Windows 7 not only faster than Vista, but XP too

[AlterBridge86]

The fellas over at ZDnet have benched the beta bits of Windows 7 (build 7000) against XP and Vista. The results are quite surprising - and really nice to see on a BETA build. RTM of 7 looks like its gonna rock. :)

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2009/01/02/windows-7-build-7000-outperforms-vista-and-xp

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3236&page=2

[GAR]

Sweet, im loving vista 64 ATM, but windows 7 looks like it is truly what windows vista should have been. Even tho i like Vista, i think Vista should have been skipped and gone straight to Windows 7, or then it would be Windows 6.

[Shintai]

Just better/tweaked disk cache system.

[Manicdan]

why didnt they post actual numbers, 1s, 2s, and 3s, does absolutely nothing when trying to say how much better it is. and most of this items look like how a hard drive is handled. its good to see people care about the new windows being better in performance, but this looks more like a sales tactic than a real test of any kind

[Mad1723]

^ At the same time, we need to know if the difference was 0,1% in favor or 25%... 1s, 2s, 3s, it doesn't say much...

[Bodkin]

The reason he did not post real scores is Microsoft made anyone who was given a beta agree not to post benchmark scores without there approval.

[Natalia]

why didnt they post actual numbers, 1s, 2s, and 3s, does absolutely nothing when trying to say how much better it is. and most of this items look like how a hard drive is handled. its good to see people care about the new windows being better in performance, but this looks more like a sales tactic than a real test of any kind

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I was curious as to how much better it was. 0.001 ms isn't as impressive as 3 seconds, but both are considered faster.

[artissco]

Build 7000 is really fast... It is faster than Vista but I don't if it is faster than XP... Maybe just better looking :D or not. probably not :)

[@@@@]

Windows is shaping up to be a good OS but like what the author said it is still on beta.
I am a little concern because it might be just a marketing ploy and his testing doesn't really say much,
lets wait for a more proper review with the final build of the OS (Windows 7) before we get our hopes up or down.

[VisBits]

I've played with the windows 7 beta. Its very very very fast even under vmware. Idles at 450mb ram useage and has more fancy things than vista. I'm not so sure about the taskbar any more, It's became to osx like.

[Hornet331]

I dont think vista is slow, but maybe thats only me cause its on a VR and running on 12GB ram. :p:

Yes its slower in benches, but for everyday usage i dont notice any difference compared to XP.

[Katanai]

I've played with the windows 7 beta. Its very very very fast even under vmware. Idles at 450mb ram useage and has more fancy things than vista. I'm not so sure about the taskbar any more, It's became to osx like.

Yeah that's my only gripe too. I don't wanna see icons all over the place, what's wrong with text?

[Manicdan]

if you go to the link, on the right are other links to benchmarks, and those actually have some times on them, heres one i liked http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3187

[jgigz]

Have they kept the hotkeys the same? e.g Windowskey + e -> My computer, Windowskey + r -> run etc etc?

[Clint]

So XP gets beaten in every single test, not fastest in any of them?? What a load of BS.

[SamHughe]

Betas are always faster before MS starts to bloat the OS with all kinds of poop for the retail version. I remember ppl said Vista beta was faster than the retail.

[gOJDO]

Betas are always faster before MS starts to bloat the OS with all kinds of poop for the retail version. I remember ppl said Vista beta was faster than the retail.Vista first beta was total crap. It ran my Venice @2.7GHz + 1GB DDR-500 CL2.5 like a PentiumII on a WinXP.

[RPGWiZaRD]

For me it certainly doesn't beat Win SP3 in everything I've tested. Usually it's the opposite and if Win7 is faster in something the marginal is very small. Especially 3D performance is still not as good overall as XP.

In heavy GPU benchmarks, it's usually same as Vista and a bit behind XP, in system related (CPU/RAM/Mobo) tasks it's often slightly faster than Vista though but either around same as XP or slightly behind, difference is usually very small though. When 3D performance is fixed is when I switch or there's enough well optimized DX10 games I like in order for me to concider using it as main OS. I'm in no hurry to switch. :)

And no I don't care for fancy GUIs etc, fancy stuff is kernel modifications and the API-level changes etc that makes the performance better for me.

[eric66]

So XP gets beaten in every single test, not fastest in any of them?? What a load of BS.
lol thread title is even dramatic op didn't even checked benchs :ROTF:

[Glow9]

So essentially is Windows 7 like Vista lite? How much space does it take to install. I love Vista and I don't find it slow at all, I think using XP as a comparison is kinda dumb considering I installed it and ran it with a P133 for the hell of it.

[shanems3]

i have played around on Win7, 32bit build, its good, i love the new Superbar, i did some rendering benches with cinebench, basically 32bit win 7 scored the same as 64bit win vista..

[fragmasterMax]

xp pro fo life (or until something better comes out which i doubt will happen, as os's continue to grow, and tax like big govt.)
Msft needs to stop copying apple, like everyone else, and come up with something original.

[shanems3]

no matter what windows does, they will get blamed for copying someone

[Levish]

xp pro fo life (or until something better comes out which i doubt will happen, as os's continue to grow, and tax like big govt.)
Msft needs to stop copying apple, like everyone else, and come up with something original.

Win2k is probably still faster :p

[Helmore]

no matter what windows does, they will get blamed for copying someone

Even if they sometimes copy themselves :p::
http://blogs.msdn.com/blogfiles/e7/WindowsLiveWriter/HappyAnniversaryWindowsontheEvolutionoft_1365F/clip_image002_2.jpg
You can enable text for open applications/windows and make the icons smaller, that way it will look a lot like they way it does on Vista. So no worries there, concerning looks that is. As for how it will behave, that remains the question and you will probably either like it or not (IMHO).

They can't post the scores as the EULA of this Beta states that you are not allowed to do so.

[T_Flight]

Like every OS I'm waiting to see what driver support is like and waiting on them to get the release version out so they can begin the end user beta testing program. I've got Vista right now, and the only reason is becasue of the memory manager. I have Vista 64 Ultimate SP1 and it still has issues. From the sopunds of things SP2 is not gonan fix them, and they are already working on another version of Windows, so I'm looking at crappy support for Vista and I just got it. Not good. They need to fix one, before they start on another one.

[Helmore]

What's wrong with your install then? As far as I know there are only some driver related problems that still need to be taken care off. I got this Netgear WiFi adapter which I would like to use on my Vista 64 install, but there is only a proper driver for it that supports the 32-bit Vista version. Oh and some pretty old applications might not cooperate, but I have not seen a single application yet that won't install on Vista.

[Eastcoasthandle]

why didnt they post actual numbers, 1s, 2s, and 3s, does absolutely nothing when trying to say how much better it is. and most of this items look like how a hard drive is handled. its good to see people care about the new windows being better in performance, but this looks more like a sales tactic than a real test of any kind
This pretty much sums up the article/blog. Hopefully, a decent review is made public.

[Shintai]

Like every OS I'm waiting to see what driver support is like and waiting on them to get the release version out so they can begin the end user beta testing program. I've got Vista right now, and the only reason is becasue of the memory manager. I have Vista 64 Ultimate SP1 and it still has issues. From the sopunds of things SP2 is not gonan fix them, and they are already working on another version of Windows, so I'm looking at crappy support for Vista and I just got it. Not good. They need to fix one, before they start on another one.

What exactly is wrong with your Vista?

Also Windows 7 uses the same drivers as Vista.

[T_Flight]

What's wrong with your install then? As far as I know there are only some driver related problems that still need to be taken care off. I got this Netgear WiFi adapter which I would like to use on my Vista 64 install, but there is only a proper driver for it that supports the 32-bit Vista version. Oh and some pretty old applications might not cooperate, but I have not seen a single application yet that won't install on Vista.

Nothing is wrong with my install except for it's Vista. I'm glad you are having good luck, but for users who do actual work on these machines, and use engineering software Vista is useless. There's alot more than "some driver related issues", there's a hell of alot of driver related issues. MS used to take care of these issues with SP's, but so far it's not looking like they are gonna do that at all with Vista. Win7 is just proving that. If they were at all interested in fixing these issues they would be doing it, but instead they are leaving the people the purchased Vista out to dry and are gonna unload another one of these works on unsuspecting buyers.

Like was stated above, they have some good ideas, but everytime they get ready for release they bloat the OS with garbage, and release these things before they have driver support. They do it every time. Ever since 98 they've been doing it. After an OS has been out for 2 years or more and they still can't get it right, it's pretty obvious (to most) that they are not going to.

In this case if they would've gotten it right the first time, they wouldn't be rushing out Win7 so fast.

[HuffPCair]

I got the 32 bit windows 7 beta 7000 and I love it I just cant wait for the 64 bit to drop so I can switch over. I love Vista but Windows 7 is amazing so far. I love the new taskbar I just wish they would of kept classic view for control panel but I will get use to that.

[T_Flight]

What exactly is wrong with your Vista?

Also Windows 7 uses the same drivers as Vista.

Hopefully they'll fix that issue with the drivers. If not, it'll be no different than Vista is now.

[HuffPCair]

Hopefully they'll fix that issue with the drivers. If not, it'll be no different than Vista is now.

I dont know what driver problems you have had but I have not ran into one yet. I love Vista and Windows 7 is going to be just as good. The Beta 7000 is great so far, just wish it would be the 64 bit, but I got to wait a few more days for it.

[T_Flight]

I dont know what driver problems you have had but I have not ran into one yet. I love Vista and Windows 7 is going to be just as good. The Beta 7000 is great so far, just wish it would be the 64 bit, but I got to wait a few more days for it.

Like I said to the other user, that's great for you that you are, but it doesn't change the fact that the people that are having issues have not had them fixed. I won't even get into the massive ammounts of hardware that Vista rendered useless with it's complete incompatibility and DRM BS.

[fiveprime]

How do you get involved with W7 Beta testing?

[Hornet331]

thats not the fault of ms/vista if the hardware makers are to lazy to code proper drivers... vista is what 2 years old now?

If the hardware manufactory dont have decent drivers till now they just plain suck, amazes me how they could manage to write xp drivers...

[HuffPCair]

Like I said to the other user, that's great for you that you are, but it doesn't change the fact that the people that are having issues have not had them fixed. I won't even get into the massive ammounts of hardware that Vista rendered useless with it's complete incompatibility and DRM BS.

Also you can not always blame Windows for driver support. It is also these stupid software makers. I wish they would just get rid of 32 bit crap and go all 64 bit. I really think that would change a lot of things, but you are right in that Windows does a poor job of supporting everything, but that is going to happen and I have also been kind of in the same boat for the new SPs that have been coming out they really dont fix anything. It just seems they are making them to take up more space or give you a 1% performance boost. They really need to focus on the customer it seems they have forgot about us and just started to poop these OSs out.

[Cooper]

thats not the fault of ms/vista if the hardware makers are to lazy to code proper drivers... vista is what 2 years old now?

If the hardware manufactory dont have decent drivers till now they just plain suck, amazes me how they could manage to write xp drivers...

Vista introduced middle layers between hardware and drivers thus making driver development lot harder. So it's not only "lazy developers" it's also "smart Microsoft"

[Boogerlad]

How do you get involved with W7 Beta testing?

Wait for CES or do torrents and search.

[Helmore]

"Middle layer" does not seem like the proper term to use IMHO, they elevated pretty much all drivers into User mode (some only partially) and it seems to be pretty hard for IHVs to adapt. There are enough reasons for doing so, but like most things that change, it takes some time to adjust.

[kiwi]

If anyone is interested GTA4 benchmark is 2fps better than XP (54 vs 52) :) Here's a task manager (see attach.) of a freshly installed Win7 after Intel chipset and nvidia display driver install (superfetch disabled). You still need a lot of RAM :) All/most vista drivers work

And by the way, Win7 beta 7000 has been available (of course unofficially :D) at least a week.

