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Because the search function won't let me search for "7".

I downloaded the RC and installed last night. So far so good with the install. Updated fine afterward. The only issues I've come across at this point were a momentary delay in getting the Logitech software for my mouse & keyboard installed. A second attempt running Vista compatability mode fixed that.

WMP12 and Explorer *STILL* don't recognize ID3v2.4 tags for my mp3s. Even though most of my music also has ID3v1 tags as well, it's hit and miss to get those recognized. I can retag quickly enough with Musicbrainz Picard, but why?

I was used to the Quick Launch buttons in XP and Vista. It's going to take some getting used to to have to pin items to the taskbar myself. It's also a little bit disorienting to not have the text there for running items.

There is no email app installed by default. To get Microsoft's, you need to install the Live suite. And even then, it doesn't put any icons on the desktop or taskbar. You have to hunt through All Programs to find it. you can pin it once you find it, but still.

The sidebar is history. Now you can put the gadgets wherever. I still stack them over on the right side of the desktop for easy access when I'm running the browser or whatnot.

UAC is still with us. I haven't played around with it much, but the default action when starting CoX is the same as in Vista. Is there a way around this that doesn't involve disabling UAC?

Look and feel is mostly Vista, with some not-Vista tweaks. There's some getting used to. One nice thing is transferring files from my external drive no longer takes forever like it did in Vista.

tl;dr: I don't hate it yet. It does most of the same stuff I did before without many, if any, extra hoops.

Who else is giving the RC a go?

DarkAudit said:

I was used to the Quick Launch buttons in XP and Vista. It's going to take some getting used to to have to pin items to the taskbar myself. It's also a little bit disorienting to not have the text there for running items.

Click to expand...

I got used to this really quick. Once you really start to use it, it becomes natural. I really like hovering over the icon and seeing an active preview. Sometimes I just want to check the status of something and that will let me do it without switching windows.

DarkAudit said:

There is no email app installed by default. To get Microsoft's, you need to install the Live suite. And even then, it doesn't put any icons on the desktop or taskbar. You have to hunt through All Programs to find it. you can pin it once you find it, but still.

Click to expand...

I don't even look at the program list any more. My suggestion is to use the search feature when you first click on the start menu. The cursor defaults there, so you can just start typing.

I installed the RC a few days ago. I like it. Its also capable of running on a machine with 512mb of ram, unlike vista.

DarkAudit said:

I was used to the Quick Launch buttons in XP and Vista. It's going to take some getting used to to have to pin items to the taskbar myself. It's also a little bit disorienting to not have the text there for running items.

UAC is still with us. I haven't played around with it much, but the default action when starting CoX is the same as in Vista. Is there a way around this that doesn't involve disabling UAC?

Click to expand...

If you rightclick on the taskbar there's a setting called something like Ungroup Taskbar Items that gives you back the text for running programmes I believe. I haven't changed it because I like the grouped icons, but a friend showed me the changes he'd made.

The new UAC has different levels, rather than just on and off. Try lowering the level a step and see if that helps?

Mr_Chaz said:

DarkAudit said:

I was used to the Quick Launch buttons in XP and Vista. It's going to take some getting used to to have to pin items to the taskbar myself. It's also a little bit disorienting to not have the text there for running items.

UAC is still with us. I haven't played around with it much, but the default action when starting CoX is the same as in Vista. Is there a way around this that doesn't involve disabling UAC?

Click to expand...

If you rightclick on the taskbar there's a setting called something like Ungroup Taskbar Items that gives you back the text for running programmes I believe. I haven't changed it because I like the grouped icons, but a friend showed me the changes he'd made.

The new UAC has different levels, rather than just on and off. Try lowering the level a step and see if that helps?

Click to expand...

To stop the cancel or allow pop up for CoX, I have to turn UAC off. Just lowering a notch didn't do it. :blargh:

There are a couple threads on this already. Been using the RC since it was released public in january, and I love it. i sjut did a reformat and reinstall 2 weeks ago with the latest RC clinent, and so far, no cplaints. it works extremely well, the bootup is fast, and the retooled interface is great.

I absolutely love the new taskbar, and run all my main things off it now from the right side without a thought. i have not had really any compatibility problems with my games and programs, either. LoTRO, WoW, War, Steam, BF heroes...all run great. I put AvP2 on there, sicne my brother and I still get the hankering to play that every so often. I jsut run it in compatibility mode (a la vista) and it boots up fine. Champions beta also worked quite fine.

Overall, i am impressed. its Vista without the resource hogging, and streamlined. I will be buying it when it is released fully. I recommend it if you are using vista or even XP now.

I found this when looking at my WMP12 tag issue:

verify that all your mp3s have ONLY ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 tags.

Click to expand...

So what I'll do is transfer the music over, then run Picard on the files in residence, rather than what's on the external drive. That will keep the main stash properly tagged for other uses.

Windows 7 still has the issues Vista had with VLC. I had to go in and set each file type individually to use VLC as the default instead of WMP. Even though it was supposed to set those defaults during installation. An annoyance, but usually only needing to be done once.

Yeah, i had that same association issue with VLC. I did what you said, and that was set them on use the first time. Though, a few times, I went in and jsut used the new WMP...and liked it. I actually am using the new media center now more than I use VLC, which surprised the hell out of me.

