windows 7 decided it didn't like GRUB and did away with it.
 
[quote name='flizmo007']I have been running the Beta for the last week or so and have very little issues. I have tested Far Cry 2, Tomb Raider Underworld, Prince of Persia, Fallout 3 and have had no issues. I actually think most games are running better in this beta than they did in XP SP3. The only issues I have had is IE locking up on occasion. As of now I am sold.[/quote]

It also works wonders on classic games. I just reinstalled Deus Ex on my 7 partition and it works flawlessly.
 
I tried installing windows 7 on my REALLY old notebook, and it ended up with a score of 1.0, lol. It's definitely underpowered, and I couldn't quite get the right driver for integrated graphics it has. It was really just a curiosity thing. I already un-installed windows 7.

Now I just need to wait for my new notebook to come in, and that will definitely have the horsepower to run windows 7. Can't wait!
 
Does Windows 7 not have DX10.1?

I was playing HL2: Ep 2 and it says I'm only using DX9 (which would be disappointing if true, since I only just got a DX10.1 card).
 
[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']I tried installing windows 7 on my REALLY old notebook, and it ended up with a score of 1.0, lol. It's definitely underpowered, and I couldn't quite get the right driver for integrated graphics it has. It was really just a curiosity thing. I already un-installed windows 7.

Now I just need to wait for my new notebook to come in, and that will definitely have the horsepower to run windows 7. Can't wait![/quote]


Hell, I just bought a brand new laptop about a week ago and I got an overall score of 2 although that was mainly due to the graphics processor. Everything else was rated mostly between 5 & 7.
 
[quote name='Liquid 2']Does Windows 7 not have DX10.1?

I was playing HL2: Ep 2 and it says I'm only using DX9 (which would be disappointing if true, since I only just got a DX10.1 card).[/QUOTE]

There could be issues in the driver preventing correct identification of the system properties. A lot of programs that are sensitive to such things don't handle new generation of the OS and underlying components well. It is yet another cause of patches.
 
[quote name='Chitown021']Hell, I just bought a brand new laptop about a week ago and I got an overall score of 2 although that was mainly due to the graphics processor. Everything else was rated mostly between 5 & 7.[/QUOTE]

What video is it running? My notebook purchased mid-way through last year has Intel graphics and still manages a 3.5.
 
[quote name='Liquid 2']Does Windows 7 not have DX10.1?

I was playing HL2: Ep 2 and it says I'm only using DX9 (which would be disappointing if true, since I only just got a DX10.1 card).[/quote]
The source engine only uses DX9. Windows 7 itself uses DX11 (and subsequently all lower versions). HL may be saying Version required: 9, Version running 9+. It doesn't matter that your card supplies DX10.1 features because the engine only uses DX9 features, so you're not really out anything like if you were running Crysis in DX9 instead of 10.

epo, 32 vs 64 really doesn't seem to matter with Windows 7. I installed 32 on a system with 12GB of ram and it detected it all. I know with Vista they fixed it so that a 32 bit version would display a full 4GB dispite only 3.XGB being available but it was merely a cosmetic change. I didn't run it for very long due to some various issues with the system, so I can't tell you if it was really utilizing anything above 3.x, but it did report the full 12.

I was running 7000x64 and I just upgraded to 7048. The upgrade worked pretty flawlessly. The only thing that messed up was that it turned Hybernation back on (and it still doesn't work) and it changed my theme.

There's only been one nasty issue with 7 I've noticed (besides programs that aren't compatible yet) is that it won't remember the permissions for my mappings. I have most of my stuff stored on my server and I connect to it with a mapped drive.

In XP and Vista, if the client and host had matching usernames and passwords, you'd connect no problem (of course, this was a massive headache if you didn't have matching credentials in a workgroup. -_-) For better or worse, it seems that the authentication can now be separate from your user credentials, but it doesn't always remember them when you reboot. I originally mapped it with the proper credentials and every time I reboot it asks me again and I hit the "remember" check box and it still asks. Hopefully it's just a bug.

I like that they've implimented background cycling, but they still don't allow you to set up multiple monitors independantly. Not a big issue, but Linux has had support for it for a long time (if you could get two X sessions running right.) It's just something that would be nice to have since I have one 19 standard and a 20 wide.

