Microsoft's CEO ballmer announced that the new windows, Windows 7 will be available  for download in beta version as from Friday. Microsoft hopes to make the best windows version so far. Hope this doesn't mean they've given up on vista cos vista is kinda cool.

the full gist is here http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/08/microsoft.ballmer/index.html

I'll post the link to download windows 7 asap.

---

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

ok for your Windows Blackcomb, here's the link. You can download the torrent or use the direct link for the .zip format. I recommend the latter esp when u have Free download manager or DAP.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/06/27/download-windows-7-milestone-1-m1-build-6165191-leaked-bt-download/

i tried it on a friends laptop once and all i can say is , not impressed. its more of a polished vista than anything else. the only notable difference i were mostly appearance. a new task menu which sucks IMHO. also the memory footprint is is larger then vista. on idle mode the system uses 800mb of ram. meaning Microsoft hasnt learned much on how to make a light OS that uses little resources. one area of improvement i noticed is the networking. its easier now to share your internet connection wirelessly which i think is a step in the right direction. other than that i don't see any reason why i would want to run windows 7 if i already run a vista. and if you are one of the people still running XP because of your displeasure with the vista way. then hold tight because if u hated vista. you would sure hate windows 7. although what i tested was the pre-beta release. i hope that enough improvements are pumped into the final release to make it worth the upgrade.

I'm sure the one u might have tried was actually a polished vista. I just found out today that Microsoft delayed the download of Windows 7 due to overwhelming demand

http://www.pcworld.com/article/156841/windows_7_beta_download_delayed_due_to_overwhelming_demand.html

At least this proves that people still love their windows no matter what might have been said about Vista. Your friend might have got his se7en from a torrent site most likely and I believe there is virtually nothing u can't get from there, maybe he got the transformation pack!

To be sure of se7en, type "cmd" in the run dialog box. You should see the version number, XP begins with 5, Vista begins with 6 and se7en shld begin with 7. At least that's how I confirm mine, quite simple

dude the windows 7 i tried was the real thing, (although its the alpha version that was released to develops) not the forthcoming release , i would know a transformation pack job if i see one, it had some under the hood stuffs like the power shell and the improved network stack WMP12 and IE8, even the transitioning effect was different from vista , even MS admit the Windows 7 is more of an evolutionary OS than a Revolutionary one , so dont expect the kind of revolutionary change the was between XP and vista, the changes for widnows 7 are more of polishing the os and fixing some of vista nagging problems and adding improved touch screen support

it's still in the beta version though.


they 've made adjustments for complaints on Vista

@ poster and topic .Win 7 has been available since even the current build 7k has been out since Nov.

Since i have been using it; not bad , at least far beta than xp and UAC and boot time is far beta than even xp.

@tex. bigrovar has a hands-on experience of  windows 7 and not some opinion he read off the web. if you have your own experience share with us. nothing to argue about., before you start calling someone a troll here.

Hands on Experience

there are so many good reviews about windows 7 ( how good it is and worth not))

but as someone has mentioned, i though windows 7 was going to be click open.

maybe its just me or my hardware (Core2Extreme 3.2ghz 8Gb ram, 300gb at 10,000prm, Ati 4870X2)

but windows vista feels faster than windows 7. this is my opinion.

the WEI score in vista is 5.9 for everything.

in windows 7?? kai, its like 5.4 for the lowest.

i think one should just wait for until the RTM comes out. also, i experience alot of bsods,

i hope they get it right this time

by the way bigrovar is soooo right, i stay within 700MB at idle times but then again ram is not an issue so thats fine,

pls, dont come blap here. dont copy and paste from somewhere. try it out and get yur facts right

thank you

moonraker:

Hands on Experience

there are so many good reviews about windows 7 ( how good it is and worth not))

but as someone has mentioned, i though windows 7 was going to be click open.

maybe its just me or my hardware (Core2Extreme 3.2ghz 8Gb ram, 300gb at 10,000prm, Ati 4870X2)

but windows vista feels faster than windows 7. this is my opinion.

