Windows 7 Beta to be released worldwide on Friday

[shiv]

Ballmer promises simplicity and speed
08 January 2009 at 07h21


Las Vegas - Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer announced on Wednesday that a test version of the US software titan's Windows 7 operating system will be available worldwide on Friday.

"We are on track to deliver the best version of Windows ever," Ballmer said while making an opening keynote speech at a premier Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"We are putting in all the right ingredients: simplicity, reliability and speed."

Developers and Microsoft partner companies can begin testing Windows 7 immediately, Ballmer said.

"On Friday we will make the beta available worldwide so users can come online and try Windows 7 at home. I encourage you all to go out and download it."

The eagerly-anticipated successor to Microsoft's Vista operating system will streamline everyday tasks, cut boot-up times, extend battery life and make it simple to weave "smart" devices into home networks, Microsoft said. - AFP

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source: http://www.iol.co.za

can't wait for it!!

[Anakha56]

Yay! This will be fun. Now when on Friday is it being released, if its early morning I will have it that afternoon and installed by 6pm .

Knowing my luck however I will have to wait until Monday to download here at work...

[UrBaN]

Hmmm... I'm going to test that on my new rig...think I'll triple boot XP, Vista and 7 if possible, and compare them...probably bench them or something.

[Firestrm_ZA]

I already have my copy.... MSDN FTW

installing it this wknd on my home pc.... standalone

[justinufo]

Most benches ive seen says its actually faster then Vista and XP......

[UrBaN]

Hows it running firestrm?

Fast? Stable? Any incompatibilities yet?

[Firestrm_ZA]

Hmmm... I'm going to test that on my new rig...think I'll triple boot XP, Vista and 7 if possible, and compare them...probably bench them or something.

and how do you plan on benching? seeing as your pc tally is mobo, gfx and psu?

[UrBaN]

Firestrm, I also have a CPU and DDR will be arriving shortly.

[Firestrm_ZA]

Hows it running firestrm?

Fast? Stable? Any incompatibilities yet?

read my post AGAIN.... properly.... its not installed yet...

[UrBaN]

Sorry, thought you were runnign it at work already...my bad.

[Firestrm_ZA]

Sorry, thought you were runnign it at work already...my bad.

i did have an early beta at work but it was funky.... lol

[UrBaN]

Lol it's Windows so that makes sense

[Firestrm_ZA]

Lol it's Windows so that makes sense

not that kind of funky..... it performed quite well..... used a very small memory footprint and blazed through most normal tasks....

but on a pre beta its normally crap..... im eagerly waiting to install this at home...

[justinufo]

So fires.Does every game and app you tested work with it?

[Interfan]

If anybody gets the 64bit beta. I am willing to pay postage. I really want to try it out.

[UrBaN]

justin he didn't test it properly, it was a buggy pre-beta version. He is installing tonight and testing.

[Synthesis]

Earlier this week, however, Microsoft executives, including Steven Sinofsky, who heads Windows development, said that Vista's device drivers will be compatible with the new Windows 7, which is slated for a late-2009 or early-2010 release. And in an interview with News.com on Tuesday, Sinofsky alluded to the driver problems that plagued Vista's early months: "We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7. We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model."

Source

So does this mean that if I don't have windows 7 drivers for, say my mobo or sounds card, I could just stick the manufacturer CD in and use Vista's drivers? If it's so, I'll give it a try.

[UrBaN]

Yes that's what that means. Pretty sweet in my opinion

[DeathStrike]

If you're excited that Windows 7 Beta will be available as a free download on Friday, Microsoft also detailed the minimum system requirements for Windows 7. According to PC World, the requirements are:

1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
1GB of main memory
16GB of available disk space
Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)
A DVD-R/W drive
Those requirements are basically identical to the system requirements for Vista, which—considering the nearly three-year span between Vista and Windows 7—should make Windows 7 a much more viable upgrade to those of use who don't want to buy a new PC just to upgrade their OS.