I miss the up button. =\

In Vista/Xp you could point your folders to different locations, which was nice because I could just point my music and picture folders to my server. Now with the libraries, you can have multiple folders be in one logical grouping, which is nice, but you can't add network locations because they aren't indexed. I've tried indexing the drive and it still doesn't work. After looking into it, it seems I'm not the only person with this issue. Hopefully, just another bug.

Interesting... I just noticed this. In 7000, if you hit windows+E, you'd open the explorer window and it would go to your libraries; it now goes to your drive listings. Yay! Unfortunately, even when I pin My Computer to the start bar, it still opens up as libraries. =\ Doesn't really matter to me as I use winE more anyways. What does annoy me is that I can't right click My Computer on my quick start and get into management.

I like the pinning, but it has annoying features. I created an RDP shortcut for my server and pinned it to the start menu, however, when I click it, it just launches mstsc. I have to right click and select my server and then it connects to my server.

Hmmm... just found another bug. When my start bar is on my right screen, the previews appear above the button of the program, when the start bar is on my left screen, the previews appear in the right corner of my screen. Seems to be a new issue as it was working in 7000.
 
[quote name='epobirs']What video is it running? My notebook purchased mid-way through last year has Intel graphics and still manages a 3.5.[/quote]

I'm sure it's got to be the generic Intel graphics but I'll have to double check. Honestly I wasn't expecting it to get rated very high since it was a lower end laptop. I bought the $400 HP laptop that Best Buy had on the front page of their ad a couple weeks ago.
 
I take that back, my system didn't get a 2 for graphics processor (3.3), I got a 2 because of disk data transfer rate:
Win7score.jpg
 
My os partition is a pair of raptors in a raid 0, so I'm kinda curious what it takes to get a 7.9. SAS?

What I don't get is I have a brand new i7 oc'd to 3.2 and 1600mhz DDR3 and they don't rate at 7.9, but my 2 year old 8800GTS512 does. Crazy.
rating.png
 
You'd probably need to get into a 5 way RAID using both mirroring and parity on SSDs to hit the peak drive performance. They have to cover that which is possible even if it isn't very likely to be in many systems any time soon.

On the CPU they may not be factoring the actual operating speed as opposed to the CPU ID.

The video scores very high but solely in the 2D categories. The advances in 3D performance have raised the ceiling there. Other than the progress in encoding support there isn't much left to gain in 2D until more demanding displays become common. Most of the improved performance in 2D operations in recent year has been from PCI-e letting the CPU and GPU communicate faster.

Thus an 'old' video card can max out the 2D category.
 
An 8800gts is no slouch.. can easily run any game available in at least medium settings and of course won't have any problem rendering your desktop at any resolution.. I think the scores make sense. The disk benchmark is probably leaving room for pro SSD rigs.
 
Is there an Intel driver update available for the Windows 7 beta? I've loaded it on a brand new HP laptop that has the standard Intel integrated graphics. My wife went to play The Sims 2 and she keeps getting errors saying there's no DirectX 9/0 compatible graphics card. I had the same problem when I tried to play Bang Howdy via the web.
 
Nevermind, I downloaded and installed the Windows Vista version of the driver for the Intel 45 Express chipset from the HP website. At first Windows 7 would not accept it because it wasn't compatible with this version of Windows. Then it told me that it was not installed correctly and asked me to retry using the recommended settings.

It installed perfectly the second time and now it seems like any applications that require a graphics accelerator work perfectly!
 
I haven't tried out the Windows 7 beta but is it safe to assume it is almost unanimously regarded as good and light year's ahead of Vista? I still use XP on my machine and will probably upgrade to Windows 7 at some point. I never installed Vista on any of my PC's, I hate that piece of crap.
 
I have XP and 7 on my machine without Vista, and I feel that yes, I would transition to it when MS stops providing support to XP. I don't say as soon as it comes out because that would require money I doubt I'd have. Only a few touchy and compatibility things here and there (I'm slightly annoyed that doing certain things will get me nagged at by security).

But my beta is still the 7000 version while most closed testers have moved well beyond that and are saying later fixes make it even BETTER.
 