[shanems3]

personally, i think microsoft used Vista to change everything knowing that vista would get alot of BS for it.. Vista was basically a profitable beta test for Windows 7

[Particle]

I'm glad to see they added a line for "Available" RAM in task manager. I always figured people would get confused when they'd see they had no free RAM (but gigabytes of cache). It certainly can't have helped the reputation of Vista needing lots of RAM.

[RealTelstar]

Build 7000 is really fast... It is faster than Vista but I don't if it is faster than XP... Maybe just better looking :D or not. probably not :)

I hope they put more drivers in the build 7000. Previous one eve didnt have x48 chipset drivers...

[mikeyakame]

No Windows Install has ever come with Intel chipset drivers, that won't change. You have to install them yourself since they aren't critical for the OS to work.

[RealTelstar]

Wait for CES or do torrents and search.

If somebody knows of a 64bit b7000 version available somewhere, pm me :)

[YMAA]

I looked yesterday and couldn't find one. Downloaded the latest 64-bit one I could find, which was 6936. Probably install it tomorrow if I have time.

[RealTelstar]

No Windows Install has ever come with Intel chipset drivers, that won't change. You have to install them yourself since they aren't critical for the OS to work.

Maybe i did something wrong, but it didnt work.

[Shintai]

Vista introduced middle layers between hardware and drivers thus making driver development lot harder. So it's not only "lazy developers" it's also "smart Microsoft"

Only for the graphics driver. And that was way overdue with the less than stellar drivers from ATI/AMD and nVidia. No more bluescreen/reboot when their driver goes balistic for the nTh time.

The rest of the drivers are simply just a digital signature in difference.

[rob1101]

why didnt they post actual numbers, 1s, 2s, and 3s, does absolutely nothing when trying to say how much better it is. and most of this items look like how a hard drive is handled. its good to see people care about the new windows being better in performance, but this looks more like a sales tactic than a real test of any kind

pretty much sums it up

[Shintai]

Hopefully they'll fix that issue with the drivers. If not, it'll be no different than Vista is now.

What issue? You say alot but there aint really coming anything out.

So besides whining. What is wrong with Vista?

If you mention some ancient hardware that your supplier couldnt be bothered to make a driver for. Then you are out of luck with ANY future OS.

[cegras]

Nothing is wrong with my install except for it's Vista. I'm glad you are having good luck, but for users who do actual work on these machines, and use engineering software Vista is useless. There's alot more than "some driver related issues", there's a hell of alot of driver related issues. MS used to take care of these issues with SP's, but so far it's not looking like they are gonna do that at all with Vista. Win7 is just proving that. If they were at all interested in fixing these issues they would be doing it, but instead they are leaving the people the purchased Vista out to dry and are gonna unload another one of these works on unsuspecting buyers.

Like was stated above, they have some good ideas, but everytime they get ready for release they bloat the OS with garbage, and release these things before they have driver support. They do it every time. Ever since 98 they've been doing it. After an OS has been out for 2 years or more and they still can't get it right, it's pretty obvious (to most) that they are not going to.

In this case if they would've gotten it right the first time, they wouldn't be rushing out Win7 so fast.

What?

All you've done is vaguely point at some presumed to exist Vista problem without clearly outlining it for us.

[kiwi]

What issue? You say alot but there aint really coming anything out.

So besides whining. What is wrong with Vista?

If you mention some ancient hardware that your supplier couldnt be bothered to make a driver for. Then you are out of luck with ANY future OS.

Well, it's not vista most likely but hardware and/or software manufacturers. However, you might blame MS as well for not giving enough documentation to properly develop those drivers/software.

[Shintai]

Well, it's not vista most likely but hardware and/or software manufacturers. However, you might blame MS as well for not giving enough documentation to properly develop those drivers/software.

They have ALL the tools they need and all the documentation.

Issue is more likely that they want to sell a new device and dont want to waste the 2 people writing drivers on the old :p:

In case of ATI and nVidia with Vista GFX drivers. Quadsli and physics in crossfire is the nemesis.

[mikeyakame]

Maybe i did something wrong, but it didnt work.

I've got them installed ;)

You'll need to unpack the Installer and manually update drivers from the unpacked vista subfolder. Do SMBUS controller first, then scan for hardware changes and reboot if need be. Then you'll have a bunch of PCI bridges that are generic, you'll have to do all these too. If you get a hang on driver installation which you probably will once or twice. Just do a restart, and either wait the 15-20mins for shutdown or power cycle, and that driver it hung on installation will be installed next reboot.

It may be easier to do in safe mode if you want.

Check the screenshot for all the devices which would be there once you finish it up. Intel should have a pre-release chipset package available sometime around the public beta release as the current inf packages need some small changes made to the way they address the device driver installer, as it looks like some small changes have been made on microsoft's end.

By the way keep an eye on here, they've already begun preparations for the public launch.
Otherwise a Russian third party has x64 ready to be leaked out on the 7th (in russia) during some point of their day, so this probably means Microsoft will have the public release out around this time too.

http://technet.microsoft.com/zh-cn/evalcenter/default.aspx

[mikeyakame]

Well, it's not vista most likely but hardware and/or software manufacturers. However, you might blame MS as well for not giving enough documentation to properly develop those drivers/software.

Believe it or not MS documentation for WDK dev and cert is outstanding. This was the same for Vista in early beta days. Driver developers just didn't want to spend the time and money rewriting their drivers until they had no choice but to.

[HuffPCair]

If somebody knows of a 64bit b7000 version available somewhere, pm me :)

The only one released is a 32 bit you have to wait till the full beta is released for 64 bit

[gr8golf]

The only one released is a 32 bit you have to wait till the full beta is released for 64 bit

Not true - I have a DVD of the 64bit install. Installed it in a VMWare Fusion VM yesterday. Thinking about installing it as my primary OS on my new build. Hmmm - X58 chipset support out there?

[kiwi]

They have ALL the tools they need and all the documentation.

Issue is more likely that they want to sell a new device and dont want to waste the 2 people writing drivers on the old :p:

In case of ATI and nVidia with Vista GFX drivers. Quadsli and physics in crossfire is the nemesis.

Well, I can't confirm or deny this but I read this info some time ago about MS. Who knows, maybe it was just a hardware developer's excuse.

Anyway, for average Joe if some piece of hardware works great in XP but not Vista he blames OS first even though it is not OS fault :)

[mikeyakame]

Not true - I have a DVD of the 64bit install. Installed it in a VMWare Fusion VM yesterday. Thinking about installing it as my primary OS on my new build. Hmmm - X58 chipset support out there?

yeah mate. grab latest inf installer from Intels website.

9.1.0.1007 has x58 inf packages and on Intels website.

9.1.1.1004 beta has inf packages for Auburndale and Havendale. I'll get back to you with a link when I find it.

[mikeyakame]

Well, I can't confirm or deny this but I read this info some time ago about MS. Who knows, maybe it was just a hardware developer's excuse.

Anyway, for average Joe if some piece of hardware works great in XP but not Vista he blames OS first even though it is not OS fault :)

On the flip side I'll confirm the workingness and availability of Nvidia WDDM 1.1 preview drivers,all is working but power saving features on G200 based cards. Latest build is 179.23 build date late November.

[The Coolest]

I've got them installed ;)

You'll need to unpack the Installer and manually update drivers from the unpacked vista subfolder. Do SMBUS controller first, then scan for hardware changes and reboot if need be. Then you'll have a bunch of PCI bridges that are generic, you'll have to do all these too. If you get a hang on driver installation which you probably will once or twice. Just do a restart, and either wait the 15-20mins for shutdown or power cycle, and that driver it hung on installation will be installed next reboot.

It may be easier to do in safe mode if you want.

Check the screenshot for all the devices which would be there once you finish it up. Intel should have a pre-release chipset package available sometime around the public beta release as the current inf packages need some small changes made to the way they address the device driver installer, as it looks like some small changes have been made on microsoft's end.

By the way keep an eye on here, they've already begun preparations for the public launch.
Otherwise a Russian third party has x64 ready to be leaked out on the 7th (in russia) during some point of their day, so this probably means Microsoft will have the public release out around this time too.

http://technet.microsoft.com/zh-cn/evalcenter/default.aspx

Or you can simply put the installer into Compatibility mode with "Vista" and it works like a charm :)

[mikeyakame]

Or you can simply put the installer into Compatibility mode with "Vista" and it works like a charm :)

Oh believe me I tried that ;)

Gives me grief with X48 chipset drivers on both 32 and 64bit drivers. So it's a problem with the .inf files specifically. I use ICH9R raid drivers too so maybe that has something to do with it.

[HuffPCair]

Not true - I have a DVD of the 64bit install. Installed it in a VMWare Fusion VM yesterday. Thinking about installing it as my primary OS on my new build. Hmmm - X58 chipset support out there?

Umm it is not the beta 7000 then. and if so I would like to see a screen shot of that. Everyone I have talked to has the 32 bit.

[mikeyakame]

Umm it is not the beta 7000 then. and if so I would like to see a screen shot of that. Everyone I have talked to has the 32 bit.

MS Partners/TAP would all have the Beta1 build by now. Would have been shipped just before xmas, or shortly after. Plus they can download it from their TAP accounts, or the equivalent.

So if it's true he has it then he must be somebody who works close with Microsoft ;) If that's the case he wouldn't risk himself any recourse from MS over some guy on a forum asking for proof.

If it's not true, will you sleep better tonight knowing it isn't? I'll sleep just fine either way ;)

[safan80]

Sweet, im loving vista 64 ATM, but windows 7 looks like it is truly what windows vista should have been. Even tho i like Vista, i think Vista should have been skipped and gone straight to Windows 7, or then it would be Windows 6.

those reviews are of the 32bit version. There's still none of the 64bit windows 7.

[mikeyakame]

and what exactly is preventing MS from applying those tweaks to vista and make it faster than XP :ROTF:

Vista is LOADED with too much crap, thats the main problem, I recently switched to vista (waited for my software and devices drivers to offer 64bit support for almost 2 years) and I definitely can see the bad impact of all the things stuffed inside vista, too many services, too much eye candy, too many pointless things vista does. Sometimes I open my computer (not for the first time since boot) and wait like 3-4 sec for vista to draw all it's stuff, and it's not like that pc is slow - 3.6Ghz quad 4gb ram, it is also a fresh install and so on

What is preventing MS? Changes to core kernel programming of course. Boot up in Windows 7 is much faster than Vista, but Vista wasn't all that bad yes it could do with some improvement but why would Microsoft divert programmers from a major OS release right now for the sake of fixing something isn't broken.

Windows 7 is loaded with as much "crap" as Vista, if by crap you mean WINSXS, generic drivers for nearly everything, and so on. Windows 7 Kernel on the other hand appears to come out to just under half the size of Vista's kernel. This would suggest they've done some heavy optimizations and moved some non-critical functionality to live outisde of kernel runtime segment to reduce overheads.

Driver support was fault of vendors hardly Microsofts problem as they even supplied WDK while Vista was still in Alpha builds, had DX10 API ready around build 51xx, even went out of their way to personally assist the vendors programmers in understanding and porting over their kernel mode driver functions to new updated models. If thats any fault of MS we leave in a twisted world.

This time round MS got tough and told all vendors either have drivers ready by RTM or there will be no driver certification and signing being for that vendor, ie. working drivers or none at all. All drivers will be need to meet WDK certification before RTM to be authorized to be loaded during boot initialization from what I recall.

Pre-OS kernel mode driver loading has been heavily optimized by multithreading and a huge overhaul to how interrupts, ports, PCI devices, and so on are given time slices, and prioritizing/scheduling for IO access is leaps and bounds to Vista so to not get bus collisions and semaphore blocking. This is the reason that most of the driver models, ie WDDM has had a minor revision to 1.1, to ensure that 1) they aren't responsible for bus locks or worse, 2) they aren't counterproductive to the improvements made, and 3) vendors like ATI & NVidia ensure they meet strict criteria that MS have set out for it all to work right for you or I.