I'm playing with Media Center a bit now. I'm impressed that they finally fixed a major sticking point with OTA subchannels in the program guide. Used to list all the subchannels of a particular station as airing exactly the same thing on all of them. Now the guide is correct. And I need a new antenna to be able to get more than just the three subchannels of my local PBS station.

Another nice bit of eyecandy is in the music player in Media Center. While your track is playing, all your album art scrolls by as wallpaper in the background.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... ws_ts_head

Report: Best Buy memo prices Windows 7 upgrades at $50
Sale prices for Home Premium and Professional -- $50 and $100 -- kick off June 26

According to Best Buy, customers can place orders for Windows 7 on its Web site starting June 26, but copies won't ship until October.

Click to expand...

If this holds true, I'll be pleased. I won't mind spending $50x2 for the upgrades since I bought OEM Vista 64 Home Prem for both of my systems.

elph said:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9134026&intsrc=news_ts_head

Report: Best Buy memo prices Windows 7 upgrades at $50
Sale prices for Home Premium and Professional -- $50 and $100 -- kick off June 26

According to Best Buy, customers can place orders for Windows 7 on its Web site starting June 26, but copies won't ship until October.

Click to expand...

If this holds true, I'll be pleased. I won't mind spending $50x2 for the upgrades since I bought OEM Vista 64 Home Prem for both of my systems.

Click to expand...

Oh please this. I'll be so there if this is really how it's going to go down.

I'm holding out on buying a desktop so that i Can buy one with Win7 installed and skip Vista altogether (though I'm a fan of Vista). I have the RC on my father's PC and everything runs smooth...Except his sound card, for which there aren't any drivers yet.

Bubble181 said:

I'm holding out on buying a desktop so that i Can buy one with Win7 installed and skip Vista altogether (though I'm a fan of Vista). I have the RC on my father's PC and everything runs smooth...Except his sound card, for which there aren't any drivers yet.

Click to expand...

If I remember right, there are talks about some dealers giving you a voucher for free 7 if you buy a computer / laptop with Vista on it within a certain time frame. I can't remember all the details though.

True, but I haven't seen any of them yet. Besides, I'll probably be buying a fairly cheap laptop soon (expect a thread :-P), and a huge-ass expensive game monster thing later, Christmas or so.

Harumph. Unless I haven't figured out yet how to bring them back, apps that use overlays like HeroStats still don't work in 7 after they broke it in Vista. (For those unfamiliar with HeroStats, it's a side app that monitors your performance in CoX. There's an overlay function that puts a mini-version over top of your running game that monitors your XP progress and the times on your buffs/debuffs and cooldowns. Quite useful.)

Both the beta and the RC gave me a BSOD on boot once I had two utilities installed: MacDrive and DAEMON-Tools.

Either one of them separately it handled fine, but in combination (installed in either order, I tried a couple of times) it was invariably a blue screen. Maybe not a big deal to most people, but I use both of these utilities regularly, both at home and at work.

DAEMON-Tools has an update posted which claims to fix an incompatibility with Win7, so I think that the problem may be MacDrive's incompatibility with whatever they did to DAEMON-Tools to make it compatible? It has something to do with SPTD (SCSI Pass-Through Driver) and MacDrive's HFSJ driver (and Win7's built-in FS support drivers, I guess).

So, until that gets fixed, I'm stuck with Vista. I have to power cycle my wifi card every couple of hours to avoid issues with Vista that have been known for a while but still aren't fixed, so I would really like to upgrade if I could.

Hearing it will run on 512mb I might give it a go. They threw out a an Athlon 1.8GHz pc with 256mb, fully working at work. I've been kicking around what to install on it. It has Win2K atm.

Scarlet Varlet said:

Hearing it will run on 512mb I might give it a go. They threw out a an Athlon 1.8GHz pc with 256mb, fully working at work. I've been kicking around what to install on it. It has Win2K atm.

Click to expand...

mind you it's sluggish, but is runnable, just don't try and do to much multitasking.

I'm not sure if I'll update my current PC to Win7. It's tempting, especially if an upgrade really will be only $50, but I'm pretty happy with Vista, on the whole.

What I am interested in is Win7 for a netbook or laptop. At some point the future I'm hoping I'll get out of the house more than I do now. I'm wondering if by that time I won't be able to get a netbook with Win7 that has HDMI-out and can handle video pretty well. Nice little portable media player.

I'll be getting a new PC when Windows 7 hits the shelves. Can't wait to see how this will turn out.

I keep catching hell from others for using WMP12. WMP and Explorer are doing a number on my mp3s as tagged for compatibility with Linux and other non-M$ players. When I go to run the files through Picard after getting them onto the main box, they're all corrupted until I reset the tags to the preferred M$ version, which is ID3v2.3 only (no ID3v1), and ISO-8859-1 text encoding (not UTF).

If they're not tagged "properly", not only will WMP not see them correctly, but neither will Explorer. So I'll get a set tagged to keep WMP and explorer happy, and keep the main set isolated for whenever I switch OSs again. Once the whole collection is retagged, I'll get Winamp back in place.

