Windows 7
 

Anyone tried it yet?

I got build 6596 coming down the line ready to chuck on a spare box tomorrow, I'm hearing it is what Vista should have been but haven't seen it for meself yet.

I'd be interested in any responses too. I'm about to kick another desktop into life for use in my bedroom, so I'm thinking about using it as a Windows 7 beta machine.......

This month's PC Pro has an article listing the 30 best features of Windoze 7 but it's not on their web site yet. It sounds as though they have been listening to the moans about vista.

One of my mates had it, I personally think it acts and looks like VISTA but without all the issues.

Well, I got it on to a spare box & not long after it fell over! In fairness, I was trying to uipdate it using some dodgy Belkin software that has caused problems on other machines, so keeping an open mind. First impressions;

It looks gorgeous, much nicer than Vista. The boot screen is animated, the desktop can now be a slideshow. That is nifty although I imagine it'll get old quickly. The aero look is kept although the silly scroll window feature is gone. Gadgets can be detached from the sidebar & be placed wherever you like on the desktop. The taskbar keeps the window preview feature introduced in Vista but is improved with larger quicklaunch icons & grouping of open windows within the preview feature.

I've literally only messed about with it for half an hour or so and thus don't have too much of an idea how it goes under the skin, but...


it wouldn't/couldn't load drivers for a few devices, the internet connection was highly unstable & it hung on an update then refused to load until safe mode was used to complete a windows defender scan. It is beta & therefore these are observations rather than criticisms...:E

Media centre looks lovely with a much improved interface & most noticeably, navigation round the system is speedy, really good in fact. This is the biggest irritation in Windows for me - I don't care if it takes 30 rather than 20 seconds to remove a program, but it does annoy if I have to wait ten seconds to open my mail program - it seems that ms might be listening to that one.

Few random screenys:
http://i42.tinypic.com/3312ef9.jpg

http://i44.tinypic.com/10f4ck7.jpg

http://i39.tinypic.com/o76841.jpg

Come on! Where is the BSOD pic?:)

It did that!

Parapunter,

Please can you re-size the pics to fit? 800x600 is the recommended size. I'm sure you can rotate a couple as well!

Thanks

SD

Did they include Firefox as standard? :eek:

They sure didn't ! Ok a couple of hours in and it's flakey! Terrible trouble connecting it to the internet, bsod's left right & centre when installing sound card & services failing to start all over. I've taken it off my main machine with the intention of having another play with it once I've put the baby to bed (literally).

I'll stick with the former comments though, the interface is very very nice & I've had time to play with media centre & that is much much improved over the Vista set up. I think I might persevere with this just for the fun of it.

Ok, I've been playing with it again all night & 2nd time around it droppped in perfectly, no problems at all. Not too much more to add save to say I've been messing with the media centre & took a few shots for those who like this sort of thing - Gonzo? Turin??

http://i44.tinypic.com/2wq4ihc.jpg
The image behind the album cover is all your other album covers & it scrolls downwards as the record plays. That is cool!

http://i44.tinypic.com/debeyu.jpg
This is new too. Keeping the left/right buttons held down whizzes through the music library & every few seconds a cover pops up to tell you where you are. Handy for a big library.

http://i39.tinypic.com/292sig4.jpg
The main menu interface has been made over & additional options added. A definite improvement.

All in all, I like it so far. Beta for sure & tricky in places, but if it keeps on like this, then it'll lay vista to rest as it ought.

Spent the afternoon installing it into a virtual PC (the sun one) the control panel has at least improved from vista, it now has useful things in it. Unfortunately it seems not to want to find the right drivers for the network chip or the video card at the moment so I can't get on line or do much other than have a look around the menus.

Yep, it wouldn't find my netgear router or let me havve any creative software without a bsod. On the bright side, uac has been toned right down.

Thanks for all that PP, I think I will have a bash in the New Year....

Managed to sort the network out and typing this in the IE that comes with W7 which I assume is IE8 beta, I hate to say it but it's fast.

The diagnostic stuff to sort out problems is much much better, it actually tells you what the problems are and gives you some in-depth information.

All in all, so far, I'm favourably impressed with it.

Any truth in the rumour that MS will give big refunds on Vista when we upgrade to the new Windows. I am using Vista right now and really thinking of upgrading to XP.

Yeah right !!!

When I see you flying piggy boy, I may believe it :cool:

refunds -
 

Did some one say refund ? OK lets start here. In my humble opinion, Windows 7 ? may be, what Vista should have been from the start.

For what its worth, many people (like me) waited for several years to upgrade their computer like devices, in the hope that a well known provider of operating system software, would produce a system that was more secure, more reliable and better able to utilise the performance advances in chip (processor and graphics ), RAM and disk speeds that had occurred. We got Vista. Many prople had to fork out hard earned cash;to pay extra to have XP Pro installed, £60.00 in my case.

A lot of people may have bought in good faith, P.Cs that were marketed as being capable of running the new system - I know this is still under scrutiny, so lets see what the outcome is ?.

Finally when the new System arrived - it seems for some, that its release was premature and because of changes made, some hardware would not work. Troublesome but understandable.

#finally can we have a discount on the cost of upgrading from XP to Win 7,hardware min specs permitting please ? - CAT III.

Build 7022 is leaked and available for those interested. Given that 7000 was a decent iteration, this should be better still.

Word is that build 7048 aka RC1 is released to beta testers tomorrow. One feels sure it also will find it's way to a wider audience.

I,ve just started using Vista Ultimate with SP1 and everything you have described (including the screen shots) appears to be available to me, and I'm still finding new stuff ecery day! The system is stable and working beautifully. I have been able to load all my well used software and peripherals with no apparant problems or issues.

All my programmes open in the blink of an eye including Acrobat 8 Pro and Outlook 2007 which I use for my POP3 mail.

If I can get all this is it still worth having a look at W7?