[HuffPCair]

MS Partners/TAP would all have the Beta1 build by now. Would have been shipped just before xmas, or shortly after. Plus they can download it from their TAP accounts, or the equivalent.

So if it's true he has it then he must be somebody who works close with Microsoft ;) If that's the case he wouldn't risk himself any recourse from MS over some guy on a forum asking for proof.

If it's not true, will you sleep better tonight knowing it isn't? I'll sleep just fine either way ;)

wow this was just useless because the beta got released early somehow. So in fact it wouldnt matter if he did work for microsoft. Also no I am not making a big deal about it I just want proof that there is a 64 bit one out already and if so then I would like a link. So thanks but next time just keep reading please



But for your last comment WOW that is a good comment lol...

[mikeyakame]

wow this was just useless because the beta got released early somehow. So in fact it wouldnt matter if he did work for microsoft. Also no I am not making a big deal about it I just want proof that there is a 64 bit one out already and if so then I would like a link. So thanks but next time just keep reading please

There isn't I can guarantee you that. So don't worry, there will be one within the next 36 or so hours, 48 at worst. ;)

[HuffPCair]

Ok that is all I was wanting to know.

Also do you just happen to work for Microsoft lol and if so thank you for backing up Vista on that last comment it gets annoying with everyone dissing on it when in fact it is a great OS. Runs smooth and beautifully. Windows 7 so far what I have seen is just as amazing.

[safan80]

backing up Vista on that last comment it gets annoying with everyone dissing on it when in fact it is a great OS. Runs smooth and beautifully. Windows 7 so far what I have seen is just as amazing.


vista has everyone's panties in a bunch but it's good enough for me that I've dumped 32bit Xp.

[mikeyakame]

Nah not at all. Just enjoy spending my time playing with buggy software and spend some of my spare time keeping up with the changes that MS implement, even if I don't get a chance to use them all that much. it's useful to know why things do what they do, especially for debugging and troubleshooting your own code. Honestly I just give respect where its deserved, and the grief given over Vista is hardly deserved at all. I was using it as primary OS from around build 54xx when it was stable enough for the system to stay up 2-3 weeks until it was time to install next build, and repeat. Drivers sucked from all parties, I remember having to use the generic VGA driver from MS without Aero when I first got a 8800GTS and spent over 2.5 months with no 3d graphics or themes because Nvidia didn't even have a half broken alpha driver build working for the G80s until about 2 weeks from when the RTM was launched to retail market.

I've experienced all the headaches, and funny thing I'll tell you when I had minimilist drivers installed, and they were all generic MS provided ones mind you because vendors hadn't come up with anything reasonably stable, I was getting 3-4 week uptimes on Vista RC0/1 builds. Never a BSOD or crash, soon as they got drivers out uptime dropped dramatically, to the point I'd struggle to keep it up more than 1.5 weeks because of either random BSOD's or frequent driver updates to fix those random BSOD's.

At the end of the day yeah Vista isn't perfect but its a sight better than XP ever was. Only reason I used XP was because Windows 2K became outdated and required the additional features XP had. XP in my experience and humble opinion was quite a poorly built OS, even though it was to Windows 2000, as Windows 7 is to Vista. SP2 came along and made it better but it was never perfect like most make it out to be. Kernel mode access was too lax and because of that stability was compromised by vendor driver devs cutting corners and bypassing MS safeguards to prevent crashes. Vista has it's flaws and Windows 7 is definitely a solid improvement on top of the stable foundations it set into stone.

I dread using Vista Sp2 now after using Windows 7 for the past week and a bit 24/7, and on and off for the months before that. Superbar, aero peek and all the other small improvements graphically and internally, and their implementation by MS dev teams is without a doubt delivered flawlessly.

I'm looking forward to MS releasing a beta Windows Platform SDK in the next couple of months so I can start playing around with the new features it brings. One of the cool ones I'm lookin forward to is DXVA2-HD, part of the WDDM 1.1 driver model and its purpose briefed at WinHEC. While to most it means nothing, the DXVA2-HD interface of WDDM 1.1 means that both ATI & NV will have Hardware Acceleration interface exposed in their drivers and can be accessed via new API functionality, and reduces alot of the code required to handle DXVA2 through directshow apps. Also means they will both correctly implement it as per spec instead of doing however the hell they please right now. It's something that should have been done a while back.

[Helmore]

*snip*
I'm looking forward to MS releasing a beta Windows Platform SDK in the next couple of months so I can start playing around with the new features it brings. One of the cool ones I'm lookin forward to is DXVA2-HD, part of the WDDM 1.1 driver model and its purpose briefed at WinHEC. While to most it means nothing, the DXVA2-HD interface of WDDM 1.1 means that both ATI & NV will have Hardware Acceleration interface exposed in their drivers and can be accessed via new API functionality, and reduces alot of the code required to handle DXVA2 through directshow apps. Also means they will both correctly implement it as per spec instead of doing however the hell they please right now. It's something that should have been done a while back.

So that means that pretty much any media player can use GPU hardware acceleration to improve media playback? Or do many already use some form of acceleration and this is a much improved API on what is already out there (namely DXVA1 and 2)? These things are always useful to know when you want to build a cheap media center PC.

[mikeyakame]

So that means that pretty much any media player can use GPU hardware acceleration to improve media playback? Or do many already use some form of acceleration and this is a much improved API on what is already out there (namely DXVA1 and 2)? These things are always useful to know when you want to build a cheap media center PC.

Directshow and WPF will both have a common API for exposing hardware acceleration on enabled GPUs.

At present I know the paid for players have some form of DXVA2.

Media Player Classic HomeCinema is the only open source player I know of with a DXVA2 internal decoder that works pretty much as should on NV cards. It'll be updated to support DXVA2-HD API once the SDK comes out, as the examples aren't much to work with yet!

[MAS]

seven is just hardly tweaked Vista with next-gen Explorer and some additional gui features (eg. new type of windows' maximizing/minimizing)

but there are some troubles I found - daemon tools cannot install virtual dvd drive, Vantage fails to start, Serious Sam SE cannot run, etc

PS I noted Seven's tcpip.sys allows infinite half-open tcp connections

[mikeyakame]

MAS,

Not even MS said Win 7 would be anything else but an improvement on Vista, and a very well polished one at that.

Vantage works fine. 3DMark06 doesn't though, deprecated old .sys files that Futuremark need to update asap.

Daemon Tools has never worked on a Kernel compiled with full debug trap and verbosity enabled, and unless author of SPTD decides to go out of their way and provide a beta build that is tolerant of assembly based debug traps it's going to be the same routine as we had until Vista went on sale in retail. Use Ultra ISO, Virtual Clone Drive, PowerISO or a similar app. That's what everybody else is doing and the Vista beta testers did the same too. You can hassle DaemonSoft if you think you'll get somewhere but it's probably not worth while as the actual Daemon Tools is compatible, just not scsi pass through driver.

You try and run Serious Sam with admin privs and in compatibility mode? Most things will run unless they use really old deprecated libraries which is part of software getting old I guess.

Only things I've had problems with are:
Intel Chipset drivers not being updated for changes to way boot-time driver installation procedure is handled.
3DMark06 being broken at least in 64bit, as the Entech64.sys isn't signed and is now finally deprecated and needs rewriting, recompile and digital signing.
XBOX360 Wireless Receiver driver installation from Windows Update doesn't work right and proper installer from MS hardware site works correctly? *shrug*
UltraISO's VirtualDrive refusing to install any Microsoft Images that are mounted to a enumerated scsi drive, but work fine if i do a full copy to a local disk and install like that. Had no problems mounting my games and other apps with it and installing straight.
Firefox 3.0x doesn't support the new superbar tab preview, but 3.1b2 supports it and preview appears to be working as it does in IE8.

If I can think of any more i'll make a note.

[Helmore]

Directshow and WPF will both have a common API for exposing hardware acceleration on enabled GPUs.

At present I know the paid for players have some form of DXVA2.

Media Player Classic HomeCinema is the only open source player I know of with a DXVA2 internal decoder that works pretty much as should on NV cards. It'll be updated to support DXVA2-HD API once the SDK comes out, as the examples aren't much to work with yet!

Good to know, but how do you know that? Are you one of the contributors to MPC-HC? I really like Media player classic and have been using it for quite a while now, just a simple light media player that can handle a lot of video formats and no-nonsense. Just the way I want it when I only want to watch some video/movie/episode. So on the future any videocard that has a WDDM 1.1 driver will be able to provide proper hardware acceleration for MPC-HC? The current implementation seems to be picky about what hardware you have according to the site. (http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/DXVASupport.html)

[Pontos]

Good to know, but how do you know that? Are you one of the contributors to MPC-HC? I really like Media player classic and have been using it for quite a while now, just a simple light media player that can handle a lot of video formats and no-nonsense. Just the way I want it when I only want to watch some video/movie/episode. So on the future any videocard that has a WDDM 1.1 driver will be able to provide proper hardware acceleration for MPC-HC? The current implementation seems to be picky about what hardware you have according to the site. (http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/DXVASupport.html)

I use MPC-HC with an ATI RADEON HD3850, and both H264 and VC1 acceleration work great (using VMR9 no render mode).
It also did on Windows 7 build 7000 with catalyst 8.12 for Vista using EVR instead of VMR9 (Aero was enabled while playing).
It has the same limitations as the commercial codecs, regarding what type of H264 encodings it supports video acceleration with.

About troubles in my experience with Windows 7 build 7000:


Creative X-Fi drivers would not install unless I run the installer with Vista Compatibility on.
Perguardian 2.0 would not install its driver (.sys file). This was with x86 version of Win7, so it was not a digital signature problem. Rivatuner 2.21 did install its driver though.
Some codecs (.ax) would not register no matter what. In this case, two modified Nero splitters and codecs to handle MOV files through the DirectShow engine (these came with older versions of Quicktime Alternative).
Winrar 3.80 thirty days trial period ended right after installing it...
Many times explorer.exe and some other process/service would slow down the shutdown process, up to 3 minutes...
Creative control panel would not synchronize the speaker setup with Windows internal configuration. So even if I set up 5.1 channels in Creative control panel, if Windows had it as 2/2.1 then it would work as such.


Aside from that, it worked great.

[LowRun]

Watch out for your MP3s if you use W7 build 7000.


Windows 7 build 7000, which leaked less than two weeks ago, has a data corruption issue when playing back MP3s using Windows Media Player 12

read the whole story here: http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2009/01/05/warning-wmp12-beta-could-corrupt-your-mp3s

[fireice2]

Will wait for this before going 64-bit. hehehe

[HuffPCair]

Hmm weird I have all my stuff on a external for backup but I did not know that. I actually like the new features in windows media and windows 7 combined. Specially like the controls from taskbar also. I hope they fix that problem soon though.

Even though it doesnt realyl effect me to much since when I do switch over to W7 I will be using iTunes, but still just another problem that needs to be fixed.


Also has anyone else ran across the bug in system info where it shows a different GHz for your CPU. Mine is showing 3.95GHz (which I wish was true) but I am running at 3.5GHz... CPU-z shows right but windows does not..WTF????

[safm]

I already tried Windows 7 Beta, and it seems to be faster than Vista.

[HuffPCair]

I already tried Windows 7 Beta, and it seems to be faster than Vista.

It definitely runs smoother I think. I still would like to see some charts on it though.

[mikeyakame]

MSDN low level OS subscribers should be receiving Beta1 during CES over next couple of days. Public beta is looking like it may be ~ 2 weeks after MSDN subscribers get it.
64bit Beta1 Image will be making an appearance on day 1 of CES, so guess it means we wait 2 weeks for an MS issued key. ;)

[HuffPCair]

MSDN low level OS subscribers should be receiving Beta1 during CES over next couple of days. Public beta is looking like it may be ~ 2 weeks after MSDN subscribers get it.
64bit Beta1 Image will be making an appearance on day 1 of CES, so guess it means we wait 2 weeks for an MS issued key. ;)

Awww mannnn o well I can wait a little longer.