The retagging is nearly complete, and the last few files are not going quietly. Windows 7 will not play nice with the tag standard non-Microsoft players and OSs have long since embraced. I'm left with about 60 or 70 files listed as "unknown" for artist and album. They play fine, but WMP and Explorer won't read the tags, no matter how often I run them through Picard.

I used to be able to tag with ID3v1, and ID3v2.4, and let Windows use the v1 tags. It won't do that now. I hope this isn't a permanent change.

(ETA: per wana10's suggestion on IRC, I tried mp3tag instead of Musicbrainz Picard. I found there were extra tags hidden in the files I was having issues with, specifically the lyrics3v2 tags. Picard did not clear those out. I had to clear all tags and start again. Fortunately, searching as a cluster found the fresh tags right away. The files retagged with mp3tag are working as intended now.)

Meh. The post that used to be right here was a victim of whateverthehellitwas.

Anyway, I was fiddling with WMP again, and noticed that a number of mp3 files were coming up as having a file size of 0 bytes. Actually, most of them were. They played fine, but still. That shouldn't be. Googling a bit showed me that more builds have been released since the RC was opened up to the general public. I don't have the professional credentials to get the newer builds legitimately, and no way am I risking going the torrent route. So test over, back to XP.

Win 7 wasn't going to go quietly. The recovery partition could not be accessed by the standard F10 at boot, so I had to use the recovery CD. Then I couldn't get Win 7 off the boot manager menu, or even edit the preferred order. Win 7 was still going to be the default. Finally I tried fixmbr off the XP recovery console. All that did was bork the partition table.

Long story short, I had to go the long way to reinstall XP by using the 3-DVD "install to a totally blank slate" version. Anything that would have been in a windows.old folder is gone. I have backups, but the time that was to be saved has been lost.

Has anyone tried any game in xp mode?

Why bother? You already know that you will take a huge frame rate hit in any game,and I have not experienced a single game [strike:10k1vscz]except Failout 3[/strike:10k1vscz]that has problems with Vista or Win 7.

I've been running the RC on my PC for a while now. It's nice. There are certainly some features here that will give Mac OS X a run for its money. It seems like Microsoft has finally caught onto the fact that people like usability and aesthetics in their OS. I don't have much to say about the technical side yet. I haven't had much trouble running anything that I would normally run, including memory and processor intensive tasks. All that aside, the look of it is still terrible. Microsoft's visual designers can't seem to get out of the Fisher-Price aisle. The chunky plastic, the wasted whitespace, and that terrible glass. Ugh. If you have to compromise bad design by backing up text with fuzzy clouds, it's not good.

Cuyval Dar said:

Why bother? You already know that you will take a huge frame rate hit in any game,and I have not experienced a single game [strike:39s3ripj]except Failout 3[/strike:39s3ripj]that has problems with Vista or Win 7.

Click to expand...

The only pc game I have is Metal Gear 2 and It doesn't work in vista.

PEBKAC

At least in my case it does. I decided to google a little more into the issues WMP and Windows 7 had with mp3 tags. Turns out what I thought was the standard tag format really wasn't, and probably won't be any time soon. If after 9 years developers haven't accepted the ID3v2.4 tag as default, they never will.

So to keep WMP from overwriting the tags on my music, I have to go back and replace all my ID3v2.4 tags with ID3v2.3. WMP will simply add a 2.3 tag over top of all the others, but that will prevent the 2.4 tag from being recognized by other software. Fortunately mp3tag will wipe the 2.3 tag and leave the 2.4 tag in place. And that tag still has all the Musicbrainz hash information, making the job a lot quicker than it sounds.

And in actual Windows 7 news, the main rumor sites are convinced that we're in the home stretch now, and that the RTM version could appear as early as this week. Or within the next two weeks at most. What does the hive-mind plan to do when it pops up? Gonna try to get it early?

I will definitely be getting it. First OS I will have actually purchased that was not preinstalled on sometihng in a long long while. Since using it in January, it has been extremely stable, runs all my games and processes, and I love the feel and look of it. Gets a thumbs up from me.

There isn't really any reason I can think of to not upgrade to 7, or even to pass it up when buying a new PC. Other than maybe not wanting to spend the money for it. It seems a lot like 98 in that it isn't a huge change like the switch to 2000/XP, or to Vista was. I would suggest holding off buying a computer until the free upgrade vouchers show up, or even wait till the release. It's definitely worth it.

Shannow said:

I will definitely be getting it. First OS I will have actually purchased that was not preinstalled on sometihng in a long long while. Since using it in January, it has been extremely stable, runs all my games and processes, and I love the feel and look of it. Gets a thumbs up from me.

Click to expand...

I pretty much think the same way.

Its amazing, as a Windows OS, specially with the fact that a new windows OS is standard for "will require 10X more power, will be bloated and run slower than your old OS", to have the Windows 7 Beta run at speeds equal to, and in some cases (like games), outperform XP with the computer I tested it in.

Agreed. This is pretty much what Vista should have been. They slimmed it down, redid a lot of the ground work, and actually realized that with a growing netbook/laptop market, they needed a good OS that would not require a ton of power to run (relative to the average users PC)

Basically, it is a well designed and stable OS for the average home user. Others companies have done it as well, but with the large market share, MS needed to do this for their userbase.

