Windows 7 Release Candidate

[asonda]

I've just downloaded the Windows 7 Release Candidate.

Maybe we could make this thread a sticky?

Anybody is able to download it if they wish and it will run up until 2010.

I'll be installing it in the next day or two then hopefully giving my blog a good run down on all the new features.

Has anybody on here had any experience with the new OS?

Perhaps we could share bugs, issues, ideas and comments.

[Comspec]

Windows 7 is what Vista should have been, and shows once again that Vista was a cash cow only. It is merely Vista with the carp stripped off it.

Well done M$ for managing to get the majority of the Computer Industry to buy an OS (Vi$ta) safe in the knowledge that it did not work properly, took vastly more resources than anyone could have dreamed about, and was about to be refined and rebadged to be replaced in a couple of years. Man we are a gullible lot.

Me, I'm moving to Open Source if this sh1t keeps up, it goes against my grain to rip my customers off, even if it is for M$ and not myself.

I wonder what they'll want off us small PC builders for a copy of this new one.... probably £150 per OEM copy going by the extortionate rates for XP & Vi$ta.

M$ are as crooked as a bunch of UK politicians, and we let them away with it once again !!

[Tom McClelland]

RC7 seems to work very nicely, and does seem to be the full release for which Vista has been the rather shoddy extended mass beta test.

[stevemac]

I currently use XP Pro & Linux. I tried Vista for 6 months & went straight back to XP.

I'll wait until SP1 is released before even considering changing to Windows7.

[asonda]

Alot of the early testers have given very promising reviews of the new OS, unlike Vista which was slated right form early Beta.

Lots of nice features like wobble windows and Snap to sides and the new taskbar, might actually improve productivity for your standard everyday office worker.

Once I have it installed I'll let everyone know what I think.

[Comspec]

There is no doubt Windows 7 is looking the part alright - my gripe is that Vista was released at all tbh.

It is a much slicker OS than Vista, and even has an XP Compatibility Box function which will make a lot of people's life very easy when they switch.

There are a few handy little tools which will make the average users life easier, and it certainly looks overall like what a new OS should do.

So why Vista, except to take money off the masses really? Greedy so and so's.

The annoying bit is, from a PC repair point of view, that people will just not fork out for Windows 7 and we'll be supporting all the crappy Vista machines for years to come, cursing it every time. Over time it will die and go in the box with Millenium Edition lol !!

[adamscomputers07]

I just installed it in a virtual machine on a Linux host with 1 GB RAM and a 2 GHz Pentium (single core) and it seemed to work ok. I'm not one for eye candy like wobbly windows or anything like that, I find it distracting. Linux has had these animation features (like vista) for some time, *maybe* way before . The rendering is done by compiz and requires a 3D capable graphics card and will work on 128 Mb of Graphics RAM. What's with the bloatware / resource demand in M$!?

[CrispyUK]

I've been running it since the RC came out earlier this month - generally quite liking it - Aero Snap is a feature I'm finding very handy :)

Although bit of an annoying bug occuring here, the taskbar frequently seems to 'lose' running/open windows - Firefox & Outlook being the main culprits - taskbar will either be missing some of the applications windows or it will revert back to the application shortcut. Have to Alt+Tab to get back at the windows (and once they're back in focus the taskbar acknowledges them again). Anyone else had this?

[stugster]

Well done M$ for managing to get the majority of the Computer Industry to buy an OS (Vi$ta) safe in the knowledge that it did not work properly, took vastly more resources than anyone could have dreamed about, and was about to be refined and rebadged to be replaced in a couple of years. Man we are a gullible lot.

We're not really ;) The ones that are gullible are those that put their faith in companies that are clearly out to make a huge profit for their shareholders. Look at how PCWorld (DSGi Group) are still making a huge song and dance about Vista being their preferred O/S. Why is that exactly? 'Cause Microsoft have offered them moneys.

These businesses don't care about the users, they care about getting the "ting" as the till drawer opens.