I mentioned Windows 7 was faster than Vista on low end systems, but with powerful rigs Vista SP1 actually outperforms Xp. I cannot remember making a comparison between speeds in Vista and Windows 7 on high end machines.
However, bear in mind that
1. This is still beta software
2. While driver support is pretty good and in most cases compatible with Vista's, there is definitely room for improvement.

You actually go a long way to corroborate my stance that there was nothing wrong with Vista in the first place as long as it's running on capable hardware.

I do have an objection to your test, however. It isn't scientific enough, and is extremely subjective.
here's an option:
1. Get a big Winzip or WinRAR file and extract it. Check time taken to do so in Vista and Windows 7
2. Check time taken to launch popular programs like Word, Excel, Powerpoint ETC
3. Time taken to copy a file from one folder to another

That way you have real-world benchmarks to compare against.

moonraker:

the WEI score in vista is 5.9 for everything.

in windows 7?? kai, its like 5.4 for the lowest.

The WEI scale in Vista goes from 1 - 5.9
The scale in Windows 7 goes up to 7.9

I would think that that alone should show you that it wasn't a simple port over from Vista.

moonraker:

by the way bigrovar is soooo right, i stay within 700MB at idle times but then again ram is not an issue so thats fine,

please, don't come blap here. don't copy and paste from somewhere. try it out and get yur facts right

thank you

'blap'?

i've found that 'Copy and paste' is a somewhat derisory phrase used by people with no intention of facing the real issues. I provided links and included excerpts and screenshots to make it easier on readers. So what's the issue with that?

At this stage, yourself, bigrovar and myself are all online reviewers, similar to what everyone else is doing. If i had a Win 7 machine at hand i would have checked it out myself. But i don't. So for now, not only will i go with the majority, but it doesn't hurt that this same majority also have a more scientific methods for presenting their case (you didn't even think to include a screenshot).

We gain nothing by unneccessary strife. So let's do the reasonable thing and focus on knowledge.

Can you confirm your Vista is SP1? Are you running a Vlite trimmed down version of Vista?

I will try and install Win 7 on another MSI wind netbook tonight and see what the results give.

Do your friends, the 'enterprise users' not know that you can easily turn off the Aero interface and pretty much run in Basic mode? There are bound to be a few people who prefer the look of Windows 2000 to even XP. what bearing does that have in a review?
In your tests with Windows 7, how did you fail to notice that the UAC had been drastically toned down to be much less intrusive?
How did a mini review of WIndows 7 get hammered out by yourself without mentioning the tweaks to the UAC, a major source of contention with many users?.

Have you worked in an Enterprise environment before ,  like a bank or somewhere similar ,  how many banks do you know that uses Vista. its not because enterprise people hate the cool Aero interface ,  its more of what is running under the hood. compatibility and stability,  i.e what am used to. sure i know a company that still uses windows 98 ,  again my point was that windows 7 doesnt do anything new from vista,  from an interface point of view,  beside i don't qualify my post as a review ,  i was just stating what i experienced using windows 7. a review would have been much more detailed. (btw i didn't notice any change in UAC with windows 7,  i was among the few who wasn't really bothered by it)

Did it ever occur to you that all the reviews you read for Vista were on machines that met the recommended requirements given out by Microsoft? Have you EVER seen a vista review that the test machine's hardware was not specified? Vista got a bad rep mainly because people kept running them on older hardware (many people here on Nairaland just went out to Otigba and tried to pop Vista on 800Mhz machines with no GPU and 256 - 512 Mb RAM).

the issue of system requirement too was a major point of controversy. even MS people were confused on what requirement is needed to make a system vista capable.i remembered before the release of vista ,  lots of OEMS tagged their systems vista capable. so who do you blame on this one ,  the poor innocent guy who installed vista on a 350mb ram system because it was tagged vista capable (from experience not me sha) infact MS got sued on the issue (for misleading people on vista capable thingie) http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200817/793/Microsoft-fails-in-Vista-Capable-court-appeal