I might be getting a GeForce 3D Vision Kit as well as a monitor that's supposedly compatible with it this week, and those kind folks at NVidia apparantly haven't been able to create any Windows XP drivers for the 3D Vision. Which is why I'm thinking of giving Windows 7 a whirl, because my experience with Vista has been outright B-A-D. Very excited to hear all the good news about it so far.

However, I'd prefer to keep Windows XP on my computer, so have a dual-boot installation. Now I'd like to know, is this easy to do? I've heard that it's a bloody pain in the neck with Vista, and am hoping that it's not a problem for Windows 7. Anyone have any experience with it?

(and if anyone has already posted about it, please link and ridicule. Cheers )

It's easy to dual boot. Do you know how to partition your drive? If so, just create 2 partitions and install XP on one partition first. Then install Win7 on the other partition. When you boot up you will be prompted to choose which to boot into. You don't need to do anything special, Win7 will recognize you have XP and will do everything for you.

... that's EXACTLY what I had hoped to hear.

DarkAudit said:

And in actual Windows 7 news, the main rumor sites are convinced that we're in the home stretch now, and that the RTM version could appear as early as this week. Or within the next two weeks at most. What does the hive-mind plan to do when it pops up? Gonna try to get it early?

Click to expand...

My housemates company is in discussion with MS to try and get the RTM for testing purposes atm. If they were to strike a deal they'd be getting it in a week. So the official RTM launch probably won't be far off. I'll pick it up and install it the day they get it.

The pricing for Windows 7 has been announced. It's a bit cheaper than Vista, but not much. There is some good news though.

Arstechnica said:

In select markets, Microsoft is offering its customers the ability to preorder Windows 7 at a significantly reduced price. This is easily the most aggressive pricing Microsoft has ever offered for Windows. The low preorder price will vary per country:

* US: Windows 7 Home Premium ($49.99) and Windows 7 Professional ($99.99)
* Canada: Windows 7 Home Premium ($64.99) and Windows 7 Professional ($124.99)
* Japan: Windows 7 Home Premium (¥7,407) and Windows 7 Professional (¥14,073)
* UK: Windows 7 Home Premium (£49.99) and Windows 7 Professional (£99.99)
* France and Germany: Windows 7 Home Premium (€49.99) and Windows 7 Professional (€109.99)

The deal includes select retail partners, such as Best Buy and Amazon, as well as the online Microsoft Store. This program begins Friday, June 26 in the US, Canada, and Japan. It goes on while supplies last or until July 11 in the US and Canada, and until July 5 in Japan. For the UK, France, and Germany, the preorder starts July 15 and runs while supplies last or until August 14. Microsoft was not willing to discuss the limits of the supplies, but a spokesperson did confirm to Ars that the reduced prices for the European countries will simply apply to the full version (as noted above), as upgrade versions will not exist in Europe. In short, these preorders will allow those in the UK, Germany, and France to purchase full versions of Home Premium or Professional, except without IE8, for a very low price.

Click to expand...

Also the upgrade program for new PC's is starting on June 26. If you are thinking of getting a new PC, make sure it comes with the upgrade coupon.

Are those the retail prices or upgrade prices?

Dutch prices end up way waaaay higher.
Ultimate Retail = €319
Ultimate Upgrade = €299
Premium goes for €119,99 and 199,99.

I'll pick it up for free or buy an OEM version, but that's still one hell of a deal.

The prices I quoted are for the upgrade, except for UK France and Germany. Since the EU cannot get the upgrade version they are getting the full version for that price. That price is just a prerelease price though, retail will be much higher.

For those that don't know, pre-orders for Windows 7 have started, and they're at a reduced price for a limited time ($50 for a Home Premium upgrade). I'm very tempted to snag a copy, but I'm not sure what all the changes are from Vista (which I'm currently running and having no problems with).

Already pre-ordered it, now to get the RC free version set-up in the meantime....

I installed win7 last month on a laptop to see how it would run. Installed it, but never got around to using it. The hard drive in my main laptop was going out, so I pulled the one from the laptop with win7, installed it on the new PC, and booted the OS.

The OS booted without incident. After it booted, it installed the drivers for all the hardware on the new laptop on its own. It then asked for a reboot, upon which a quick check revealed that there was NO unknown hardware and it installed drivers for EVERYTHING.

That's pretty damn amazing, considering I went from the shitty $350 walmart bargin bin acer single core athlon processor to a gateway with a dual core intel processor without so much as a sniffle.

Damn.

Mulling over going to my local Best Buy to preorder. In the meantime, there are copies of the 7260 build(newer than the RC, which is 7100) floating around torrent land and USENET. Allegedly, if you have an RC key, it will work.

In actual "news", wzor.net is reporting the RTM date is July 13th.

If I were to install the RTM with my RC code, would I be able to keep this version of 7 when the real version comes out and just update it with my serial code? Avoiding another clean install?

Looking at the discussions at sevenforums.com, you'll need a new key for the RTM version.

And on that note. Since the beta was supposed to expire over this past weekend, if you're not using the RC, what build is everyone using? Once the download and burning is over, I'll be giving 7260 a go...

Not really a double post since this is a day later...

I don't recall any other Microsoft OS doing this...

I did a clean install of the 7260 build, where all my old stuff went to the WINDOWS.OLD folder for putting back later.