Vista is still a slow, resource hungry pile of poop. I still get my kills at brand new desktop or laptop computers coming with Vista built in, but with only 1GB of RAM. Fine if all you want to do is open notepad now and again.

I'll not hold my breath for Windows 7. There's no way they've really put much effort into a better O/S than what XP is. Microsoft's assumptions that because computers can come with 4GB/3GB or 2GB of RAM, that their operating system should use it are well off the mark.

Does Windows 7 let you pop any more than 4GB in, or is this still a gaping hole in their technology they've failed to fix?

[Subbynet]

I've been running it for some time now, and quite like Windows 7, its running along pretty well with no major concerns yet...

I've been running it since the RC came out earlier this month - generally quite liking it - Aero Snap is a feature I'm finding very handy :)

Although bit of an annoying bug occuring here, the taskbar frequently seems to 'lose' running/open windows - Firefox & Outlook being the main culprits - taskbar will either be missing some of the applications windows or it will revert back to the application shortcut. Have to Alt+Tab to get back at the windows (and once they're back in focus the taskbar acknowledges them again). Anyone else had this?

Yeah this has happened to me a few times...

[Interconnect IT]

I think you guys sometimes believe that MS has a lot more planning and foresight than most. XP is old, has major security flaws when running in today's less trustworthy internet environment, and it was time for an update.

Vista may have been released too early, but if you think of it as the first step in a completely new OS that still maintains backwards compatibility (unlike Apple's OSX where they simply didn't bother) then it's actually pretty decent, with most of the main problems being fixed in Service Pack 1.

We run Vista at the office, and I now have Windows 7 on a four year old laptop for my girlfriend to use.

Incidentally - I don't dislike Linux or OSX... these things are just tools. If they do the job correctly and help me make more money then I'm happy. Vista is a more productive environment for me than XP, so I'm happy. Ubuntu I found to be less productive, so I wasn't. Same applied to OSX. Some of that productivity enhancement is down to my years of experience with Windows, but that's what I have, so I use it.

Curiously, I've never worked with a Windows server - started with MVS, various *nix flavours and at home have a Linux based NAS that I play with sometimes.

[mahutchinson]

One thing I have found with Win7 is that I have to wait ages to click on a button when an app opens and have to do it very slowly and precisely. Also don't like the menus which require clicking on each level but I suspect that can be changed if I had a look. Other than that, pretty good. It still freezes and crashes a lot compared to Linux but may well be the first OS I ever pay for as a separate package.

Until Linux sorts out its drivers for cams, TV tuners etc. and supports decent graphics packages I will live with the crashes and viruses of the MS world. If all I did was surfing, email and audio I could live with just Linux as it's quicker, smoother, more secure and more stable. Perfect for laptops and kids in fact.

[Tom McClelland]

One thing I have found with Win7 is that I have to wait ages to click on a button when an app opens and have to do it very slowly and precisely.

We haven't noticed this at all. A wide variety of applications open smoothly and seem to be fully available for use almost instantly. And we've not noticed any need to "click slowly and precisely" when an application has just been opened.

Also don't like the menus which require clicking on each level but I suspect that can be changed if I had a look.

That must be some setting that you've explicitly chosen AFAIK. Out of the box you have to click to open the top level menu, but after that sub-menus open as you glide over them. In other words menus act just like all other versions of Windows. We've not altered any settings to do with that kind of behaviour (but evidently such settings must be available, as you seem to have found them)

Other than that, pretty good. It still freezes and crashes a lot compared to Linux

On our test PC running a wide variety of applications with a fair selection of different USB peripherals we haven't had a single freeze or crash. But then we rarely get any on our XP boxes either. You'd have to pay me a lot of money to run Vista, of course. Is it any particular thing that makes your RC freeze or crash? Or does it just happen all the time?

but may well be the first OS I ever pay for as a separate package.