[safm]

I want to try the 64 bit version.

[mikeyakame]

Hmm weird I have all my stuff on a external for backup but I did not know that. I actually like the new features in windows media and windows 7 combined. Specially like the controls from taskbar also. I hope they fix that problem soon though.

Even though it doesnt realyl effect me to much since when I do switch over to W7 I will be using iTunes, but still just another problem that needs to be fixed.


Also has anyone else ran across the bug in system info where it shows a different GHz for your CPU. Mine is showing 3.95GHz (which I wish was true) but I am running at 3.5GHz... CPU-z shows right but windows does not..WTF????

Vista does the same thing, MS reads the cpu clock ticks from timestamp counter (RDTSC instruction) to calculate frequency. Timestamp counter is fixed tick interval (fsb clock freq * max_cpu_multiplier) though so speedstep doesn't interfere with it, and is a reliable method unless you change your multiplier ;)

[dan7777]

from my source 64bit cuming between the 9th and 14th so hopefully at the earliest 9th :) im useing WIN 7 64bit 6801 version had no real problems only few games wouldnt work.

[TheKarmakazi]

I cannot get CPU Tweaker or Memset 4.0 B6 to run in W7b7000. Cpu-z read everything fine though

[safm]

Let's see how it work...

[mikeyakame]

Another app to add for incompatible at present.

Lightscribe Software v1.17.90.1 :- Installer wont pass OS version check, even in compatibility mode. v1.14.251 works though, but uninstall is broken not elevating MSI Installer to admin. Need to execute installer/uninstaller from elevated command prompt and works.

Apps to add for Compatibility.
Farstone Virtual Drive Home/Pro latest build is working great for image mounting on virtual dvd drives.
Fraps 2.9.7 working good no problems.

O&O Defrag v11.1.3326 x86 & x64 working but pre-OS offline defrag status to the display is broken by new graphical boot ui, appears as a narrow band of green and black top of screen but offline defrag works. Gotta report it to their support so it gets fixed before RTM.

[dinos22]

this article is a load of crap

show us real numbers

[mikeyakame]

this article is a load of crap

show us real numbers

HAHA! What article though? If you are telling me this thread was about an article I shall find it hilarious! :D

It actually is faster though even at present incomplete state. That I can confirm for you Dinos, benchmarks won't really give correct data until all the debug traps and such are removed from compiled kernel code. Still with all the extra overhead it's performing top notch!

[MAS]

Watch out for your MP3s if you use W7 build 7000.



read the whole story here: http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2009/01/05/warning-wmp12-beta-could-corrupt-your-mp3s

no

I've been listening to the music for two weeks using WMP12 and found no crashes. All is working fine.

The only thing I dislike - I cannot install GTA4 :mad:

[shiznit93]

PS I noted Seven's tcpip.sys allows infinite half-open tcp connections
I was worried about this, how did you find this out? What if Event ID is simply suppressed and we have no idea when windows hits the 10 half-open limit?

[mikeyakame]

no

I've been listening to the music for two weeks using WMP12 and found no crashes. All is working fine.

The only thing I dislike - I cannot install GTA4 :mad:

Doesn't effect everybody, I'd say its only certain mp3s and it's probably mp3's that have digital rights attached to them. None of my MP3's do so I can't say that for certain. Question needs to be asked though.

[MAS]

shiznit93
with a special software

besides, p2p works fine without tcpip.sys patch - I can upload/download 200 torrents at 30 Mbps and open http pages without any trouble

I think MS will reduce half-open connections quantity as it will concern final Seven release

[Neuuubeh]

What issue? You say alot but there aint really coming anything out.

So besides whining. What is wrong with Vista?

If you mention some ancient hardware that your supplier couldnt be bothered to make a driver for. Then you are out of luck with ANY future OS.

My thoughts exactly. Tho tbh I dont know what he means with "driver issues" related to "engineering apps"..

The biggest issue with Vista isnt hardware support imo. It's hordes of software developers who get torn between trying to develop versions for the new thing (aka Vista) and at the same time having to support all the users still using the old thing (XP..). Most of the larger companies have no problems doing that (Adobe, Autodesk all have perfectly working Vista apps afaik?). But the small ones definitely hit some pretty hard walls. And its basically the small developers who provide innovation today - not the big ones.

Its all about the money.. MS has to push some new OS out, the developers have to take good care of their customers (piracy defo doesnt help either) and that kinda results in a big problem.

Blindly hating on Microsoft is quite lame tho. Apple on the other hand... :rofl:


:up:

[dinos22]

HAHA! What article though? If you are telling me this thread was about an article I shall find it hilarious! :D

It actually is faster though even at present incomplete state. That I can confirm for you Dinos, benchmarks won't really give correct data until all the debug traps and such are removed from compiled kernel code. Still with all the extra overhead it's performing top notch!

i tried it myself too you know :p:

[mikeyakame]

i tried it myself too you know :p:

Then you can be a cool Aussie like me too ;) We need more cool aussies around here taking over thems forums :D

Linpack performance in pretty crappy though right now. Had to switch back to Vista to get consistent enough results for fine tuning my FSB.

[renzokuken]

I'm really looking forward to Windows 7 now, I wasn't before reading this article mind you. I have to say I'm still disappointed that it's going to be available in both x86 and x64 editions, but it looks like Windows 7 might actually be a good OS...it couldn't come soon enough if you ask me.

[mikeyakame]

And drum roll....

Windows 7 6.1.7000 64bit Beta1 ISO has fallen from their grace. Won't be long now till it spreads around the internet ;)

File: 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO
Size: 3387009024 bytes (3.15 GB)
MD5: 773fc9cc60338c612af716a2a14f177d
SHA-1: E09FDBC1CB3A92CF6CC872040FDAF65553AB62A5

the X in filename specifies 64bit build.

[Dragy2k]

beta testers only or can any try it out ??

[mstp2009]

Been running it for about 3 hours now.


It's fast and stable so far.


MS might have something good on their hands . . . for a change.

[mikeyakame]

I'm at 95% ;( My country and its international traffic transit via kangaroo. We need faster roos.

[shanems3]

orbit has released it on a bay of pirates, x64 that is...

[Revv23]

very exiting!!

I might get an old HDD out of retirement just for this :)

[mikeyakame]

I now know why the 64bit wasn't leaked same time as 32bit ;)

[HuffPCair]

I cant seem to find a good copy anywhere but I want that 64 bit lol

[shiznit93]

running the 32bit 7000 build for a couple days now, very very impressive. I already liked Vista a lot (after hating it) and this is even better. new taskbar is very good and start-search is even better.

my only beef is that cs:s won't load unless i disable my secondary monitor and the forceware 185.20s didn't create 1440x900 resolution and they won't let me add it manually.

[mikeyakame]

why not use the proper wddm 1.1 drivers nvidia supplied via windows update? 179.23

the performance with wddm 1.0 drivers isn't as good as with the wddm 1.1

[MAS]

I now know why the 64bit wasn't leaked same time as 32bit ;)

find seven differences ;)

http://i056.radikal.ru/0901/15/e841a6c9dd23.png

[shanems3]

how are you running dx11 when there are no dx11 video cards, is dx11 back compatible with 10?

[flopper]

how are you running dx11 when there are no dx11 video cards, is dx11 back compatible with 10?

windows 7 is dx11.

and yes, its somewhat compatible backwards as windows 7 introduces a new emulation, you can even run games using cpu only, be rdy for slideshow tho.

[shiznit93]

why not use the proper wddm 1.1 drivers nvidia supplied via windows update? 179.23

the performance with wddm 1.0 drivers isn't as good as with the wddm 1.1
I don't get it, why use older drivers?

edit: ok so i'm running these drivers now and something is very wrong. They treat my freaking CRT as a monitor of 2304x1440 native resolution and scale ever lower resolution!!! no matter what I select I get a scaled 2304x1440@80hz this is :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing ridiculous.

back to 185.20, at least they let me use my crt the way it was meant to be used.

edit 2: just installed 181.20 whql and I have 1440x900 now listed as it should be, creating custom resolutions works ok as well. 179.23 can go to hell.

edit 3: spoke too soon, a custom resolution disappears as soon as I make another one. back to 185.20

[Spawne32]

cant wait to give it a shot, i went back to XP after using two different versions of vista and threw my vista cd's out, utter junk. If windows 7 doesnt meet my requirements ill probably be making the switch to a mac despite my better judgement.

[HuffPCair]

Just got W7 beta 7000 x64 downloaded and burning to DVD right now. Cant wait to get it started and going to see how much better the 64 bit verision is over the 32 bit.

[mikeyakame]

I don't get it, why use older drivers?

edit: ok so i'm running these drivers now and something is very wrong. They treat my freaking CRT as a monitor of 2304x1440 native resolution and scale ever lower resolution!!! no matter what I select I get a scaled 2304x1440@80hz this is :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing ridiculous.

back to 185.20, at least they let me use my crt the way it was meant to be used.

edit 2: just installed 181.20 whql and I have 1440x900 now listed as it should be, creating custom resolutions works ok as well. 179.23 can go to hell.

edit 3: spoke too soon, a custom resolution disappears as soon as I make another one. back to 185.20

http://www.smartdevicecentral.com/print_article/Microsoft+Windows+7+NextGen+Graphics/233812.aspx

read this and you'll soon understand why using wddm 1.0 drivers isn't recommended if wddm 1.1 are available. give it time and nvidia will have wddm 1.1 drivers that work on par with current wddm 1.0, windows 7 is still at least 9-10 months from RTM so don't expect miracles as yet. If you get driver related bugs then feedback to microsoft with wddm 1.0 will be useless and waste their time. no doubt all official beta testers will be recommended to use latest drivers supporting driver model of windows 7 for consistency.

[derektm]

cant wait to give it a shot, i went back to XP after using two different versions of vista and threw my vista cd's out, utter junk. If windows 7 doesnt meet my requirements ill probably be making the switch to a mac despite my better judgement.

You need to add a big IMHO to that. I also disliked Vista a lot at first, but after using it for a couple of weeks, it's in a whole different league than XP. It really is a great OS. A lot of people will say it sucks. Some are afraid of change.

[mikeyakame]

Dont worry he's exactly the type of end-user Apple can take away from Microsoft. ;)

[randomizer]

I'm just using the pre-installed WDDM 1.1 drivers. They appear to work fine, although they don't have OpenGL support it seems (Can't play Serious Same in OpenGL :(). Functional drivers should have been integrated into Vista too, it's really handy not having to look at the Basic GUI at all, and not having my video card fan scream for a while until I install real drivers.

[mikeyakame]

i definitely agree on that, it's such a nice feature! only build I used that didn't have integrated wddm 1.1 drivers was 6801, but even that had them available from windows update!

[shiznit93]

I was expecting some problems, but scaling a crt down from its highest possible resolution? that's just crazy and I can't see how that could be a bug.

[mikeyakame]

yeah there is another thing like for example being locked to 59hz instead of 60hz on a lcd. dont exactly know what the problem is but for now it's not a big concern to me at least. I suppose on the other hand the bug you have is!

[LagunaX]

Someone post some comparison runs of 3dmark06/vantage on vista vs. windows 7 (identical hardware) already!

[mikeyakame]

3dmark06 isn't working in x64 didn't try it in x86. Kernel mode drivers it uses need to be updated they cause general protection fault.

vantage isn't performing upto scratch yet, wddm 1.0 drivers perform less than expected, wddm 1.1 perform a bit better but there is still the overhead of being a checked kernel, ie debug traps and all that so the performance isn't up to par what it will be on the unchecked RTM later this year.

I'll do a vantage run on x64 with Nvidia 179.23 wddm 1.1

Edit: Here we go.