After I told it to go ahead, but before any further human input was required, the installer found and installed nvidia drivers for my graphics card, and set my screen resolution to it's normal 1440x900. Every other time I'd end up at 1024x768, and have to go find the graphics drivers later.

It did the same thing for me with the 7100 build though. I think that's standard when you have it set to update install files during install.

Is this it?

Multiple sources are saying this build is legit, but cannot confirm that it is truly the final RTM build.

It's leaking very slowly out of China at present. It'll be sometime tomorrow morning here before the first hands-on reports come in.

I'm still so lost as to what version I'm supposed to use and what code goes with it. :bush:

The 7260 build is more recent than the "RC" build on Microsoft's own site. If you have an RC key, it will work with the 7260 build. That's what I'm using right now.

The 7600 build is leaking at present. It is not confirmed what this build is, as it is not yet in the wild in any significant numbers.

DarkAudit said:

The 7260 build is more recent than the "RC" build on Microsoft's own site. If you have an RC key, it will work with the 7260 build. That's what I'm using right now.

The 7600 build is leaking at present. It is not confirmed what this build is, as it is not yet in the wild in any significant numbers.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I want to see whats up with the 7600. I will do a reformat with that one once I see it out there and if its worth it.

The 7600 build that has been in the wild today is the 64-bit version only. As of dinnertime on the US east coast, there had not been an appearance of a full 32-bit version.

The build has been deemed legit by those who know such things.

Here's what I know so far... the RC keys that would work with the 72xx or earlier builds will NOT work with with this 7600 build, suggesting that it is at least one of the very final builds before RTM. You will need to do the "rearming" trick to keep it running past the activation window or otherwise hack.

The Creative 64-bit drivers are GARBAGE. My X-Fi Xtreme Music card is completely worthless with 64-bit Windows. The sound is a scratchy, low-volume *mess*. I ended up removing all the Creative software and physically pulling the card. Onboard sound is much nicer.

Hope they fix that by release, I have an XFI too.

Creative sucks ass with driver support. They drug their feet with Vista too. All they want is for people to get frustrated and buy new hardware.

Shegokigo said:

Hope they fix that by release, I have an XFI too.

Click to expand...

Don't hold your breath. This is the same problem that happened with 64-bit Vista. Still not fixed after 2 and a half years. :eyeroll:

The thing I learned from Vista was to never ever buy Creative soundcards again. Or anything else that requires driver support from them for that matter.

It was what, a year before they had a "release" version of their Vista drivers? It's been over 4 years since the X-Fi was released, and there are STILL no viable open-source drivers.

DarkAudit said:

Shegokigo said:

Hope they fix that by release, I have an XFI too.

Click to expand...

Don't hold your breath. This is the same problem that happened with 64-bit Vista. Still not fixed after 2 and a half years. :eyeroll:

Click to expand...

Dark, there is a very good driver fix for creative cards in 64 bit. I have it saved at home still, I think. If I remember when i get out of work, i will post it. My creative xifi works perfect in 64-bit right now.

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/window ... 7-rtm.aspx

So August 6th for us TechNet/MSDN guys. A bit later then I hoped, but it's not too far off.

I know there have been some rumors going around about a “family pack” for Windows 7. We have heard a lot of feedback from beta testers and enthusiasts over the last 3 years that we need a better solution for homes with multiple PCs. I’m happy to confirm that we will indeed be offering a family pack of Windows 7 Home Premium (in select markets) which will allow installation on up to 3 PCs. As I’ve said before, stay tuned to our blog for more information on this and any other potential offers.

Click to expand...

This could be really nice if they can keep the price down.

It's official. We have reached RTM. The build was only slightly later than the build that leaked last week.

OEMs (the PC vendors) will be getting their copies by Friday. MSDN and TechNet on August 6. Discs hit stores on October 22.

Bump.

Today is OEM Day. PC vendors get their copies. And it's been leaked already. :eyeroll:

Gonna be hitting up friends/family after the 6th to see if they know someone, or knows someone who knows someone, that has an MSDN or TechNet account. Or if they have an in on Microsoft Connect.

If I were to "aquire" an OEM version, is there anyway to retrieve my "key" that I purchased already and have a fully fuctional "legal" Windows 7 system?

Shegokigo said:

If I were to "aquire" an OEM version, is there anyway to retrieve my "key" that I purchased already and have a fully fuctional "legal" Windows 7 system?

Click to expand...

No, you won't get your key until the release date. I'd say just wait it out, you'll probably have less headaches that way.

So it got released on MSDN today.

Downloading it now both 32bit (for my laptop) and 64bit. It's being a bit slow, 300 kbps each, but I guess that was to be expected on launch day. Buying a new HDD tomorrow and then on with the installation. Curious if there'll be a lot of noticeable changes between the RTM and RC.

I'm gonna wait till monday to get it. I don't feel like fighting everyone else for it.

So... aranoid: Any of yinz got a spare key?

64 bit RTM is on my laptop now. Seems pretty much the same. Small things changed, but overall, same. Works extremely well, and is stable as all hell. WoW seems to run a lot better than it did under vista 32 bit on this machine, but I knew that would be the case (I had thwe 7100 release on the laptop for a bit back in jan)

Was going to make a new thread but the search feature found this one, figured I would just continue it.