Also people strangely kept expecting universal compatibility with all their old software and pushed the blame to Microsoft. Not all companies had updated drivers out and this added to the compatibility issues

upon the release of vista there was no clear cut standard of what the minimum requirement for vista is ,  sure we knew it would run on a 3gb computer with the latest and greatest hardware,  but what was the minimum. i remembered my first vista laptop was 1gb ram core 2 duo ,  and vista eat up about 700mb of that. just to run,  the result was a machine that was slow as hell when doing any task outside of watching  the screensaver run,

Reviews done on systems that met Windows recommended specs, and with reviewers that understood that driver and 3rd party software support were responsibilities of the respective companies were almost always positive. Naturally, issues with the OS itself were pointed out. Show me any professional review of the Vista OS that did not criticize the intrusive nature of the UAC.

like i said earlier i take online reviews with a pinch of self ,  in fact a bucket full of salts if i must say ,  until recent it was wierd to see people have systems with 3gb or 4gb or ram ,  i mean systems for home users. even that is not a guarantee for speed. run xp on a 3gb system and see it blaze ,  not so for vista ,  again i know my what i mean by speed,  vista is by no means slow on a 3gb dual processor ,  neither can you call it fast either.

The acer ferrari furore involved only about two dozen bloggers. Unless the hundreds of commentators on Engadget, gizmodo et al have all been bribed, i'd say their overwhelming judgement tilts in favour of Windows

  you mean 24 bloggers ,  dude 24 influential bloggers can make a big impact on perception especially if they are well chosen.beside what is unethical is unethical,  and gifting people high end laptop to review ur product compromises the on their integrity to be unbiased

it's always good to have a personal opinion, yes, but i'm not foolish enough to use my negative impressions about Linux as a basis for a faintly damning review. If my iPhone hangs up often, i'll go online to see if it's a common problem before i start writing reviews talking about a problem.

neither am i ,  my option is based on my experience and nothing more,  calling it a damning review is the subjective qualification you choose to apply to it,  its first an opinion ,  whether is damning on not is a matter of personal interpretation.

99.9% of netbooks sold come installed with Windows Xp Home edition, which runs pretty well on a 1.6 Ghz machine. When i install Windows 7, a more advanced version of the former OS and i get the same speed levels and response time as the XP (with all the Aero eye candy enabled), then i'm damn well certain to call it pretty fast

. well i cant comment on that ,  since it was your test,  although i don't think i will be running windows 7 on a netbook very soon. perhaps it is optimized to take better advantage of ssd then xp was. perhaps it just better optimize to work better on hardware ,  could be, 

If your dell m1330 runs Vista or Xp, install 7 and compare the response time.

no it doesn't run neither ,  and wont be in a long time,  however am ready to bet my money on it that non of the above OS can give me the speed i get on that machine,  .

One of the chief complaints about Vista is that it’s a “heavy” operating system that eats up too many system resources. However, in his presentation at PDC, Windows and Windows Live SVP Steve Sinofsky said that WIndows 7 consumes less than half of his Lenovo S10 netbook’s 1GB of RAM. It turns out he was right on the money as the performance monitor showed only 485MB of the RAM was in use with no applications — except the standard Eee PC driver set — were running.

like i said i take this reviews with a pinch of salt,  p990 is the worst product ever to be made,  yet it had glowing reveiws from almost every tech site,  also i haven't seen a review of the dell m1330 that point to the nvidia problem that is turning the machine to an expensive metal weight faster than shoes can be thrown at Bush. (thank God i got the Intel version)

http://mindre.net/post/Windows-7---All-Tasks-and-Memory-usage.aspx

Memory usage (Updated)
At PDC a netbook (Asus eee?) with 1GB of RAM was showcased running Windows 7 just fine.
1GB of RAM isn't much these days, but still I kept wondering how much RAM does Windows 7 really need?
A quick comment pointed out that in the night i forgot to take the page file into account!
As I wanted to find the "static" memory usage of Windows 7, the page file had to go.
The new tests showed that with 512MB of RAM the system used about 369MB of it.
With 400MB of RAM the system used 329MB.
And with 300MB of RAM the system got a critical error after booting.
So what is the real "static" memory footprint of Windows 7?
It seems to need about 350MB of RAM to be able to boot successfully

. nice ,  and i believe you,  also believe me when i say i got 800mb ram on idle usage. from windows 7.

