Windows 7 RC due May 5th

[Glenn]

Microsoft let slip the release date, then withdrew the page, but some enterprising soul got a screen shot http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/18/windows-7-rc-coming-to-msdntechnet-soon-public-may-5

[Simon]

I'm interested, but not overly excited by the advent of W7, and probably won't be rushing out to buy a copy.

[Sebby]

Let slip on purpose me thinks.

Personally, I think Windows 7 is going to be good, and will finally be a replacement for XP. But, the thing is, most consumers don't care. They buy a new PC and it comes with an OS, and that's what they use. Vista has been a failure because businesses haven't adopted it. Consumers haven't had much of a choice.

[Rik]

I did, and chose XP.

[Gary]

Let slip on purpose me thinks.

Personally, I think Windows 7 is going to be good, and will finally be a replacement for XP. But, the thing is, most consumers don't care. They buy a new PC and it comes with an OS, and that's what they use. Vista has been a failure because businesses haven't adopted it. Consumers haven't had much of a choice.

I think in the present economic climate Sebby PC sales are down anyway, more people are thinking Mac for when they want to update, with the advent of SP1 and the soon to be released SP2 for Vista its become a fast and safe operating system as all OS's mature they get less buggy, XP was a security nightmare pre SP2, not so many crashes and issues as I had on XP for myself using Vista, and I also cannot see myself rushing out to get Windows 7, what's the point, what I have works and works well. XP is now really showing its age, but why change it if its all you need the only real reason I see is security, but to most home users thats something they think Norton looks after, and as new AV's are released and seem more and more buggy as well (Nod version 4 seems to be hell for some sadly as do a few others) people will stick with what they have, less chance of it going wrong. Business wise there seems no rush for Windows 7 either, releasing a new OS every 2 years is a bad business model, its expensive and takes training and resources how many businesses have only taken up XP in the last 4 years or so from windows 2000? Also less damn variants of the same OS would help, but people are well aware that rushing out to get windows 7 is not going to shatter the world with new features over Vista and those that got used to it and waited for the first service pack have little to moan about, never buy a new OS before its first Service pack, that's well known, being at the bleeding edge of technology is not fun any more for myself, just unwanted cost and hassle. So when people buy a new PC /mac that's when they will get what OS is out there probably, Vista did not stimulate the queues outside shops that XP did and I doubt Windows 7 will,  and to be honest new computers and gadgets are not on the list of must have home essentials in our household at least. If it works wait till it breaks, gadgets are great but buying the latest cellphone or netbook because its the latest and greatest just does not have the lure any more for myself at least, I have seen through the "its better so buy it today" routine and realised upgrading my two year old MP3 player/mobile/pc or any other electronic toy I have for that matter is just a way of getting me to part with cash, and for for very little gain over what I already had, and in fact sometimes the older models were the better ones anyway. People I talk to seem shrewder in their purchases, we all at some stage have been bitten with that upgrade bug and found it an endless money pit.To be honest I would rather spend the money windows 7 will cost on something that will give me genuine satisfaction, like putting the cost towards a holiday. XP/Vista/OS X, they all work just fine for most people.

[Sebby]

XP is showing its age, but it's more than adequate for most. Businesses would rather run a stable and fast OS that doesn't have bells and whistles than the opposite. I'm sorry but SP1 did nothing for the speed of Vista, and I can't imagine SP2 will either. It's an OS with the right idea, but poor implementation, imho. Windows 7 is going to sort that, not SP2.

[zappaDPJ]

I serious think that Microsoft should provide a free upgrade path for those of us that have been blighted with Vista. It was never fit for purpose and I'm simply not prepared to pay again for something I should have had in the first place. Failing that I will probably go back to using XP Pro on all the PCs and laptops here.

[Ted]

I serious think that Microsoft should provide a free upgrade path for those of us that have been blighted with Vista. 

 

[Simon]

Yup, and I'm just as likely to walk on the moon. 

[Rik]

When do you leave?

[Glenn]

Yup, and I'm just as likely to walk on the moon. 

You would have to Police your steps, they could be giant ones 

[Rik]

[Glenn]

 

[Simon]

When do you leave?

You would have to Police your steps, they could be giant ones 

I'll send you a Message in a Bottle when I've packed.

[Rik]

[Simon]

[Gary]

XP is showing its age, but it's more than adequate for most. Businesses would rather run a stable and fast OS that doesn't have bells and whistles than the opposite. I'm sorry but SP1 did nothing for the speed of Vista, and I can't imagine SP2 will either. It's an OS with the right idea, but poor implementation, imho. Windows 7 is going to sort that, not SP2.