I had my first chance to try out Window 7 just yesterday. I was very scared after my former issues with Vista, and made multiple backups of some important files and folders. The install went smooth, didn't have any issues at all, and I have to say I am impressed.

The first thing I noticed was a performance boost over XP. It was just running faster and smoother even with all the little visual extras, and blew away Vista for me on the system. I also noticed that everything seemed to setup flawlessly. I didn't even have to configure my network, and all my drivers for my hardware seem to be there. Took me by surprise because I was expecting a lot more setup being required.

I kept WoW hidden away on another hard drive in order to avoid having to reinstall, and that worked great. I noticed even WoW has gotten a FPS increase since I last played before the upgrade.

Really, the only things I think it will take time to get used to is the new application bar merged with quick launch, the gadgets, and the folder design. Otherwise I am pretty happy with it. When I learned it automatically came with a desktop screen capture tool for snipping, I actually found myself way more excited then I should have been.

I fell asleep last night while reinstalling my adobe suite, so I will have to play around more when I get home from work. If this is what I can expect I actually might buy it when it comes out.

You'll get used to the new bar quick, and then you will wonder how you went without it. I love it. i have had the full retail (ahem) on my laptop for a bit now and the 7100 build on my home pc. i will change that over in a week or two, i think.

No way I am going back to anything else.

One thing I noticed about WoW was that patches didn't install correctly when I did what you did. I think what I had to do last time was right click on wow.exe and choose "run as administrator". It has to rebuild some registry settings or something that it can't do unless you run it as administrator.

Very few, if any issues for me. But there is one.

I have an NTFS-formatted external drive. I hooked it up when I had the public RC installed, then I replaced that with a newer RC build, then the RTM build that some dude from Levovo leaked just after the OEMs got their copies. (key, anyone? Please? Pretty please?)

The ownership of the folders on that external drive got borked, since after a reinstall, the unique identifier for the previous "owner" was gone. any file manipulation required admin approval, and trying to move or delete files while in apps like ACDSee got "access denied".

By going in and making myself the owner of the folders once again instead of some weird string of letters and numbers ID'ing the previous me from the last install, I'm able to move files and folders at will again.

The only problem is getting rid of that "other" me from the last install. I keep getting errors because I'm never in what Win7 considers the final "parent" folder from which permissions were inherited down the line.

if you have an edu email, you can get the full windows 7 for 30 bucks!


I wonder if my old college email is still active.

Shakey said:

One thing I noticed about WoW was that patches didn't install correctly when I did what you did. I think what I had to do last time was right click on wow.exe and choose "run as administrator". It has to rebuild some registry settings or something that it can't do unless you run it as administrator.

Click to expand...

Does Windows 7 still have UAC then? Because when that's disabled, "run as administrator" is not needed when your account is administrator.

Yeah, it's a trimmed down version of it though. It doesn't bother me so I don't disable it.

Shannow said:

if you have an edu email, you can get the full windows 7 for 30 bucks!


I wonder if my old college email is still active.

Click to expand...

Mine is. Where do I go?!?!??!!??!??!?!??

Chazwozel;261743][quote=Shannow said:

if you have an edu email, you can get the full windows 7 for 30 bucks!


I wonder if my old college email is still active.

Click to expand...

Mine is. Where do I go?!?!??!!??!??!?!??[/QUOTE]

Cheap Win 7

yup..side note, my old email from years ago works, looks like i did set up the forwarding when I graduated. I will actually have a legit copy of 7 now! woo!

Just got back from the "The New Efficiency" Win 7 launch event in Pittsburgh. Attendees received a free copy of Win 7 Ultimate and a 180-day trial of Windows Server 2008 R2. Small details from the dev track presentations are on my twitter feed @darkaudit.

The Win 7 disc was 32-bit, but I had the 64-bit RTM installed. Key still worked fine.

Looks like Newegg just put the OEM versions up for preorder, and they have some deals. Ultimate is going for $175, Professional is going for $135, and Home Premium is going for $100.

Amazon's price for the full version of Win7 Ultimate is $319. That's the price I'm using when anyone questions my getting up at 0 dark 30 to head to Pittsburgh this morning.

On a side note, Microsoft has released Microsoft Security Essentials, a free antivirus/anti-malware suite. Initial test on Ars Technica was positive. Has anyone given this a look yet?

The full retail version is always a lot more expensive than the OEM version, plus Newegg is giving $15 off.

I'm not sure if I'll try their antivirus or not. Avast works just fine for me.

DarkAudit said:

On a side note, Microsoft has released Microsoft Security Essentials, a free antivirus/anti-malware suite. Initial test on Ars Technica was positive. Has anyone given this a look yet?

Click to expand...

Sounds nice, but I'll assume the EU will sue MS over it because of 'monopoly abusing' again.

As long as they don't bundle it with Windows, they should be OK.

DarkAudit said:

On a side note, Microsoft has released Microsoft Security Essentials, a free antivirus/anti-malware suite. Initial test on Ars Technica was positive. Has anyone given this a look yet?

Click to expand...

Yes, it's great, and at least to me, seems a lot slimmer then AVG. It also caught something on it's very first scan (a corrupted .mp3)

I'm very, very impressed.