Windows 7 Beta 1 Builld 6.1.7000 x64 Nvidia Pre-Release WDDM 1.1 179.23

Vantage is ~650-700 points less than Vista Sp2 beta with 180.84. Which is pretty good imho.

Vista w/ 180.84 but gpu clocks are slightly higher , 730 core, 1566 shader, 2700 memory. You can clearly see the 180 branch of drivers are much more optimized in Vista for Vantage but 179.23 wddm 1.1 pre-release seem to do quite well in comparison!

[HuffPCair]

Not bad. Wonder what ATI will do compared to Nvidia

[shanems3]

i got it installed vista 64bit.. about to run vantage.. ati 4850 in crossfire..

edit, nevermind, cant run vantage, min resolution not met, i have widescreen, that sucks.. i will have to find another monitor.. wont be till late saturday before i can bench it..

[mikeyakame]

Windows 7 public beta online here. So sign up and get your keys :up:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx

Edit: Never mind dd code works with US eval center too so here you guys go!

;)

Edit: Hmm appears it's half working should be up soon though for us to use Keep an eye out!

[shanems3]

yeah, keep getting error, it prolly wont work until the 13, is that when it is supposed to be released??

[Helmore]

It's supposed to be released today in the afternoon, probably US east coast time (pacific) though. So we still will have to wait a while.

[N19h7m4r3]

Yeah I can't wait :D

[The Coolest]

The microsoft site seems to be quite dead, or is it just me? I'm at work right now but it was working when I was home.
Could be that it is hammered so bad that it's timing out in Firefox?

*Edit:* in IE I get
Service Unavailable
HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable

I guess people want to try out Windows 7 pretty badly :p:

[Altered_Soul]

^ I had had that issue for a bit, but I am refreshing at a normal pace now and it is working just fine now (Firefox).

Hoping to get a key :).

[Revv23]

Ok im using beta 7000 64bit right now and I would say it's as fast as XP easily. This is with eye candy on xp had eye candy off... I have services down to 25 at boot so likely that helps. (thanks BV)

My two gripes so far is i cant figure out how to disable action center or UAC. (i can disable notifications but the services still run - not what i like for a light OS.) and I can't install my unsigned realtek network driver downloaded from windows update. The driver installs but then it wont work because it hasnt been signed, the only solution i have found is to roll back to an outdated driver.

[Revv23]

^ I had had that issue for a bit, but I am refreshing at a normal pace now and it is working just fine now (Firefox).

Hoping to get a key :).

just use the public unlimited ones:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/01/11/free-unlimited-activation-product-key-to-activate-windows-7-beta/

[shanems3]

got mine..

[HuffPCair]

Got my key finally yay

[Nano2k]

Guys your keys are nothing special anymore, there is a list of keys and the ones you are getting are from this list. No more individual keys since lunchtime European time.

[HuffPCair]

Im still happy so kiss it big man

[mikeyakame]

Indeed its so nice to see your Windows is activated!

[Garrett]

Yeah mikeyakame, I know the feeling :D

What I don't like though, with x64 here, that 3dmark06 won't work as said before, Vantage hangs at the "girl loading screen" Jane something...
GTA IV works perfect, but COD4 keeps crashing...
Think I'm gonna install Vista next to it... if possible.

for now my conclusion is that it's absolutely stable, if you don't play games :p:
It feels responsive like XP indeed, just needs work in the 3D department

-edit-
Oh I don't know if it's been described before but the "send feedback" in the upper right corner can be removed:

remove send feedback:
Run "regedit"

Open "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop"

Change "FeedbackToolEnabled" from the default "3" to "0"

Reboot/log off Done

[mikeyakame]

Vantage should work fine mate! Are you using the 1.0.1 hotfix? I've been using Vantage in x64 since build 6801 no problems at all. Are you using WDDM 1.1 drivers or WDDM 1.0? Make sure you install PhysX if using Nvidia drivers also. I've never had a problem with the pre-release WDDM 1.1 drivers from Nvidia and Vantage.

Actually did you install DirectX November Redist? If not that will probably be why Vantage doesn't work correctly. It requires 2 Installs, first will install and require reboot. Second will install DirectX libraries.

Link for x86 KB961367
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=24&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3da754008 b-d574-4e39-b4ba-67b859a242b7%26DisplayLang%3den

Link for x64 KB961367
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=23&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d0c56bf3 c-9370-4fda-b4c8-5dc63d55626d%26DisplayLang%3den

Link for DirectX November 2008 Redist
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=3&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d886acb5 6-c91a-4a8e-8bb8-9f20f1244a8e%26DisplayLang%3den

and for a final wooT! Windows 7 BETA Platform SDK baby for anybody who develops / compiles ;)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=2&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3da91dc12 a-fc94-4027-b67e-46bab7c5226c%26DisplayLang%3den

Edit:


-edit-
Oh I don't know if it's been described before but the "send feedback" in the upper right corner can be removed:

remove send feedback:
Run "regedit"

Open "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop"

Change "FeedbackToolEnabled" from the default "3" to "0"

Reboot/log off Done


heh believe it or not I make good use of the Send Feedback, and send feedback to MS when I come across problems with Installers, Apps, etc. It can only help them make Windows 7 a better OS!

[Garrett]

Vantage should work fine mate! Are you using the 1.0.1 hotfix? I've been using Vantage in x64 since build 6801 no problems at all. Are you using WDDM 1.1 drivers or WDDM 1.0? Make sure you install PhysX if using Nvidia drivers also. I've never had a problem with the pre-release WDDM 1.1 drivers from Nvidia and Vantage.

Actually did you install DirectX November Redist? If not that will probably be why Vantage doesn't work correctly. It requires 2 Installs, first will install and require reboot. Second will install DirectX libraries.

Link for x86 KB961367
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=24&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3da754008 b-d574-4e39-b4ba-67b859a242b7%26DisplayLang%3den

Link for x64 KB961367
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=23&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d0c56bf3 c-9370-4fda-b4c8-5dc63d55626d%26DisplayLang%3den

Link for DirectX November 2008 Redist
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=3&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d886acb5 6-c91a-4a8e-8bb8-9f20f1244a8e%26DisplayLang%3den

and for a final wooT! Windows 7 BETA Platform SDK baby for anybody who develops / compiles ;)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=2&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3da91dc12 a-fc94-4027-b67e-46bab7c5226c%26DisplayLang%3den

Edit:


heh believe it or not I make good use of the Send Feedback, and send feedback to MS when I come across problems with Installers, Apps, etc. It can only help them make Windows 7 a better OS!

Hotfix: yes
WDDM: wtf is that? (sorry I really don't know :shrug: )
DirectX november: nope :p:

And well about the feedback, some find it just irritating, not me but some...

[mikeyakame]

wddm = windows display driver model, 1.0 = vista, 1.1 = 7

if you are using vista display drivers, then you are using wddm 1.0, if pre-release win 7 then wddm 1.1

[Loque]

Uhm.. I got 3dmark2k6 working on the 64bit version, had nearly less 1000 points from vista64(18072) using the drivers that are on windows update.

[shiznit93]

any disadvantage to using wddm 1.0? css won't start with the pre-release driver.

[Zucker2k]

As per LagunaX's request...

Edit: First Vantage shot is Windows Vista x64 SP2
Second Vantage shot is Windows 7 Beta x64 Build 7000

[shanems3]

perty much what i can see is that 3d benching and cpu benching should be about the same as vista/xp, but the responsiveness of the system , and quickness from moving from application to application is alot better.... It is alot more refined and i havent found a single bug since i updated dirextx nov.

[ziddey]

just installed this on my laptop. fresh install. honestly, i still think it's junk compared to 2k/xp, but i'm an old fart. gotta say it was definitely a breeze to install and fast. better than when i beta'ed vista. seems a little on par with vista, but my vista was very tuned. maybe once i kill all this garbage, it'll get to xp levels. yeah right..

[Sly Fox]

just installed this on my laptop. fresh install. honestly, i still think it's junk compared to 2k/xp, but i'm an old fart. gotta say it was definitely a breeze to install and fast. better than when i beta'ed vista. seems a little on par with vista, but my vista was very tuned. maybe once i kill all this garbage, it'll get to xp levels. yeah right..

I didn't notice it being all that much better than Vista either.

Then again I tweak up my Vista a decent bit, so I'm sure that's a big part of it.

In any case, new software is nice. It's too bad that by the time Vista got decent most people had already given up. :rofl:

[mikeyakame]

While Vista has always been "decent" I guess I'll agree with you here in the eyes of the masses ;)

[ziddey]

nah. more like acceptable. still not prime time

[Sr7]

Just curious.. what are you guys using as a measure for how "fast" the beta OS seems? I'm not sure you could reasonably expect it to be perceptibly faster when just normally using the PC... unless maybe you're doing some specific benchmarks?

[Sly Fox]

While Vista has always been "decent" I guess I'll agree with you here in the eyes of the masses ;)

Well I suppose you probably are right ultimately.

I used Vista since day 1 and I've always supported it. For a long time the driver support, especially from Nvidia it seemed, was just terrible.

So many BSODs... So many.

Whether that's Microsoft's fault for changing the driver model is really debatable though.

[NapalmV5]

win7 faster than xp? lets not get our hopes too high..

final vista wasnt what the other vers were.. final win7 will not be what the other vers were/are/will be

for starters lets just hope final win7 is faster than vista.. if itll end up faster than xp aswell: bonus to cherish

[MsB]

Been playing with it all night and its deffinately just Vista with different interface. I did manage to run3d mark 06 and got 50 more points than last itme when I ran it. It's just vista with IE 8 I do like it though. It has all the problems my vista 64 had getting my logitech ms7 mouse working and had to go into windows and fiddle to get adobe flash to install so I could run EA Link on it so I could updeat BF2142. So Im in the process of getting it all tuned up. I like it better than vista. It set up My X-fi drivers though without a hitch and those were the most recent Vista drivers. I found that when installing programs the compatability application actually worked and just installed everything as vista compatable. when I run catalyst control center I tried to overclock my 3850 and it failed no matter what when I test the settings so I just oc'ed it anyway and it worked just fine. its the beta drivers Im sure. over all I like it just fine but I don't see any reason to update from vista 64 to it. I will use it and update it and install everything I use now till august and see if its something by then that I really want to get. I suspect it really just has a lot more back door Government/homeland security/ spy on us apps though. Just saying, I don't trust big bro I do like how the desktop background pics can be set to alternate at different intervals.

[TuKo]

Been playing with it all night and its deffinately just Vista with different interface. I did manage to run3d mark 06 and got 50 more points than last itme when I ran it. It's just vista with IE 8 I do like it though. It has all the problems my vista 64 had getting my logitech ms7 mouse working and had to go into windows and fiddle to get adobe flash to install so I could run EA Link on it so I could updeat BF2142. So Im in the process of getting it all tuned up. I like it better than vista. It set up My X-fi drivers though without a hitch and those were the most recent Vista drivers. I found that when installing programs the compatability application actually worked and just installed everything as vista compatable. when I run catalyst control center I tried to overclock my 3850 and it failed no matter what when I test the settings so I just oc'ed it anyway and it worked just fine. its the beta drivers Im sure. over all I like it just fine but I don't see any reason to update from vista 64 to it. I will use it and update it and install everything I use now till august and see if its something by then that I really want to get. I suspect it really just has a lot more back door Government/homeland security/ spy on us apps though. Just saying, I don't trust big bro I do like how the desktop background pics can be set to alternate at different intervals.

Guy, remember that Win7 is currently in beta 1 stage. Vista is final.