There is, but I just read on the build 7000 forums that they're not supposed to be released to the public, and therefore... I think you know where you have to go to get something that's unauthorized and unreleased.
 
I wish I would have spent more time with Windows 7, but it really screwed up my computer. It messed things up with my boot loader, making so I couldn't get to my main XP install. I thought it would be an easy thing to adjust, so I went ahead and put the latest version of Debian on as well. That messed things up further, and I was not able to fix the boot problem after several days of playing with super grub disk and a couple other boot tools.

I ended up having to format the whole thing. I did make the wise decision to back up my data before installing the beta, so I wasn't entirely screwed. I liked what I saw of Windows 7, I just ended up not getting much time with it. I underestimated the differences in the Vista/Windows 7 boot process and Windows XP one, as well as throwing Linux into the mix at the same time. I don't know if I'll try it again or not. It might have been a bad idea since I only have my main machine to tinker with. My other ones aren't up to the task of handling Windows 7.
 
I like what I've seen so far from Windows 7. Vista was an absolute disaster. I will definitely invest in Win 7 for both my laptop and desktop PC if I can find a decent deal on a multiple license copy of the software when it comes out.
 
Hating Vista more and more by the day, so many problems, it's such crap. I can't even see my desktop icons anymore without highlighting them.

I don't wanna deal with a fresh system right now though so I really just want Win7 to be released already... if they beta were for sale today I'd buy it.
 
So is anybody still using the Windows 7 beta?

I have pretty much decided it is time to reformat since my current Windows Vista install is getting really bloated. So I figured I would go ahead and install the Windows 7 beta instead.

I am really looking forward to it, the only worries I am having is gaming related issues arising. But it seems like overall it is really, really solid.
 
I'd use it way more if I'd devoted more HD space to it (I only gave it 40GB) and weren't too lazy to move some of my more often used programs and games. Games seem to like 7 enough despite that ridiculous system rating thing that doesn't know what it's talking about. Plus I feel like I'm done giving feedback.
 
I've been using since the beta started. It's my main OS. I can't remember the last time I logged on to my XP and Vista installs.
 
[quote name='zewone']I've been using since the beta started. It's my main OS. I can't remember the last time I logged on to my XP and Vista installs.[/QUOTE]

Same. 7 boots up faster, is more stable, and works flawlessly with all my hardware and almost all of my software.
 
Houston, we have a problem...

http://gear.ign.com/articles/976/976242p1.html

[quote name='IGN'] This week the world's leading cybersecurity professionals gathered in Dubai at the Hack In The Box Security Conference to discuss the state of the industry, identify new threats, share pro-tips, and play Dungeons and Dragons. Ok, probably not that last part, but you get the point; high-nerdery was clearly afoot at the Sheraton Dubai Creek. One of the more prominent topics of discussion was Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7. While a number of exploits and potential vulnerabilities of the system were discussed at the conference, one identified loophole in the system has security professionals troubled…and morbidly fascinated.

A team of researchers located an exploit within the new operating system that can allow hackers to take control of a user's machine during the startup process. The problem was identified by Vipin Kumar and Nitin Kumar, who created a program called VBootKit 2.0 that exploits the weakness and allows a hacker to bypass the machine's hard drive entirely, making it nearly impossible to detect. Once hackers can implement the software, they can then change access permissions, passwords, and gain access to a user's sensitive information. What's worse, a program like the one created by Vipin and Nitin Kumar can be as small as 3KBs, and thus can be spread rapidly. Naturally, problems like these are common during the pre-release beta stages, but Vipin and Nitin Kumar claim that this vulnerability is unique and completely unfixable.

"There's no fix for this. It cannot be fixed," said Vipin during his presentation in Dubai. "It's a design problem."

Microsoft has yet to comment on the exploit or formally acknowledge its existence, however, if Vipin and Nitin's claims are true, it could mean serious trouble for the forthcoming operating system's sales.

For all the latest on Windows 7, stay tuned to IGN Gear. [/QUOTE]
 
The thing is, that exploit is impossible to take advantage of remotely. You have to have the cracker right there at your computer with a burned CD containing the program.

Not a big deal.
 
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