Since I recently bought a new computer with Vista on it, I have a free upgrade to Win 7 64-bit Home Premium waiting for me when it officially releases.

I'm still debating whether or not I should upgrade, given that everything works fine on Vista, and the thought of needing to search for and download new drivers, over dialup, fills me with dread.

Ravenpoe said:

Since I recently bought a new computer with Vista on it, I have a free upgrade to Win 7 64-bit Home Premium waiting for me when it officially releases.

I'm still debating whether or not I should upgrade, given that everything works fine on Vista, and the thought of needing to search for and download new drivers, over dialup, fills me with dread.

Click to expand...

In most cases the Vista drivers will work fine. I've been running 7 for months now, and I had to go with Vista drivers for my mouse/keyboard/printer as they're not available via Windows Update, and the vendors don't have 7-specific drivers yet.

I set compatibility mode as Vista and ran as administrator. HP printer software and Logitech keyboard and mouse drivers working fine on this box running 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

The damn Windows 7 update adviser won't install on my laptop!

So question:

I got: Win XP office, 1.73 GHz single processor (Intel M), 2 gigs of RAM and a Nvidia Go 6600 256 meg video card. Am I good to go for Win 7 Home 32 bit on my laptop? Keep in mind the most I do on my laptop is use Office 2007 and productivity stuff. No gaming etc...

From Microsoft:

If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Click to expand...

You should be OK. It works just as well as XP did on my Netbook.

Shakey said:

From Microsoft:

If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it takes:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Click to expand...

You should be OK. It works just as well as XP did on my Netbook.

Click to expand...

Much obliged. Yeah for 30 bucks, I figure what the hell. Might as well upgrade the 32 bit version and just run my laptop for a couple of years.

This is annoying.

I'm running the release version of Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit, with a WinTV 950 USB TV tuner stick and amplified rabbit ears. The TV signal strength meters in Media Center show a big fat zero on all channels, yet the three subchannels of WNPB (the only OTA channel within 40 miles of here) come in just fine. That makes it useless to try to adjust the antenna to try to gather in any of the more distant channels.

I will qualify this to say that Hauppauge has yet to deliver drivers specifically for Windows 7. Same goes for Logitech and HP. Only a week to go, fellas.

I've been having issues with going to different wired networks on my netbook. It won't recognize it has a cable plugged in until I disable and re-enable the connection. Other than that it's been working fine.

Microsoft teamed up with Burger King for the launch of Windows 7 in Japan:
via Engadget



That's Whopper with 7 patties. The first 30 people get it for ¥777 ($8.55), after that it's ¥1,450 ($17.10).

Om nom nom nom nom nom nom

Jesus Christ.

I think Ill try to put the newest release on my main pc this weekend.

So I bought that digital river download of Win 7 for 30 bucks. I can download it, but they never gave me the product keys.

Well I got some shit news.

The Pre-Order I got for $60 isn't a full version, it's an upgrade to use on my Vista. rly:

Any downsides to using upgrades vs full versions? I've never had to do it this way before.

You just need to have Vista around somewhere. On the hard drive or on a disk on a shelf, doesn't matter. You can still do a clean install. The only difference in the two is the check for an existing version.

So to install fresh, I have to fully install Vista, then install 7 on top of it?

Shegokigo said:

So to install fresh, I have to fully install Vista, then install 7 on top of it?

Click to expand...

No. It'll require you to pop in your vista disk for like 2 seconds and then proceed with the Win 7 install.

That's how my Win 2000 to Xp upgrade worked anyway.

Oh wow, really? I always had a misconception about upgrades and always avoided them because of it.

I'm not so bummed out about it anymore! -

Shegokigo said:

Oh wow, really? I always had a misconception about upgrades and always avoided them because of it.

I'm not so bummed out about it anymore! -

Click to expand...

Yeah, the only difference between the upgrade and full version packages is the upgrade package, in addition to your product key, requires you to essentially use your old Window's disk as another "product key" to unlock the install process.

I bought my machine with Vista installed and don't recall ever getting the disk. This means that I'll be unable to even upgrade.

No. If you bought it with an OEM version, it should be able to upgrade as well, without any questions.

i'm in love with Windows7, I really am. I didn't want to be, but it wood me...

wooed?

woo'd?

...past tense of woo.

got you wooden?

Dave said:

I bought my machine with Vista installed and don't recall ever getting the disk. This means that I'll be unable to even upgrade.

Click to expand...

There should be an option somewhere for you to burn a set of recovery discs. You should do that right away if you haven't already.

Ok, so I got an issue. I'd like to install my second copy of Win 7 onto my laptop. I have a Geforce GO 6600 in it. Nvidia and Alienware do not supply or support new drivers for this card, but I read up and this place does: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I've read through the FAQ several times and still have no clue how to search for my specific driver. Anyone ever use this place?

Chazwozel;281927][quote=Shegokigo said:

So to install fresh, I have to fully install Vista, then install 7 on top of it?

Click to expand...

No. It'll require you to pop in your vista disk for like 2 seconds and then proceed with the Win 7 install.

That's how my Win 2000 to Xp upgrade worked anyway.[/QUOTE]

That's my understanding of upgrades from 98 through Vista, possibly even before. However, that's not what Microsoft has said in the Windows Team Blog:
Moving to Windows 7 FAQ

Question: What if I need to reinstall Windows 7 and only have an upgrade version?