So i do not know how you obtained your idle RAM usage of 800 Mb

taskmanager ? .

You seem to be in the minority here

. dude i am a minority and my window 7 "review" have nothing to do with it.

When your experience is inconsistent with what most other people are getting, common sense dictates you take another look at the benchmarks and your test machine again.

common sense to me is ,  get on with my life ,  i wont be using windows 7 and i know what i saw ,  beside i don't have the time or the resources to do so,  in fact i used windows 7 during the hols not because i wanted to but because i had no choice,  i just thought to share my experience and my thought about it when i saw this thread ,  if i was really interested in doing a review of windows 7 i would use my blog.

As a system administrator i wonder how come you have no access to older hardware to test out the veracity of Microsoft's claims

. am longer in lagos and i have no windows 7 cd/iso with me , 

As you said, it's your opinion. But you're reviewing a publicly available beta, which most people have tested with extremely favourably results, even for a beta. The overwhelming majority of people accept that it's a solid return to form by Microsoft. Except for yourself, that is.

what can i say ,  to each is own and i stick to what i saw ,  and nobody has to believe me,  like i said earlier i used windows 7 not because i wanted to review it,  i had no computer to use,  and just tot to see if there were any improvements,  i was disappointed but i brushed it off and went on with my life,  till i saw the thread and decided to post my experience.

have a healthy respect for your IT skills and intellect, and Gamine speaks highly of you
But it's extremely shameful of you to make the above statement without reading the link i provided. Does it make you happier to insist that Vista can outperform Xp on hardware that comfortably meets the Vista minimum requirements?
Here's the link below in case you missed it before
http://futuremark.yougamers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72298

[/quote]

[quote]This is a scientific test done with several established benchmarks for real world performance. the specifications of the machine are published in the article.
keep on like this and you leave yourself open to 'Stop hating' kind of comments

  the real shame is you expecting me to dispel what i experience everyday in my line of work,  with people's general usage of computers for some benchmark run in some forum by some guy who uses his computer generally for gaming,  dude i provide IT support,  and i deal with this issues ,  latest person is the librarian her shinny vista with 3gb ram is just there when it comes to speed. (plus other annoyance)  its my work to install what work best for my clients (and what would make them disturb me less) in my line of work the more xp i install the less problem i get , That Tex is my benchmark

@ texazzpete

dog, we aint fighting or are we??  i believe everyone is entitled to his or her opinion (last time i checked)

heres the deal, i dont run a vlite version. i trimmed my VISTA SP1 ULTIMATE by reducing services so that i only have 45 process. i did that becos i do a lot

of heavy stuff like playing game and HD editing. not forgeting photoshop.

u make me sound as if i dont knw what the heck i am talking about but its all good.

as technology grows, so does software and hardware requirements increase, i mentioned the WEI Score thingy becos

for God sake, i have very capable hardware so why is my graphics having a mere 5.4?? well thank God that u did correct yurself in a way saying that

windows 7 is a beta and drivers are still in puperty stage.

oooh for the record, i did my own tests and that how i came abt the conclusion that vista feels faster.

the fact that i didnt post the screenshot doesnt make me a liar. i wonder why one would make up first hand experience, thank you

@moonraker
I never called you a liar or anything like that. But even you must admit that you're running a tweaked version of Vista against Win 7. Bit of an unfair comparison.
When writing a review, it's always nice to specify test system and conditions. To be fair, you DID specify your system config, but you could stand to be a bit more informative about the 'idle' process. Did you check the RAM footprint just after bootup? That's what most of the other reviewers are doing, so it's a good way to compare your scores.

I wasn't aware AMD had started shipping the 48xx series GPUs. They must be pretty capable indeed! But it'd be nice if you could shed more light on the drivers you're using for the card. Is it the Vista drivers provided by AMD, or the native drivers that come with Win 7?
For such a powerful GPU, it's safe to assume that you'd hit max performance in the RTM version.


