Microsoft lifts download limit for Windows 7 beta
Acknowledging that its release of Windows 7 public beta (download) "was not ideal," Microsoft said it will suspend the software's 2.5 million download limit for a couple of weeks.
Windows communications manager Brandon LeBlanc announced the move in a company blog Saturday:
Due to an enormous surge in demand, the download experience was not ideal so we listened and took the necessary steps to ensure a good experience. We have clearly heard that many of you want to check out the Windows 7 Beta and, as a result, we have decided remove the initial 2.5 million limit on the public beta for the next two weeks (thru January 24th). During that time you will have access to the beta even if the download number exceeds the 2.5 million unit limit.
The software was supposed to be made available Friday, but the company delayed the release after a day filled with Web site problems.
The company has said it is aiming for several million testers of the beta version, the availability of which was announced Wednesday night by Steve Ballmer in his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show. Microsoft has been aiming to have the final version ready to be on PCs for this year's holiday-shopping season, but Windows boss Bill Veghte said it is still too soon to say whether the company will make that time frame. Officially, Microsoft has promised that it will be out before the third anniversary of Vista's January 2007 mainstream launch.
You can also download the Windows 7 beta from CNET Download.com.
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. Before joining CNET News in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers. E-mail Steven. 
Anyway, I ended up shutting down. removing the SATA data cable from HD0 and then booting up. Once HD1 became the first HD in the system the install went smoothly. After installing I shut down and reattached the data cable to HD0 and rebooted. I can now press F12, which brings up the BIOS boot device menu on my system, and select the drive. It does boot this way just fine.
Problem is, I turned off and disabled the following services:
* Superfetch
* Windows Search
* Themes
* App Experience
Before I turned them off, the system was sucking down 754MB of RAM (though SuperFetch distorts these figures).
After I disabled these services and rebooted, the system was STILL eating 507MB (not as bad as Vista, but still... yuck.)
Turn on IE and Paint (I used Paint to save the screenshots), and the figure jumps to 609MB.
RAM may be cheap, but damn... this is looking a LOT like Vista R2.
Still a lot of bugs, but as a beta, it's to be expected.... not nearly as polished as the blogs claim it to be, though.
/P
HP/Compaq 6710b
Centrino Duo
1024MB RAM (...what? the claim was that the OS would be easier on system resources, so...)
The only problem I ran into was with AVG's anti virus, I was sure I told it no tool bar but it installed one, then when I went to unistall it the system kept blue screening over and over. I finally un installed with out having it delete the private data. That worked fine, then I just manually deleted the private data. Installed Kaspersky after that with no issues.
I connected to my NAS, then used it to stream to the XBOX360 with no issues. Worked fine.
Start up shut down huge speed difference, and foot print seams nice and light.
Yeah, I got the ISO on friday and I installed to a VM until I could get a key, which I did today.
On the VM, it's nice, installs fast, and it runs fast for the fact its in a VM(my poor Core Duo 1.6 is too slow)
I have also found a 100% reproducible bug that locks up the system to the point of requiring the use of the power button to get out of. On the positive side, the lockup does not seem to hose the system when you have to do a hard reset. All in all I think it is nicely done, but there is nothing in it that would entice me to switch back to Windows.
I hated the task bar at first but I am growing to love it. I don't particularly care for Explorer (file & network) but now that I have a feel for how it works its not so bad. I think Microsoft has done a good job this time around.
Having used many Microsoft Betas I am really impressed just how stable this one is. I can see an early release if they keep up the hard work.
Loaded this up on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 and it runs great. Looking forward to the final release, we'll be replacing XP and Vista accross the board if only for the deployment and networking features.
"This really should be a service pack for Vista users." Like Leopard was to Tiger? ;-)
"...but there is nothing in it that would entice me to switch back to Windows." You might when you see it running on platforms built for the OS (read: touch). And pound for pound, you always get more for less in the Windows world. This is not debatable. Always.
"This really should be a service pack for Vista users." Like Leopard was to Tiger? ;-)
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You know, I wouldn't have replied at all except that comment was so uninformed it's not even funny. You should have said "Like Snow Leopard will be to Leopard", I wouldn't have said a word (Apple has pretty much admitted Snow Leopard, or 10.6, will be a performance boost and maintenance release more than anything, they're cleaning up the code base and it's not going to introduce many new features).
But Leopard to Tiger just shows you don't know what you're talking about. I'd educate you about the differences if I thought you were really just uninformed and not a winblows apologist trolling for your master. Really I would. But pound for pound, you always get less for more when you're a slave to winblows. Always. This is not debatable.
If you don't like it, format the partition and throw the install disk away. What are you out, a little time and the price of a blank CD-R? My bet is you will like it though, I sure did!
Many of us have stayed with XP [set to classic] and have not had to upgrade our PC because VISTA would have taken up too much of our memory.
I encourage you to download and test.
I had vista Installed on my system, on a 500 Gigabyte Hard Drive. I went into disk management and selected Shrink Volume 200 gigs. I let it chug away at that, and it completed. I now had 200 gigs of free space on the disk---another partition for Windows 7.
I booted windows 7, selected the 200 gig partition, and installed without a hitch. I have been using it since. I really like it.
Far as I can see this a really good system already, well done Bill Gates from BillWindows.
I think the Action center is an improvement over Vista, but I'm not sold yet on the new taskbar organization. Any thoughts?
Also, the performance ratings for hardware are really strange. In vista, my computer is 5.1, 5.1, 4.4, 4.8, 4.8. In Windows 7, my computer was 4.8, 4.7, 4.8, 4.8, 2.0. I'm not sure how that works....
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LOL, that's likely the point. Keep them confused so when they run into problems you can get away with blaming them for it. Virus? Not the OS's fault you visit malicious sites. Performance problems? What did you expect after scoring a 2.0, buy a new machine already!
;-)
BUT, as always cautiously optimistic as UBUNTU Linux still gives Windows a run for it's money......
- by January 12, 2009 1:41 AM PST
- I installed Windows 7 over the weekend. Installed 32-bit version on a Lenovo Thinkpad T61P. Took 23 minutes to install. Took 28 seconds to bootup, impressively shutted down in 20 seconds. Installed Office 2007 and Windows Live Essentials. Running for 3 days now on my work machine. Works well, works fast and runs my applications and even my 3G broadband modem. Updated Lenovo Drivers using Lenovo System Update, detected Vista instead of Windows 7, but all drivers works perfectly even the hardware vendor specific apps like hotkeys and function keys. The new taskbar takes some getting use to.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (46 Comments)Overall, for a Beta product, this one seems pretty good. Looking forward to Beta 2 and RC version.