If for some reason you need to reinstall Windows 7 and have the upgrade version you will be required to install a previous version of Windows before installing Windows 7.

Click to expand...

Let us know how things go Shego, I'm very curious to find out.

Just found this via Gizmodo:
Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

Apparently you can trick Win7 into thinking it was installed as an upgrade by changing a registry entry.

They now require Vista or XP to be installed and validated before you can use the upgrade to Win 7. They changed it.

Isn't that going to be bloated as hell?

You can still do a clean install (format and do a fresh install), you just need to have a version of Vista or XP installed at the start of the install. I haven't heard any bad things about simply upgrading from Vista though.

Shegokigo said:

Isn't that going to be bloated as hell?

Click to expand...

So I just did this last night Sheg. If you're in XP you must clean install, and it gives you an option to save your files in a temp folder Win7 makes called Windows.old. This folder has everything that was on your old hard drive. Just drag and drop into your new Win7 folders and then delete the Windows.old folder. No bloating.

---------- Post added at 09:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 AM ----------

Oh and Windows 7 is amazing.

Hm, we'll see when my copy shows up.... rly:

figmentPez said:

Just found this via Gizmodo:
Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

Apparently you can trick Win7 into thinking it was installed as an upgrade by changing a registry entry.

Click to expand...

Quoting this for those who apparently missed it. The link above gives instructions for two different ways to do a fresh install of Windows 7 from upgrade discs, without having to bother to install XP or Vista first.

I've got 4 Gbs of Memory on my laptop but windows vista 32 bit home edition only reads 3.5 of that would 7 read all 4 of my memory?

BlackCat said:

I've got 4 Gbs of Memory on my laptop but windows vista 32 bit home edition only reads 3.5 of that would 7 read all 4 of my memory?

Click to expand...

Only if you use the 64-bit version of Win7.

Crap why can't they just have one edition? I was at Walmart this morning and they have the new windows out damn its expensive.

BlackCat said:

Crap why can't they just have one edition?

Click to expand...

If you're referring to the 32-bit vs 64-bit:
1. Some processors still don't support 64-bit, like Intel's Atom processor.
2. There are some devices that don't have 64-bit drivers. Palm PDAs (can only sync via Bluetooth in 64-bit, no USB), some TV tuners, scanners, sound cards, etc.
3. A small amount of programs won't work in 64-bit.

It's likely that Windows 8 will no longer have a 32-bit version, but there are rumors it will have a 128-bit version (which consumers won't need to worry about).

If you're referring to Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, etc., presumably Microsoft thinks they can maximize their profits that way.

Ahh how original it just still seems silly that they cant just create them like they used to. Ahh the good old days of windows 3.1

A few things I've learned since I made the plunge to windows 7. You can do a clean install with the upgrade copy, you just have to install it first without putting in the registration code, then reinstall it a second time using the registration code this time. It worked on three of our computers as early as yesterday.

As I understand it, the retail disks for Windows 7 include both the 32 and 64 bit versions of windows, but I may be wrong.

For some reason I can't stop thinking about this.

THAT

WAS

AWESOME

Bowielee said:

A few things I've learned since I made the plunge to windows 7. You can do a clean install with the upgrade copy, you just have to install it first without putting in the registration code, then reinstall it a second time using the registration code this time. It worked on three of our computers as early as yesterday.

As I understand it, the retail disks for Windows 7 include both the 32 and 64 bit versions of windows, but I may be wrong.

Click to expand...

Yep. Picked up the home premium 3pack today, and it's got 2 dvds with it.

What bothers me is that, contrary to the RC that I'd installed almost anywhere and everywhere, the final build seems to be struggling with the first machine I'd installed it on. Now, I never attempted to put win7 rc onto this machine before, so it's possible the RC would have done the same, but it's still having alot of issues that are...frustrating. The stylus occasionally works....and then stops. The Wifi card goes from full to no and back to full signal for no reason, while no other machine on the network does.

I'm baffled, but I think it may just be because it's a couple of years old. I guess I was just expecting the magic of windows to extend its hand further than it did.

IronBrig4 said:

For some reason I can't stop thinking about this.

Click to expand...

If Microsoft had used that as their Anti-Mac campaign I think it would have been 1000x more succesful. :uhhuh:

Chazwozel said:

Ok, so I got an issue. I'd like to install my second copy of Win 7 onto my laptop. I have a Geforce GO 6600 in it. Nvidia and Alienware do not supply or support new drivers for this card, but I read up and this place does: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I've read through the FAQ several times and still have no clue how to search for my specific driver. Anyone ever use this place?

Click to expand...

I did for mine. Should be right at the top. I can walk you through it if you need to later.

Shannow;283768][quote=Chazwozel said:

Ok, so I got an issue. I'd like to install my second copy of Win 7 onto my laptop. I have a Geforce GO 6600 in it. Nvidia and Alienware do not supply or support new drivers for this card, but I read up and this place does: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I've read through the FAQ several times and still have no clue how to search for my specific driver. Anyone ever use this place?

Click to expand...

I did for mine. Should be right at the top. I can walk you through it if you need to later.[/QUOTE]


Yeah, I figured it out. I forgot that Nvidia drivers are universal for everything.