LINK

[Firestrm_ZA]

and i have install errors

I've downloaded the X86 version of the 7000 build. Trying to install, it gets to Expanding files 51%, then I get the Windows error pop-up (missing/corrupt files,,yadda yadda)

Windows 7 Install Error 0x80070570

http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34009

[Nuke]

Have you tried running it within a VMware/Virtualbox? Mine is running fine in Virtualbox.(though it seems that i have a little problem with my PC, it bluescreens after a while running any virtual pc software. Reinstall time)

[Firestrm_ZA]

Have you tried running it within a VMware/Virtualbox? Mine is running fine in Virtualbox.(though it seems that i have a little problem with my PC, it bluescreens after a while running any virtual pc software. Reinstall time)

yup... exact same error.... im dl'ing a new iso tomorrow....

[Friggs]

Installed it on my laptop (which couldn't run Vista or server 2008) and it's sitting in 400mb of ram idle. So far so good, no driver problems and so far pretty stable.

[DeathStrike]

Everyone's excited about the free Windows 7 Beta download Microsoft's handing out tomorrow, but there's a catch: it's only available to the first 2.5 million downloaders. Here's how to make sure you're one of them.

According to Wired—which pulled the details from this official Windows blog post—you'll need to grab the download from a link on the Windows 7 page as soon as possible once Microsoft begins the release. To get a product key to use with the download, you'll have to go through a registration process with Microsoft. We'll keep our eyes open and let you know as soon as we spot the download out in the wild. It'll probably be sometime later in the day tomorrow, but you never know for sure.

Be sure to check out the full Wired post for a look at a few more possible gotchas. Then again, if you aren't lucky enough to make the cut tomorrow, there's always BitTorrent.

LINK

[DeathStrike]

Today at CES, I met with Steven Sinofsky, Windows 7 development chief, and asked about the unprecedented free-for-all Windows 7 Beta available tomorrow to anyone who's interested. Is this the "free upgrade" people wanted?

When I asked him if it was an unprecedented move, passing out the whole operating system to anyone and everyone who wants it, he said that technology limited previous rollouts. Windows 95's beta test group was 600,000 strong, downloaded mostly from dial-up via FTP sites. He says he even remembers putting out DOS in 1992, and getting 50,000 downloads—within a day. This, though, the combination of the TechNet and MSDN subscriber downloads with the open beta for all, will dwarf those previous OS beta runs. So I asked the obvious question: Are people going to dump Vista for this, wholesale?

I can't speak for what people are going to do. What we're trying to do is involve people in the development of Windows 7 in a way that anyone can choose what their appropriate level is—hardware and computer makers who are deeply involved because that's their job, enterprise customers deciding to dedicate people to work with us at a very high bandwidth, we have other enterprise customers who want to kick the tires; we have enthusiasts—your readers—going crazy to be able to download it and that's awesome.

We have different ways we have people involved. At one extreme, they're part of the professional beta programs and they log bugs and they have feedback. And at the other extreme, all we need them to do is run the product, and their installation telemetry—things that are optional as part of the retail product are part of the beta, the telemetry, what devices you plug in and all that, and at some level, those are all super helpful to us.

I mentioned to him that one the recurring comments from the original Windows 7 walkthrough was that this should be a service pack or, better yet, a free upgrade to Vista. So I asked: Is this a free upgrade to Vista?

Technically if you have a Vista machine you can install this and it will install an upgrade. That's part of what we're letting people test. But that's not a product offering. This is an offer to test the product. I would remind readers that this is a beta product. This is not a done product. That means there are bugs in it that are in the process of being fixed, it means there are bugs we're going to discover, and we're not servicing it like a real product.

Basically, he's saying enjoy it, but know its limitations in trying to be the be-all end-all answer to your Vista problems.

If there's anything more from the interview that I need to share with you, I'll publish it tomorrow. Meantime, let us know how your Windows 7 beta experience is going.

LINK