I think a lot depends on what hardware you are running Sebby and thats where Microsoft fell down with the specs on what it could run on. SP2 wont make that much difference, but it works just fine for me and that's all I am concerned with. All pc's built since Vista was released, that I have used have used run fine and fast with no slow downs because they had better specs than pre Vista machines I expect. My Laptop gets a score of 5.4 the graphics get 5.9 which is the key along with Memory being 5.9 as well. Graphics cards with the right specs and sufficient ram running at the right speeds really make a difference, which when people  upgraded first off to the vanilla release version they did not have, along with decent drivers at that time, and this probably helped to make the so called Wow factor the exact opposite.

If you turn off things you may not need like Windows cardspace, Windows internet printing, Remote registry and tablet pc input services, after turning off the latter first in the uninstall  programs window where you can turn off parts of vista you do not need, it helps for slower machines, and faster ones as well, just like the tweaks there were for XP that helped it on slower machines, It all helps. I am not a Vista fanboy it just came with my laptop, all I am saying is I don't think its that bad, and I'm happy with how it runs, just like I was with XP, and may be with what ever comes next from the OS I end up using when this machine becomes too old, and by then my interest in so called must have gadgets may have dwindled even more than it has now, who knows. On the grand scale of what's really important in my life lets just say a new operating system is near the bottom, the one I have works just fine, happy times.

Best to agree to disagree here methinks. 

[Rik]

Actually, I think you agree more than you disagree.

[Gary]

Actually, I think you agree more than you disagree.

Actually I probably don't have a clue, Rik. Either way its not going to effect me, or is it?

[Rik]

 

[Sebby]

Best to agree to disagree here methinks. 

Let's do that.

[zappaDPJ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8026736.stm

The Windows 7 Starter Edition will have limitations on how many applications can be used concurrently on a machine in order to preserve performance.

I find that rather concerning as my biggest gripe with Vista is that it can be abysmally slow even on top-end hardware under those circumstances. I thought 7 was designed to address the issue with better coding, not a cheap and cheesy work around.

Mr Curran said that the Microsoft Windows team had been poring over every aspect of the operating system to make improvements.

"We were able to shave 400 milliseconds off the shutdown time by slightly trimming the WAV file shutdown music.

That is indeed attention to detail but I'm more concerned with the 30 seconds plus it takes me to switch between a full screen application and something as simple as Internet Explorer.

I'm going to have to try this out nevertheless as I'm hoping it will address a number of issues but I'm a little less hopeful than before after reading that. I know that I'm not what would be considered a typical PC user but if XP can do what I want in less than a second then I really don't see why Vista or 7 can't do the same.

[Rik]

Which is why, I believe, that many people, myself included, haven't felt the need to move from XP.

[zappaDPJ]

If 7 doesn't address my issues I will almost certainly be upgrading to XP PRO and I do rather sadly consider it an upgrade. Vista/7 is without a doubt potentially a better product but the basic flaws let it down badly which in some cases make it almost unusable.

[Gary]

  

[Simon]

This thing with the applications really puts me off Windows 7, and I find it hard to believe that it really will only allow three applications to run simultaneously.

[Sebby]

I think Windows 7 is going to be an improvement over XP, and certainly over Vista. Vista is just too resource-hungry, and if 7 sorts that (which it seems it has) then eventually most people will make the move.

[somanyholes]

more fun

Leaked copies of Windows 7 shipping with Trojan

http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200919/3597/Leaked-copies-of-Windows-7-shipping-with-Trojan

[Rik]

I suppose it was inevitable, So.

[Simon]

Serves anyone right for trying it illegally.

[Rik]

True.

[Glenn]

It's available for download from MS now

[Simon]

With or without the trojan? 

[Rik]

Surely it could be considered a trojan in itself? 

[Simon]

[Steve]

I am going to try it as a guest OS on the mac but that may some days away looking at the current rate of download.

[Gary]

I'll try it when i need a new pc, so unless something bad happens, and it won't it will be called windows 9 by then 

[Sebby]

Serves anyone right for trying it illegally.

Is it possible to obtain a public release candidate illegally?!

I installed Windows 7 RC on my old PC a few days back to see what it's like (yes, I did get it through BitTorrent, albeit without a trojan because I know what I'm doing). It's pretty good, I have to say.