Online reviews and web opinions are a great way to find out more information about something. That's how i know what games to buy, what movies to see, etc. It's not like Movies or Art where opinions are subjective. hardware and software tests should be reasonably definite as long as it's done scientifically. That's why i'm more inclined to accept the general online consensus of Win 7 being faster, leaner and less resource hungry than Vista.

Vista runs crap on netbooks, even with Aero disabled. Windows 7 runs so well with Aero enabled that Microsoft has used several in their demonstrations. That in itself tells me that Win 7 is more optimized than Vista SP1.

@bigrovar and texazzpete

No need chewing each other out, it is possible bigrovar ran an alpha/beta version with some sort of debugging code running the general news out there (even from some anti-MS sites) is that Windows 7 is very resource efficient.
Should be trying it out soon myself.

@tex. you have a habit of turning a thread discussion into a debate or politicising a technical discussion, and you enjoy hauling insults at the slightest opportunity. we can read web pages like you. you don't have to litter this thread with googled web links. simply state your own opinion and experience. is that too difficult a thing for you? haba!

@ texazzpete

ok,  i get yur drift. first of all, i apologize for not revealing in detail how my test was conducted.

like i said earlier, i run a tweaked version of windows vista ultimate SP1 (TWEAKED: services reduction, Index, aero tweak with transparency still active,

windows features off, processor tweak etc). all these tweaks, i applied to windows 7 and this is basically how i came up with my conclusion (other test

inclusive). 

its funny though becos the problems i experienced with my desktop doesnt surface while using my netbook with windows 7 making me think that microsoft

optimized this OS for netbooks.

anyways, i respect yur technical background. keep blasting.

@moonraker
Well, i know Microsoft optimized Win 7 to use far less resources than Vista. Not sure about the 'customized for netbooks' part, but i think i can understand. The components of most netbooks are pretty generic. Similar screens, similar touchpads from synaptics etc, audio drivers from realtek etc.
It also helps that 99% of netbooks use the intel GMA 950 integrated graphics.
So out of the box, it's easy for MS to include all the required drivers for optimized performance.


At least that's what i think. I'm downloading the build 7000 and will install later this night, will try and provide info on the memory usage.

i think i came across a guide online for using Vlite to strip down windows 7 also. how much impact will streamlining the OS have on battery life?

@tex

battery life?? honestly, little or no change. streamlining is more of memory and processor usage thingy.

if yu had a less powerful system, its would, its would be very benefiting. i think the only way to achieve more battery time

is to strip aero but then again, aero is the whole ideal (at least for me).

and yur sooooo correct, GMA 950 works better out of the box becos of how closely intel works with MS.

i hope they get it right, waiting to see yur reviews.

Not sure if i can do any reasonable benchmarks with my current hardware. I mean, i could easily install Windows 7 in my VAIO but the XP install is pretty slow now after two years. I'm in that terminal period where i'm waiting to buy my next laptop, still waiting for the perfect blend of 15.4 inch screen and a 512 MB Geforce 9800.
With only 1GB RAM on my ageing VAIO and too many bloatware apps running on startup, i don't think i'm gonna get anyu definitive results from that


That leaves the netbook. it comes pre-installed with XP, so i sat down last night to install OSX86. After 2 hours of battle i managed to get a dual boot of OSX and XP. So i tried to triple boot with Windows 7, managed to install WIndows 7 on a third partition but now it's only the Win 7 bootloader up. Tried using Easy BCD to add OSX and XP to the Win 7 bootloader, the thing no gree work

I managed to grab one screenshot showing Win 7 memory usage on the netbook. Here goes.

OFF TOPIC

This is the reason why i can't afford to format my XP partition

@texazzpete, Nice to see another person that has a fully working OSx86. I have Kalyway 10.5.1 dvd and successfully installed on a cloned system. How can I create another boot option for XP without using another drive?
Kalyway didnt work on a Dell latitude d510 and TOshiba satellite pro.
Sorry it's off topic though.