[shiznit93]

been using the 32bit since it leaked and the 64bit for a few days, I am very impressed. I already thought that Vista after SP1 was the best OS that MS ever made but this is even better. The UI is even better but it definitely feels faster, maybe not like XP but that's splitting hairs really. The taskbar is very nice, and start-search is faster. Nvidia drivers don't let me make more than one custom resolution/refresh rate at a time but I can live with it since other than 1280x800@120hz which already works I only need 1600x1000@100hz, hopefully soon the drivers will catch up but it't not nearly the mess it was when Vista first came out, that was a nightmare for any Nvidia user. X-FI, Intel motherboard and storage matrix drivers installed just fine in Vista compatibility mode, AntiVir seems to work and Vista Firewall Control is a very easy way to control outgoing protection until Comodo starts working with 7. Now if only Even Balance would update the Punkbuster files for COD4 so I don't get kicked every time I join a server...

[mikeyakame]

been using the 32bit since it leaked and the 64bit for a few days, I am very impressed. I already thought that Vista after SP1 was the best OS that MS ever made but this is even better. The UI is even better but it definitely feels faster, maybe not like XP but that's splitting hairs really. The taskbar is very nice, and start-search is faster. Nvidia drivers don't let me make more than one custom resolution/refresh rate at a time but I can live with it since other than 1280x800@120hz which already works I only need 1600x1000@100hz, hopefully soon the drivers will catch up but it't not nearly the mess it was when Vista first came out, that was a nightmare for any Nvidia user. X-FI, Intel motherboard and storage matrix drivers installed just fine in Vista compatibility mode, AntiVir seems to work and Vista Firewall Control is a very easy way to control outgoing protection until Comodo starts working with 7. Now if only Even Balance would update the Punkbuster files for COD4 so I don't get kicked every time I join a server...

Have you tried using the "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" aka advanced firewall control WMI for incoming/outgoing specifics?

Edit:

Other thing is 3Dmark06 miraculously works now! Weird but hey, whatever the problem was in previous builds it fixed itself? All good to me!

[dan7777]

win 7 x64 7000 version much faster than vista & xp put together ive used um all much better dx11 supported more fps in games vista sucks win 7 is future and is better now than vista sp2 lol so it beats vista already.

[shiznit93]

Have you tried using the "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" aka advanced firewall control WMI for incoming/outgoing specifics?
yea I did just couldn't figure out the rules. vista firewall control automates it with a nice popup when a program is trying to dial out.

[zsamz_]

win 7 x64 7000 version much faster than vista & xp put together ive used um all much better dx11 supported more fps in games vista sucks win 7 is future and is better now than vista sp2 lol so it beats vista already.

yes it is
but i wish ie8 would stop crashing @ certain forums
it can only get better but as is its better than vista

[mikeyakame]

ie8 is still early release candidate stage, its a lot less buggy than it was at beta1 haha ;)

[Vinas]

If Vista was that good I guess they wouldn't need a 7? Many people I know have used Vista only to upgrade back to XP again. Vista = huge fail and Windows 7 = a step in the right direction. Gosh this really is just like the ME thing all over again.

[mikeyakame]

Dude no offense but stop right there and get your facts straight, and anybody who uses "= huge fail" in a sentence is doomed for failure.

The reason any operating system has a successor is because of improvements. 95 was good was that a reason to not bring out 98? 2000 was great hell why even release XP by your logic? Vista was good in terms of driver models and kernel, and windows 7 is an improvement on that. Simple as that. None of this "ME catastrophe" crap in this thread please.

Myself and others are trying to use this thread to inform, educate and share information of our experiences, not to spread fud and talk smack. Take a little time before you post and think about what you are posting and where you are posting it. There are plenty of threads all around the internet for Vista hating go join one of those if that is your intentions.

[RealTelstar]

Vista just got a bad name due to high hardware requirements for the time.
Vista with SP1 is the best MS OS so far.

Just finished installing the build 7000: no improvement in the drivers department, i.e. lots of yellow "!". No good.

[Reznik Akime]

I like it. :shrug:

People these days. Comparing Vista to ME and then complaining that "LULZ!!!11 NEVAR FAST AS XP!" crap. Again, what are you using to compare speed? Just what it feels like? Maybe 3DMark? (Insert jerking motion)

The brain is a powerful, self preserving tool that always wants you to look in the right no matter how wrong you could be.

XP is old, mature technology. Vista had rewrites to several areas and has only been out for just two years. If you don't like it, write your own OS? Move to Linux, Unix or the other flavors? How about Mac?

I love the internets. I really do. Did I mention I also love people?

I just hate the combination of the above two.

[Clint]

Just curious.. what are you guys using as a measure for how "fast" the beta OS seems? I'm not sure you could reasonably expect it to be perceptibly faster when just normally using the PC... unless maybe you're doing some specific benchmarks?

Heh, subjective feelings like "snappy" and "smooth" is the usual "benchmark" when praising Vista or Win7.:rolleyes:

[mikeyakame]

I'd personally say the boot time is a good aggregate to show improvements over Vista. My system boots to desktop in ~15-20 seconds or so with build 7000, Vista SP2 is at least 35-40 seconds for me. Indexing is much more balanced also and not so aggressive. Shutdown times are blazing did I mention that too! This is with OS on a 4 disk raid 0 array and quad core.

I use O&O Defrag and defragment the OS drive using Complete/Name which seems to give the most consistent boot times as it organises the file system by the order that drivers and system files are loaded. This would be nulled void for an SSD but since I haven't moved to one yet this seems best for a HDD array.

[RealTelstar]

Yep, i also noticed quicker boot time vs vista64.

[RPGWiZaRD]

Heh, subjective feelings like "snappy" and "smooth" is the usual "benchmark" when praising Vista or Win7.:rolleyes:

Idd, I've love to see some benchmarks. Comments like it feels snappier and faster means nothing to me. So much talk so little facts. I did some comparisions between XP and W7 build 6956 but W7 is like tiny bit faster than Vista overall in CPU/RAM/system department and most often just tiny bit behind XP or about the same which is good but when it comes to 3D performance, I see no improvements in W7 over Vista, still lacking behind a bit when it comes to GPU heavy usages, some games which are newer with some DX10 support will have advantage of course but if you look at pure DX9 games then the story is usually different.

[JudgmentJay]

Build 7000 feels at least as fast as XP SP3 to me if not faster... after disabling everything possible that is. I really like the new taskbar and some of the new interface features, but I have a few GUI-related gripes that hopefully get ironed out before release. All in all I'm pleased.

[tw3aK]

win7 is amazing. Snappy as hell. I ran it for a couple of days and I loved the feel.

But I had to go back to vista due to too many bugs with win7. The main reason .. punkbuster was fuggin up. I need my battlefield! Daemon tools was borked also. I guess I will just wait for them to update some crap for win7. Its nice but too beta still.

ps If anyone has a fix for pb let me know!

[MsB]

I can't play bf 2142 with it. I keep getting a punkbuster error code and kicked. Its says API something or other unknown. I'll get in today and make sure PB is updated and try again.

[tw3aK]

I can't play bf 2142 with it. I keep getting a punkbuster error code and kicked. Its says API something or other unknown. I'll get in today and make sure PB is updated and try again.

exactly the problem. Updating pb wont fix it :(

[Kingcarcas]

Both of my Vista rigs boot in 20 seconds....

[MsB]

exactly the problem. Updating pb wont fix it :(

Yeah I went to PB forums and found out that even balance doesnt and won't support beta OS"S. THats so :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty. :bs: me hates PB

[tw3aK]

Yeah I went to PB forums and found out that even balance doesnt and won't support beta OS"S. THats so :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty. :bs: me hates PB

Yep as soon as I found that out i went back to vista.

[MsB]

Hers the 50 million dollar question. Will Win 7 have a back door to like vista ultimate did so you can actually buy the upgrade and install as full without having a previous disk or destroying the serial on a previously owned copy of vista or xp? I hope so. If so I will snap it up immediatly

[flopper]

no issues playing BF2 using w7 64-bit.

[MsB]

no issues playing BF2 using w7 64-bit.

hmm I will try installing bf2, have you tried 2142?

[Revv23]

Well I've got an issue now... for some reason my HDD boot priority has been locked so i can only boot win7... i have to unplug all of my other drives to get back into XP...

Maybe you just can't teach an old dog new tricks - but im done with win 7 for now... I hate it when there are features i can't turn off or it decides to lock my boot priority to protect me from myself... i dunno maybe by the time it comes out officially someone will have figured out how to make a version without all the crap (like action center - lol)

Meanwhile I have to figure out how to get access to my own computers boot priority settings.

[Helmore]

Well the "Beta" moniker must have some meaning to it and this could be one of its quirks. Oh and about all that "crap", I don't consider it to be crap and think it's quite useful actually. Well maybe I prefer the convenience of getting things done easy, instead of doing it the hard way.

[shanems3]

have you tried EasyBCD ... should fix your problem..

Well I've got an issue now... for some reason my HDD boot priority has been locked so i can only boot win7... i have to unplug all of my other drives to get back into XP...

Maybe you just can't teach an old dog new tricks - but im done with win 7 for now... I hate it when there are features i can't turn off or it decides to lock my boot priority to protect me from myself... i dunno maybe by the time it comes out officially someone will have figured out how to make a version without all the crap (like action center - lol)

Meanwhile I have to figure out how to get access to my own computers boot priority settings.

[randomizer]

Gosh this really is just like the ME thing all over again.

No, because Vista was an Operating System, whereas ME was an Unoperational System.

[Revv23]

Well the "Beta" moniker must have some meaning to it and this could be one of its quirks. Oh and about all that "crap", I don't consider it to be crap and think it's quite useful actually. Well maybe I prefer the convenience of getting things done easy, instead of doing it the hard way.

I don't know what is easier about MS telling me that I don't have a virus scanner and I don't know whats easier about having MS ask me before I change any system settings. I also don't know what is easier about having these services running at all times with no way to disable them using services.msc.

Maybe a registry edit can shut them off... but the again, that would be "harder" and obviously you couldn't handle that.

Sorry for being rude. But you certainly started it. You are entitled to your opinion just as I am. Enjoy your crap.

[shanems3]

No, because Vista was an Operating System, whereas ME was an Unoperational System.

so true, so true...

[MsB]

no issues playing BF2 using w7 64-bit.

I tried playing it and it kicks me as well. You need to try it on multiplayer. PB doesnt like win 7

[mikeyakame]

I don't know what is easier about MS telling me that I don't have a virus scanner and I don't know whats easier about having MS ask me before I change any system settings. I also don't know what is easier about having these services running at all times with no way to disable them using services.msc.

Maybe a registry edit can shut them off... but the again, that would be "harder" and obviously you couldn't handle that.

Sorry for being rude. But you certainly started it. You are entitled to your opinion just as I am. Enjoy your crap.

You can go into action center and tell it that you will supply your own virus scanner and dont check for it. There is an option in plain sight for that.

*nix and OSX are the same, you need to be root account to make system changes or enter details to change system settings. Microsoft is just doing what they should have done years ago.

Last thing I don't know what you mean so can't offer any insight there.

[Kashii]

Question for those that tested the magical 7; Is the dreaded atimdag.sys still an issue? I keep having "display driver stopped working" every 2 days, and no real fix afaik. I'm really hoping it'd be fixed in windows 7, so that I can actually enjoy having some uptime, instead of having to reboot every 2 days.

[flopper]

I tried playing it and it kicks me as well. You need to try it on multiplayer. PB doesnt like win 7

What I did was,
download Punkbuster software into bf2 map PB, run the punkbuster,
update all PB files.
Make sure run BF2 in compatibility mode for windows xp.
Run as Adminstrator also.
This got to be set manually btw.

Played online with my clan, owned them all.
Not due to the OS tho.....:ROTF:

No issue with Punkbuster online.

BF2 is buggy as hell, Dice dropped the ball on their games.

[MsB]

What I did was,
download Punkbuster software into bf2 map PB, run the punkbuster,
update all PB files.
Make sure run BF2 in compatibility mode for windows xp.
Run as Adminstrator also.
This got to be set manually btw.