[somanyholes]

I am going to try it as a guest OS on the mac but that may some days away looking at the current rate of download.

downloading at 4 MB/s here so speed is good on ms side

[somanyholes]

ohh nice to see speedtest have upped their max speed

[Steve]

I am going to try it as a guest OS on the mac but that may some days away looking at the current rate of download.

After recent expenditure I hope I dont like it All I need at mo is something to run dbpoweramp on,it runs fine with XP/virtual box on the mac its the only piece of software I've no good mac equivalent for.

[Steve]

Well its installed via Virtualbox on the Macbook takes about 30 mins, you don't need to burn a DVD either you can just mount the iso in the virtualbox settings menu and off you go.

[Rik]

Where did you go to, Steve?

[Glenn]

I started downloading it at work this morning, but it was still downloading at 50kbs with 2Gb to go when I left.

[Rik]

So that's DVDs on request then?

[Steve]

Where did you go to, Steve?

Off to find out why its not seeing any networked computers at present. Homegroups sounds very trendy but if I can't connect to other PC's on my LAN without going through multiple hoops its going in the Trash

[Glenn]

Maybe it's the Mac causing problems 

[kinmel]

Off to find out why its not seeing any networked computers at present. Homegroups sounds very trendy but if I can't connect to other PC's on my LAN without going through multiple hoops its going in the Trash

To link Win7 to XP, Vista, or any other O.S. you need to set up a "Work" network, the "Homegroup" only connects between Win7 computers - but they don't tell you that

[Steve]

Thanks Alan. The problem was the virtual network adaptor its happy in "bridged mode' now,the default virtualbox setting was "NAT" which gives me internet access only.

[Sebby]

Maybe it's the Mac causing problems 

How dare you!

[Steve]

Don't know whether its a quirk of virtualbox but having allocated 1gb of physical memory to the guest OS.Windows 7 in non aero mode uses about 300mb, which surprisingly is very similar to XP pro. One  difference is that XP  still feels quicker.

[Sebby]

Windows 7 is certainly supposed to be a lot less resource-hungry. I'll switch on my old PC later and see how much of the 2GB physical RAM it uses.

[Sebby]

Here's the answer.

That's with Kaspersky Antivirus running and Internet Explorer 8.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Steve]

I am sure Vista would be much nearer the 1Gb in a similar situation.

[Sebby]

Agreed. It's a vast improvement.

[Gary]

That certainly is Sebby in Vista it is about 986MB on my machine, but I'm still not spending cash on something I do not need, not in the recession, decorating and making our new house and garden ours is more important, and my laptop runs just fine on Vista, I think its a great upgrade for XP users but the expense of buying a new OS just to replace one that works fine for me isn't worth it, but if I was buying now I would definitely wait till its release  oh and Kaspersky does not support windows 7 according to the forums, so see how that goes, they say official support will come at release http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=115494 ; watch out for any odd behaviour with other programs I guess.

[Steve]

Imagine the headlines .Memory chip manufacturers complain to MS that the new OS will not increase their sales."They claim they have an agreement that any new MS OS must........."

[psp83]

Will be installing windows 7 this weekend on a test machine.

If this is any help though, heres my memory usage on vista straight after a reboot (left it a few mins to fully settle down)

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Sebby]

That certainly is Sebby in Vista it is about 986MB on my machine, but I'm still not spending cash on something I do not need, not in the recession, decorating and making our new house and garden ours is more important, and my laptop runs just fine on Vista, I think its a great upgrade for XP users but the expense of buying a new OS just to replace one that works fine for me isn't worth it, but if I was buying now I would definitely wait till its release  oh and Kaspersky does not support windows 7 according to the forums, so see how that goes, they say official support will come at release http://forum.kaspersky.com/index.php?showtopic=115494  watch out for any odd behaviour with other programs I guess.

http://www.kaspersky.com/windows7

[Sebby]

Will be installing windows 7 this weekend on a test machine.

If this is any help though, heres my memory usage on vista straight after a reboot (left it a few mins to fully settle down)

A few minutes? It needs a few hours to settle down in my experience!

[somanyholes]

http://www.kaspersky.com/windows7

this is on one of my colleagues box's and seems to be working well.

[Glenn]

  I downloaded W7 agian at work today - the last download failed, but I left the DVD at work 

[Rik]

Is it with the Nikon charger, Glenn? 

[Glenn]

Possibly 

[psp83]

A few minutes? It needs a few hours to settle down in my experience!

lol. my machine is powerful enough though 

I can boot into vista and be checking emails within 30secs.

[psp83]

I've installed Windows 7 on my spare laptop and its seems to be ok but there is one annoying problem, Wireless doesn't allow connection to the internet but it does connect to the router. 