@ tex

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/011509-windows-7-on-netbooks-does.html?t51hb

"According to Microsoft's Windows Consumer Product Managing Director Parri Munsell, "Windows 7 has been optimized and engineered to run on anything, from the smallest notebook to the most loaded laptop or desktop."

Conspiracy Theory 101

THat means Microsoft is bent on having its own share of the market back. That's nice

texazzpete:

Isn't a debate exactly what we want on a public forum? What exactly have i politicized here?
Funny you speak of a 'technical discussion' when you're pretty much the only one who has contributed nothing technical.

Enjoy? No, i don't. I unfortunately have little patience for your inane posts.


Of course i googled the web links, retard. I used the links and the contents of the articles they pointed to to re-inforce my points. There are no ground rules in this discussion, where did you come up with the idea that all this topic calls for is to 'simply state your own opinion and experience'?
if you had any brains you'd see that all the links and screenshots i posted showed conclusions backed by scientific, controlled tests and benchmarks.

I think that the mental institution you live in is very progressive to allow you internet access. however I do think that they need to monitor your medication a little more closely.

I also need to return the vial of Anti-troll repellant i paid dearly for, since i am constantly assailed by your trollish presence.

to insult someone on the internet can be as detrimental as doing so in person. i won't descend so low to reply you in like manner.
you have made no technical contributions here or in the apple iphone thread you mentioned. those who really know don't talk too much. you make so much noise over a software you didn't even contribute a letter to its development.

texazzpete:

OFF TOPIC

This is the reason why i can't afford to format my XP partition 

kai!

TP - thats the EXACT reason you need to format. you need to terminate with extreme prejudice.i'm sure you have installation files of all your apps. plus, i'm sure you arent using half of those apps  on the regular. plus what r u doing with two diff versions of acrobat reader 

you can use autoruns to disable unnessary apps from starting up. to be honest u need more ram.

@ flyuche, whats with using NTs sig? _{ouch. . . seems its an arabic sig. . .not NTs}

sojioguns:

@texazzpete, Nice to see another person that has a fully working OSx86. I have Kalyway 10.5.1 dvd and successfully installed on a cloned system. How can I create another boot option for XP without using another drive?
Kalyway didnt work on a Dell latitude d510 and TOshiba satellite pro.
Sorry it's off topic though.

Ok, i'll guess you don't wanna use OSX's darwin bootloader.
You can download EasyBCD and use to add an entry for OSX. I'm not sure the install order you used, i've always installed OSX86 on an XP system.

By the way, i hear the dell inspiron 1525s are pretty good for OSX, i've ordered one to tinker with.

Sorry for going offtopic. . .

@text
homeboy, that system needs delieverance!!! wtf do you do? do you produce audio, videos, anything? damn!!!

however, thanx for putting that a-hole in his place, someppl just need a beating. MS has sufferd some much bad review over the past years and when they FINALLY decide to listen and do what everyone likes, some bastarda comes up with his d*i*c*k in his mouth and says trash.

I'm a microsoft faithful and i'll take down any mf who says trash is gud and gud is trash.

@All,
Pls anyone in the house should assist. My Dell Latitude C610, pentium 111 with 1G CPU processing speed crashed some days back and no longer boots at start up. I got a windows XP from a friend and tried to format by booting thru the CDRom drive but got this error message; The file I386\Ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. The error code is 7.
Am right now confused,

@pete

i can see every piece of software available on that, How lcome you have not installed autodesk maya?

men, i give it to you, you live computer

boot 123, best for installing vanilla OS X on a hackint0sh.

or EFiX.

frankly, besides support for multitouch, ive not yet seen one feature on windows 7 that isnt already on the Mac.

they even aped OS X's Dock in the form of the new taskbar, with live icons displaying tasks.

but still its a remarkable improvement over vista.

most people agree proper name for it shouldnt be windows 7, but vista v2. nothing there to challenge Snow Leopard.

still, its a fine OS by miles if the comparisons are with vista and xp,

@OYB

dont bother, i actually copied Flyuche's sig, though mine says "salaam" (greetings).

@Inferis
and Snow leopard is just Leopard v2, isn't it?