Played online with my clan, owned them all.
Not due to the OS tho.....:ROTF:

No issue with Punkbuster online.

BF2 is buggy as hell, Dice dropped the ball on their games.

Cool I got it to run too by running in xp compatability and as administrater. Thanks. Now if If I can just get 2142 to run.

[tw3aK]

Cool I got it to run too by running in xp compatability and as administrater. Thanks. Now if If I can just get 2142 to run.

How come that works for you but not me! Life is so unfair.:(

[MsB]

How come that works for you but not me! Life is so unfair.:(

first run the PB prgram for updateing your PB. when you right click on the exe to start the game, run the compatibility thing for xp then when the game starts save that settings for compatability then stop the game and restart as administrator and see if it works. I cant seem to get special forces to install now. but hey its just cool to be able to play bf2 :D

[Helmore]

How is BF2 performing for you? The same as Vista I presume? Just curious, that's all.

[trans am]

What I did was,
download Punkbuster software into bf2 map PB, run the punkbuster,
update all PB files.
Make sure run BF2 in compatibility mode for windows xp.
Run as Adminstrator also.
This got to be set manually btw.

Played online with my clan, owned them all.
Not due to the OS tho.....:ROTF:

No issue with Punkbuster online.



Does that really work? I Reverted back to vista after having the PB issues in BF2 PR mod. some servers I didn't get kicked from and some servers would kick me. I'll try it again.
As far as using a s gaming os. its pretty good. It seemed more stable than vista and maps would load faster. crossfire works fine with 2 4850's using the beta ati windows 7 driver.

[Sparky]

Question for those that tested the magical 7; Is the dreaded atimdag.sys still an issue? I keep having "display driver stopped working" every 2 days, and no real fix afaik. I'm really hoping it'd be fixed in windows 7, so that I can actually enjoy having some uptime, instead of having to reboot every 2 days.

You get that in vista? I run my PC for days, weeks 24/7, never had that :shrug:

[trans am]

You get that in vista? I run my PC for days, weeks 24/7, never had that :shrug:


All those rigs in your sig? whats your electric bill like?

[Helmore]

All those rigs in your sig? whats your electric bill like?

I guess he has that avatar for a reason :p:

[Revv23]

You can go into action center and tell it that you will supply your own virus scanner and dont check for it. There is an option in plain sight for that.



Obviously.

But then action center is still running isn't it? If you read my post you would see that I want it disabled. Just like UAC... you can turn of prompting, but UAC is still running.

[Jamesrt2004]

Obviously.

But then action center is still running isn't it? If you read my post you would see that I want it disabled. Just like UAC... you can turn of prompting, but UAC is still running.

i guess we just need to wait for an official windows 7 version of "vlite" which will just remove it from ever being installed their :)


*touches wood* hopefully it's soon!

[shanems3]

question guys, is WARP currently in this build of 7??? and how can we tell if its running?

[Helmore]

i guess we just need to wait for an official windows 7 version of "vlite" which will just remove it from ever being installed their :)


*touches wood* hopefully it's soon!

Shouldn't that be something like '7lite'? ;)

[shanems3]

"Blackcomb was renamed Vienna in early 2006,[7] and again to Windows 7 in 2007.[2] In 2008, it was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system"

interesting bit... Windows 7 will be its final name..

[tw3aK]

first run the PB prgram for updateing your PB. when you right click on the exe to start the game, run the compatibility thing for xp then when the game starts save that settings for compatability then stop the game and restart as administrator and see if it works. I cant seem to get special forces to install now. but hey its just cool to be able to play bf2 :D

I will give that a try. thanks

[randomizer]

Question for those that tested the magical 7; Is the dreaded atimdag.sys still an issue? I keep having "display driver stopped working" every 2 days, and no real fix afaik. I'm really hoping it'd be fixed in windows 7, so that I can actually enjoy having some uptime, instead of having to reboot every 2 days.

You're wanting M$ to fix a problem with ATI's drivers?

[mikeyakame]

You're wanting M$ to fix a problem with ATI's drivers?

Apparently so. SOunds more like a hardware issue, ie clocks too high but could be driver related too.

[Kingcarcas]

ZOMG! I'm trying out VirtualBox and Win7 at the same time:D

I'm just not cool with installing it over a perfectly stable Vista install, even on the 2nd PC.

[Kashii]

You're wanting M$ to fix a problem with ATI's drivers?

Of course, especially because it is a Vista API causing troubles in the first place. I'm one of the thousands of users that has issues with it and unless they don't take action with ATI together, I'm screwed.


Apparently so. SOunds more like a hardware issue, ie clocks too high but could be driver related too.

Stock clocks made no difference, nor does a RMA work. Trust me, people have RMA'd whole new systems, just to get the exact same :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: on new gear.

[HuffPCair]

Of course, especially because it is a Vista API causing troubles in the first place. I'm one of the thousands of users that has issues with it and unless they don't take action with ATI together, I'm screwed.



Stock clocks made no difference, nor does a RMA work. Trust me, people have RMA'd whole new systems, just to get the exact same :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: on new gear.

Umm it is not Ms problem to have a company fix there stuff it is that companies. MS gives out all the info any company needs to make a driver that will work so do not blame MS blame ATI.

I dont get these people that keep pointing at MS for all there crap. It is really the companies making the drivers 99% of the time. So stop crying and trying to say MS is a bad company they do everything they should and yes they do need to fix some things but most the time it is the fault of the driver not the OS

[F.E.A.R.]

Comparison with iRam and 4 different OS´

left XP x86 - right Win 7 beta x86

http://www.abload.de/img/hc_475cp7w.jpg http://www.abload.de/img/hc_477rtv0.jpg


left Vista x64 - right Win 7 beta x64

http://www.abload.de/img/hc_479mlsn.jpg http://www.abload.de/img/hc_4789ze9.jpg

[HuffPCair]

wow thats cool and I dont see anything for the 32 bit one of win7

[mikeyakame]

question guys, is WARP currently in this build of 7??? and how can we tell if its running?

Not sure mate. WARP beta library is included in DirectX Nov 2008 SDK though, and you can run DX11 samples included in it with it, but they run at 0.5-1.5fps! heh. Reference Rasterizer for you.

[randomizer]

I decided to time the boot for all three OSs on my system. This is from the bootloader menu until the desktop appears.

Win XP: 27s
Win Vista: 25s
Win 7: 32s

I thought Win 7 was booting faster but I guess it's not :rofl:

[mikeyakame]

Try defragmenting the win 7 drive, it improves it dramatically.

[randomizer]

Try defragmenting the win 7 drive, it improves it dramatically.

It shouldn't be too badly fragmented, I haven't really used it, but I'll run it anyway.

EDIT: It did help a bit, got it down to 29s, but it's still slower than Vista and XP, neither of which have been defragged for a while. Although I think Vista is set to defrag on a schedule.

[Jamesrt2004]

I decided to time the boot for all three OSs on my system. This is from the bootloader menu until the desktop appears.

Win XP: 27s
Win Vista: 25s
Win 7: 32s

I thought Win 7 was booting faster but I guess it's not :rofl:

they all completely fresh installs? allowise it doesn't really count imo

[HuffPCair]

Yeah because I timed mine before I took it off my computer and it was a few seconds faster then Vista is so really I dont believe that. It is all in how you have it setup.

[randomizer]

they all completely fresh installs? allowise it doesn't really count imo

Win Vista is quite old, XP is fairly new but only gets used when I play fallout 3 (doesn't start on Vista) and Win 7 is new and barely touched at all. The only thing that could be causing a minor slowdown is the position of each OS on the drive. I have Vista and Win 7 as the first two 40GB partitions (in that order), and XP is shoved up as an afterthought on the end of the drive since it's not really important to me. Both Win 7 and Vista have services disabled, XP is pretty much running out of the box other than SP3.

I'm not the only one with Win 7 booting slower, but I'm in the minority (that or you're all thinking it boots faster :p:). It has booted slower than that even, but so has Vista, it varies a bit each time.

[mikeyakame]

randomizer,

29s isn't too bad at all. I'll take a guess here but as much as I understand is the Win 7 kernel at present has kernel debugging by default permanently enabled. So what I'm saying is I don't know if we can possibly say with complete certainty that what we see now for load times will be an exact indicator of final product. I believe it to be a good indicator of what the final unchecked product will deliver though, so if we are seeing such decent boot times now hopefully with kernel debugging disabled in RTM and debug code/symbols/etc removed we see a further improvement on what we are getting now.

We can only hope this will be the case before the world starts making too hasty of judgements!

I think personally we've got a winner of an OS on our hands and time will tell if this serves true or not!

[randomizer]

It would be a winner if the taskbar wasn't so bad :-/ I prefer the Vista one personally, albeit with the customisable system tray of course.

[mikeyakame]

It would be a winner if the taskbar wasn't so bad :-/ I prefer the Vista one personally, albeit with the customisable system tray of course.

Oh you aren't a fan! Guess we all got our own tastes! I've personally become quite accustomed to it, Vista's taskbar doesn't feel anywhere near as nice to use now!

Now all I need is Windows Live Messenger to be updated to work properly with it! If you set it to any status through the taskbar it opens a new messenger! Argh!

[mikeyakame]

Another issue it seems.

Mirrors Edge.

Not getting any audio in Cutscenes or Intro (EA Logo, etc). But OpenAL in game audio is working fine. Audio works fine in Vista SP2 throughout the game. Could be ADI Soundmax Drivers, but isn't working on Microsoft default HD Audio Driver either so not quite sure how to fix it, I've tried everything I can think of and I'm lost for ideas. With this I'll just accept it doesn't work right now heh and play it through on Vista once I finish it on WIndows 7.

[RaZz!]

It would be a winner if the taskbar wasn't so bad :-/ I prefer the Vista one personally, albeit with the customisable system tray of course.

you can personalize the taskbar to behave exactly like the one in vista:
right-click on the taskbar -> properties. check "small icons" and set "taskbar buttons" to "combine when taskbar is full". voila!

[shiznit93]

yea I ended up doing the same thing. I like the OSX style dock but I wish you could manually set which apps to always combine and which not to. I like some apps staying in icon form but I would rather keep my Firefox and Explorer windows separate.

[Eastcoasthandle]

x-fi drivers that include support for Win7 (http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&thread.id=135215)

Here are 30 tips for win7 (http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/01/12/the-bumper-list-of-windows-7-secrets.aspx)

[Revv23]

With XF-i you can just use the normal drivers too and install them in compatibility mode.

[bikebuilderdude]

My friend just downloaded and installed the beta version of Windows 7 on a computer at work. Guess what the first screen says when you are installing it? You are "installing Windows Vista". Sounds like just an updated version of Vista to me or should we call it Vista SP2! :eek:

[Revv23]

My friend just downloaded and installed the beta version of Windows 7 on a computer at work. Guess what the first screen says when you are installing it? You are "installing Windows Vista". Sounds like just an updated version of Vista to me or should we call it Vista SP2! :eek:

Maybe he got a bad copy? Mine doesn't say vista.

[bikebuilderdude]

It was on the splash screen when you first install it and it came from Microsoft's web site. It's the 32bit version.

[orangekiwii]

450 mb on idle ??? is that a joke?

mine idles at 1.36 gbs w/ only a couple background programs that total only use like 100 mbs

also its faster in applications

but boot is WAY slower for me


in xp I boot into a usable desktop in 30 seconds from power on

now its at LEAST 60 seconds


i like windows 7 a lot and will definitely be getting it... but the slow boot times are screwing with me and the outrageously high idle ram usage (same EXACT programs on XP idled at 300 mb...)

[randomizer]

you can personalize the taskbar to behave exactly like the one in vista:
right-click on the taskbar -> properties. check "small icons" and set "taskbar buttons" to "combine when taskbar is full". voila!