[Rik]

It's a new security feature, Paul, designed to ensure you don't get any nasties on the machine.

[psp83]

It's a new security feature, Paul, designed to ensure you don't get any nasties on the machine.

Well they've done a good job so far, tried everything i can think of and cant get net access on that laptop.

[Rik]

If you can reach the router, TCP/IP must be OK. I assume DHCP is working too? Is there some sort of weird firewall setting which is blocking any external traffic? Can you see another machine on the LAN?

[RichR]

I've installed Windows 7 on my spare laptop and its seems to be ok but there is one annoying problem, Wireless doesn't allow connection to the internet but it does connect to the router. 

I've seen this happen on Vista before and the only solution was going back to a system restore point. A whole bunch of services weren't starting due to permissions problems. Usefully one of the services that wasn't running was the Diagnostic service. The one causing the problem with getting out to the net was DHCP. Unfortunately Microsoft's solution didn't work either.

[psp83]

Heres a screenshot. would love to get wireless working if anybody knows how?

Access type : no internet access



I've removed my works company id from the pic.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Rik]

Could you try a cable connection first, Paul, to narrow it to a purely wireless issue (or have you already done that)?

[psp83]

cable and wireless dont work

[Rik]

So that rules out anything to do with WEP/WPA encryption I guess. Is it obtaining an IP address (I'm assuming it is if you can see the router). If so, that would make me think it has to be down to some sort of firewall block. Have you checked which services are running?

[somanyholes]

can you ping 216.239.59.99?

[somanyholes]

also can you ping your idnet gateway address? any chance you can post your ipconfig output? what network protocols do you have installed on the wireless card?

[Steve]

You could try setting it up as a home network the firewall settings maybe slightly different

[Sebby]

It sounds like a DNS issue to me. Try ping the IP that So mentioned.

[Ray]

I installed the 64 bit RC version last night, just tried the wireless connection, connected to the Internet straight away as soon as I enabled the wireless connection on the router and entered my wireless key on the PC. 

[Sebby]

I also had no issues with the 32-bit version via ethernet.

[psp83]

can you ping 216.239.59.99?

Yep

Its connected now and i haven't changed anything!!!!!

[psp83]

It is a DNS issue with Windows 7, IP's work, domains dont.

[Rik]

Not exactly user-friendly, Paul.

[somanyholes]

It is a DNS issue with Windows 7, IP's work, domains dont.

is this a known issue e.g. microsoft? I presume you get your dns from your router? what happens if you set your dns locally?

[psp83]

*removed*

[somanyholes]

if you currently get dns locally what happens if you then get it from your router. Any software firewalls on your machine? diable all security software if possible for diags

[bobleslie]

I've given Win 7 RC a good going over. It's o.k. but nothing to shout home about.

I don't intend to waste money on it when my other two copies of Vista work extremely well.

This version fixed a video streaming bug found in the beta, but it still includes an 'inability to properly connect to Windows Media Center via an Xbox 360 extender' bug which is highly irritating. 

As a side note, I recently re-installed a copy of Win XP Pro after a RAID disk failure. What was really noteworthy was not the time it took to install all those updates, but the fact that it did it perfectly.

[Rik]

Wow, did you check for a star in the east, Bob?

[bobleslie]

I must have done, although I'm sure I had my head down for much of the day. 

[Sebby]

Yep

Its connected now and i haven't changed anything!!!!!

So things are working now?

[Noreen]

I saw this post on American forum, can anyone confirm that there is no manual Restore Point creation?

Looks like they changed "system restore" a bit. I was getting ready to install a Creative beta driver and wanted to create a restore point. The only options I found were "create system image" and "create a system repair disc". Just now I was rooting around in control panel and found a restore your computer to an earlier time in the action center. I checked and there was a restore point for installing Creative driver. Looks like Win 7 will automatically create a restore point, as I believe Vista did, but I still would like to have the option to do it myself.

[psp83]

So things are working now?

Yes, it just started to work after not working for over 6hrs. Will check again later.

[Noreen]

I saw this post on American forum, can anyone confirm that there is no manual Restore Point creation?

This question has now been answered, apparently there IS a manual Restore Point as in Vista.

[Rik]

How do you access it, Noreen?

[Noreen]

The usual Windows methods apparently, Rik, such as right click "Computer" and then click on "Properties", there are several different ways. The original poster was being a bit dim, I think . I don't have Windows 7 but I was just curious about it.

[Rik]

Nuff said.