What? You're not going to buy Vista so that you can prepare for the delights of W7???? :D

Seriously, some of the things you're saying (and I'm aware that you have agreed that you don't hate W7 so it sounds as if you're doing your best to give it the benefit of the doubt) don't sound as if you're describing the same software that we've been trialling. Something I'm wondering is if particular applications may have issues. We don't do a lot of work with TV or video for example.

[computer storm]

Does Windows 7 let you pop any more than 4GB in, or is this still a gaping hole in their technology they've failed to fix?


Well it is only the 32bit editions that are limited to 4GB the 64bit editions are not limited to 4GB

Windows 7 will take the maximum amount of supported system memory well beyond the limits of windows Vista. In this regard, the high-end edition of the upcoming Windows client will play nice with just a tad short of 200 GB of Random Access Memory. At the same time, Windows 7 has been designed to work under normal parameters starting with as little as 1 GB of RAM, in order to fit onto cheap and resource-constrained netbooks. However, given proper hardware, namely if the mainboard can handle increased amounts of system memory, Windows 7 Ultimate is ready to swallow no less than 192 GB of RAM.

Windows 7. 64bit := The Home Basic and Starter SKUs can manage up to 8 GB of RAM, with Home Premium taking the limit to 16 GB. The Professional, enterprise and Ultimate versions of Windows 7 will support as much as 192 GB of RAM

[silvermusic]

I was going to download this to try on a spare machine, looks good. Anyone know roughly how big the download is?

[computer storm]

just about 3GB depending on what version you download, 32bit or 64bit

[stugster]

Slap it on Sun's VirtualBox to save you digging out a spare machine as well ;)


Daz, cheers for the info re ram :)

[silvermusic]

just about 3GB depending on what version you download, 32bit or 64bit

That ought to max out my poor little broadband connection for the day, think it'll have to be done on a weekend. :D

[computer storm]

There are a couple of good points to windows 7 one is: Windows 7 will include a built-in virtual machine with a fully licensed copy of Windows XP Professional SP3. The VM runs in a modified version of Virtual PC, and applications running in the VM can interact directly with the host operating system as if they were running on the Windows 7 installation itself.

The only bad point i can see in this is that you would have to install antivirus and other protection into the virtual machine. so that means if you had a company of say 200 users you would really need to buy 400 licenses for your antivirus.

So would become a nightmare for any IT administrator trying to support the OS.

[mahutchinson]

Could be I need to upgrade my memory as I am running 1GB and from memory Win7 recommends 2. For the moment it is running a lot slower than XP. I never went near Vista as I tend to follow the corporate policy of lagging behind a version and, in this case, of ignoring Vista altogether. I'm not geeky enough to dip into my wallet out of curiosity and I don't think I've lost out much apart from not being conversant with some of the Win7 features. I'm not interested in bells and whistles just speed and efficiency and at the moment the RC is not that impressive in that respect on my desktop. As I said, just for internet and email (and audio, Amarok is great) I would run Linux and will put that on my laptop when its XP finally expires. It will also stop younger users downloading viruses.

[adamscomputers07]

There are a couple of good points to windows 7 one is: Windows 7 will include a built-in virtual machine with a fully licensed copy of Windows XP Professional SP3. The VM runs in a modified version of Virtual PC, and applications running in the VM can interact directly with the host operating system as if they were running on the Windows 7 installation itself.

The only bad point i can see in this is that you would have to install antivirus and other protection into the virtual machine. so that means if you had a company of say 200 users you would really need to buy 400 licenses for your antivirus.

So would become a nightmare for any IT administrator trying to support the OS.

The Virtual Machine is integrated - security software installed in Win 7 will secure the entire PC including the VM. I can't see MS allowing it to be any other way as it would cause a lot of upset to many business. The VM is only active for backward compatibility and must be enabled through context menu/etc. If business use software designed for XP then they will delay the transisition to Win 7 until their software is compatible in real mode as I can see issues with stability/configuration.