That's only part of the problem. I can't stand the whole look of it. Every windows in the taskbar lights up when it's the active window, and so it stands out. I find it distracting, whereas it remains black in Vista. The moving "light" when you mouseover the taskbar windows is also a bit annoying. Why does everything need to glow, move or be glassy?

[cegras]

450 mb on idle ??? is that a joke?

mine idles at 1.36 gbs w/ only a couple background programs that total only use like 100 mbs

also its faster in applications

but boot is WAY slower for me


in xp I boot into a usable desktop in 30 seconds from power on

now its at LEAST 60 seconds


i like windows 7 a lot and will definitely be getting it... but the slow boot times are screwing with me and the outrageously high idle ram usage (same EXACT programs on XP idled at 300 mb...)

Are there still people like you who think the sole purpose of RAM is to be as empty as possible?

[asmodean]

the more RAM you have, the more vista/win7 tries to cache at boot time, meaning you will boot slower, but you will have faster load times when booted. Look up bit-tech article on different memory amounts for more details..

[orangekiwii]

no i'm not but i don't see why it takes so much ram when someone else with similar ram can idle so much less

doesn't REALLY bother me :P but its just something that KINDA does

doesn't make any sense but you get it anyway

[Soulburner]

yea I ended up doing the same thing. I like the OSX style dock but I wish you could manually set which apps to always combine and which not to. I like some apps staying in icon form but I would rather keep my Firefox and Explorer windows separate.
Try this one?

http://www.delldock.com/

Works great for me.

By the way, why does everyone still talk about boot times? Vista/Win7 are not meant to be shut down and rebooted every day!. These operating systems are meant to be put into Sleep mode (combination of S3 Standby and S4 Hibernation modes) to resume where you were within seconds. You don't have to boot again, you don't have to re-load everything back into RAM again. Hit the button, and right away you have your 1-2GB of cached RAM already and your computer is idling. Not to mention, you didn't even have to close your browser or your documents! It's all still there (though I do recommend saving any documents, and using a browser that supports resuming last-open sites just in case of power outages if you aren't using a UPS).

Heck I've been using S3 Standby every single day for almost 5 years in XP! I come home from work, hit my power button and when my GPU sends the signal and my LCD finally kicks in (about 10 seconds) I have my desktop, messenger, Opera with all tabs still open, uTorrent, and more and I'm idling and ready to go. I simply do not understand the boot-time discussions at all.

[RPGWiZaRD]

no i'm not but i don't see why it takes so much ram when someone else with similar ram can idle so much less

doesn't REALLY bother me :P but its just something that KINDA does

doesn't make any sense but you get it anyway

Disable SuperFetch then if you want more free RAM. That's what takes up all the RAM, with it disabled I have like 340~380MB / 16~18% usage (this is a pretty clean install and slipstreamed, over time it would probably increase to like 18~20%) with 2GB RAM and with it enabled maybe twice as much but it builds up over time, it doesn't seem to use as much as Vista did. At first it's like 20~22% RAM usage even with it enabled but as you run programs it starts building up slowly. Anyway it helps booting times so I don't really see it as a problem really but then again I don't care much about booting times either so for me it's the same if I disable or enable it.

[Soulburner]

Disabling Superfetch will lead to performance loss of frequently accessed files...most notably browsers, applications, and Windows itself.

What do you prefer, the access time and read speeds of your RAM or your HDD?

[RPGWiZaRD]

Disabling Superfetch will lead to performance loss of frequently accessed files...most notably browsers, applications, and Windows itself.

What do you prefer, the access time and read speeds of your RAM or your HDD?

Well for me it doesn't matter if opening firefox takes 0.5ms faster or whatever to open, it's already fast enough for my liking. :p

It should free up ram when it's needed but I don't trust it that it does the job as great as it would be disabled and since I'm on 2GB RAM I prefer having as much as possible for the applications and since I don't mind those to me unsignificant decrease in reading time. Then again 5 FPS for example is like a day and night difference to me but that's a totally different thing.

I got 7 HDDs and don't even use RAID, guess booting/reading speeds don't matter as much to some people like for others. But that doesn't mean I run it disabled all the time, sometimes I got it enabled, sometimes disabled, but I don't use Vista/W7 as my main OS yet anyway, only for testing/comparing to XP (+ playing FarCry2 to enjoy higher performance under DX10 mode until I got bored of it).

I was just saying to that person if he really wants XP-like RAM behavior, disable SuperFetch then you'll have the same XP-ram usage and slower booting/reading times, if that's what he wants.

EDIT: Here's a screenie of the ram idle usage just to point out that if you want, W7 can be very light on resources too to remove these unneccessary comments like it's bloated etc.
http://i41.tinypic.com/35alzzt.jpg

[r4gm4n]

Are there still people like you who think the sole purpose of RAM is to be as empty as possible?

Exactly. Unused RAM is wasted RAM.


Try this one?

http://www.delldock.com/

Works great for me.


Thanks!


By the way, why does everyone still talk about boot times? Vista/Win7 are not meant to be shut down and rebooted every day!. These operating systems are meant to be put into Sleep mode (combination of S3 Standby and S4 Hibernation modes) to resume where you were within seconds. You don't have to boot again, you don't have to re-load everything back into RAM again. Hit the button, and right away you have your 1-2GB of cached RAM already and your computer is idling. Not to mention, you didn't even have to close your browser or your documents! It's all still there (though I do recommend saving any documents, and using a browser that supports resuming last-open sites just in case of power outages if you aren't using a UPS).

Heck I've been using S3 Standby every single day for almost 5 years in XP! I come home from work, hit my power button and when my GPU sends the signal and my LCD finally kicks in (about 10 seconds) I have my desktop, messenger, Opera with all tabs still open, uTorrent, and more and I'm idling and ready to go. I simply do not understand the boot-time discussions at all.


Question - how little is the power-usage when on standby. I know might seem a nooby question, but what is actually taking power when on standby?
I want to use it more and more as I do go away from the PC a lot when its not doing anything.

[Blacky]

First Look: Windows 7 Beta Performance (http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/software/2009/01/16/windows-7-beta-performance/1)

You be the judge, but remember its just beta...

[Brother Esau]

I think Microsoft as some God Damn Gaul and Audacity to Re badge Vista with a New Name and wee bit different GUI Skin and the Needed Fixes that Vista Should be getting and then Turn around and sell it as a New Operating System!

Sorry Guys this is wrong , wrong and wrong Plain & Simple!!!!

Yes I have the Windows 7 64bit and I do not like it its just Vista with a Different Boot GUI and O.S Skin with the Needed and warranted Fixes that they should be giving Vista Owners FREE OF CHARGE.:down:

[xVeinx]

I think Microsoft as some God Damn Gaul and Audacity to Re badge Vista with a New Name and wee bit different GUI Skin and the Needed Fixes that Vista Should be getting and then Turn around and sell it as a New Operating System!

Sorry Guys this is wrong , wrong and wrong Plain & Simple!!!!

Yes I have the Windows 7 64bit and I do not like it its just Vista with a Different Boot GUI and O.S Skin with the Needed and warranted Fixes that they should be giving Vista Owners FREE OF CHARGE.:down:

How many changes need to be made for it to be a "viable" new version? Vista has been pretty good for me, running all the software I need it too with minimal problems. Sure, it had it's problems here and there, but I used it prior to SP1, and it wasn't the end of the world. Windows 7 has the explorer (windows explorer) redone, lots of work done to the kernel, changes to the GUI (as you mentioned), new Direct X version, better support for cloud computing, etc. Is it better? For sure. Does Microsoft "owe" it to it's users? Eh. Microsoft made it's mistakes with Vista, but I feel they fixed many problems with SP1 and soon to be SP2. There are users that still have issues with specialized applications I'm sure, but they are the norm for any OS.

[randomizer]

By the way, why does everyone still talk about boot times? Vista/Win7 are not meant to be shut down and rebooted every day!. These operating systems are meant to be put into Sleep mode (combination of S3 Standby and S4 Hibernation modes) to resume where you were within seconds. You don't have to boot again, you don't have to re-load everything back into RAM again. Hit the button, and right away you have your 1-2GB of cached RAM already and your computer is idling. Not to mention, you didn't even have to close your browser or your documents! It's all still there (though I do recommend saving any documents, and using a browser that supports resuming last-open sites just in case of power outages if you aren't using a UPS).
Sleep is amazing. I use it 3 times in a row and then I have to power cycle my PSU and cold boot. :rolleyes:


Disabling Superfetch will lead to performance loss of frequently accessed files...most notably browsers, applications, and Windows itself.

What do you prefer, the access time and read speeds of your RAM or your HDD?
XP is the only OS out of the three that doesn't have SuperFetch, yet it's snappier? And from what I can tell, Win 7 was snappier than Vista until SuperFetch kicked in and started chewing up my HDD. I used to like SuperFetch, and I don't deny that it DOES WORK once it's finished caching, but the fact that it slows down my system right after booting makes it more annoying than useful.


Well for me it doesn't matter if opening firefox takes 0.5ms faster or whatever to open, it's already fast enough for my liking. :p
Before disabling services, FireFox would take close to a minute to load if I did so straight away (in Vista), and Windows Mail would sometimes take longer. :ROTF: Almost instantly opens in XP. In Vista with some streamlined startup items it takes 5-10 seconds instead.

On another note, I am not a minimalist RAM usage freak, but without caching I want RAM usage as low as possible. The OS itself shouldn't chew up my RAM. I'm not impressed or horrified by Vista/W7's RAM usage, I'm quite indifferent to it. Software just gets bigger these days, as developers seem to see faster hardware and feel they need to compensate with the software. :p:

[[XC] Lead Head]

I think Microsoft as some God Damn Gaul and Audacity to Re badge Vista with a New Name and wee bit different GUI Skin and the Needed Fixes that Vista Should be getting and then Turn around and sell it as a New Operating System!

Sorry Guys this is wrong , wrong and wrong Plain & Simple!!!!

Yes I have the Windows 7 64bit and I do not like it its just Vista with a Different Boot GUI and O.S Skin with the Needed and warranted Fixes that they should be giving Vista Owners FREE OF CHARGE.:down:

Going by that logic, XP was just Windows 2000 with a new name, a bit different GUI skin and a few fixes and updates

@Randomizer, I do not know what is wrong with your system, but when I ran vista with 1GB of ram on a 2.5GHz opteron, firefox and everything else still opened up instantly. Vista felt much snappier to me.

[Soulburner]

Question - how little is the power-usage when on standby. I know might seem a nooby question, but what is actually taking power when on standby?
I want to use it more and more as I do go away from the PC a lot when its not doing anything.
Computers in Standby/Sleep mode typically use only 1w or less.

Now if you count what the PSU uses no matter what, it's around 10-15w total. This is used even if the system is off so its unfair to say its used by standby.

Everything is powered down except the NIC (for use with Wake-On-Lan) and the RAM. A small current is supplied to the RAM so it holds its memory, and everything else is turned off.

[randomizer]

Lead Head;3583561']@Randomizer, I do not know what is wrong with your system, but when I ran vista with 1GB of ram on a 2.5GHz opteron, firefox and everything else still opened up instantly. Vista felt much snappier to me.

I probably have a screwed up hard drive. It is a Seagate after all :p: Although it's a 320GB 7200.10, not 7200.11. I can't RMA it though, since it's not dead. It just acts weird, if i run HDTune bencharks on it then it will look ok one time and then get a 1.5MB/s minimum throughput the next :confused:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w179/random1301/th_hdtune2-1.png (http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w179/random1301/hdtune2-1.png)http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w179/random1301/th_HDTune_Benchmark_ST3320620AS.png (http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w179/random1301/HDTune_Benchmark_ST3320620AS.png)

[orangekiwii]

so should i turn superfetch off? it runs fine once everythings loaded but it takes a while to load

[Tonucci]

Are there still people like you who think the sole purpose of RAM is to be as empty as possible?

Simplistic poor generalisation as usual :yepp:

Wont even argue.