Free Windows 7 won't last forever
Microsoft has been pretty generous in letting folks play around with Windows 7 for free. But it has put some time limits on that generosity.
Those who want to try out the release candidate of Windows 7 only have until August 15 to download the code. After that date, you can still install a copy you have downloaded (and even get additional product keys), but most folks won't be able to get the code from Microsoft's Web site.
Click on the image above to see CNET's gallery of Windows 7 release candidate screenshots.
(Credit: CNET)For those who have a spare machine to try out Windows 7, it's worth a try. I have been using it for months now and find the release candidate stable enough to use as my everyday machine. It's a particularly nice option for Mac users who have wanted to try Windows on their Mac but haven't wanted to steal a copy from work or fork over the money to be legit.
A separate deadline is looming for those still running the beta version, as opposed to the release candidate. Starting July 1, that software will start shutting down every other hour. (Here's the place to insert your best anti-Windows joke. I'll get you started: "Why, that makes it just like Windows ME.")
In any case, to avoid that nastiness, one should move from the beta version to the release candidate version in the next seven days or so. In addition to the shutdowns that start July 1, the beta software will expire completely on August 1.
Similarly, the release candidate also won't last forever. Microsoft says it is set to expire on June 1, 2010, with the bi-hourly shutdowns starting March 1. And, Microsoft also says that those moving from the release candidate to the final version of Windows 7 will have to do a clean installation, so be prepared for that, as well.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Snow Leopard is the real service pack here.
Amazing what they figure they can call "new".
For me, Vista has been less stable that Windows95 was back in the day.
I run NT 5.0 for stably for months on my M4300
Vista can't make it 3 hours without crashing and requiring a reboot on the same machine.
I *have* to use Vista because the USB 2.0 driver for NT 5.0 doesn't have the throughput to watch bluray.
So I boot up Vista just to watch movies - and to count the different ways it'll crash.
So I'm supposed to trust NT 6.1 aka Windows 7?
Yes, Windows 7 is an upgrade to Windows Vista. Yes, it is based on Windows Vista/Server 2008 technology. That's a good thing, it means the investment over 200 million users have made in that version of Windows will be brought forward in terms of application and hardware compatibility.
Look at OS X, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6. Those are all updates, not upgrades. In fact, OS X users have been paying for fixes from versions 10.1 to 10.3. You have to admit, OS X didn't get stable until 10.4.
As for Linux, thats a kernel, and every distro based on it is just using a minor update to the kernel. Are there any major differences between Ubuntu 8.04 using kernel 2.26 to Ubuntu 9.04 using kernel 2.27? Are there any major differences that justify upgrading from even 8.04 to 9.04?
You should download the Windows 7 RC before jumping to a conclusion about product you obviously have not used. Features such as Jump List, Improvements to the Start Menu, Aero Snaps, Aero Shake, Aero Peek, Windows Touch, interactive Thumbnail previews, Improved Search features such as Input, Search Federation, AppLocker, BitLocker To Go, Direct Connect, Network Backup, Remote App, Firewall Profiles, Location Awareness, HomeGroups, Media Streaming, Play To, Internet TV, Sticky Notes with Ink support, Biometrics. Along with that, improved user experience in areas such as Personalization, Windows Update, performance - On demand loading of devices and services, efficient utilization of resources such as spinning up a DVD or a NIC, Battery performance allowing efficient use based environment lighting, improved multi-monitor support, DirectX 11, improved Windows applications such as Paint, WordPad...just the tip of the iceberg. Oh, lets not forget about freebies such as Windows Virtual XP.
Yeah, Windows 7 is just Vista with some problems fixed.
[CNET editors' note: Personal attack deleted]
+1
@scottthesculptor:
I think you have a hardware problem because I don't see how it can't run for more than 3 hours for you. are you sure your video card is not orverheating? this can happen when you overclock too high, if you're running an nvidia card download rivatuner and turn up the fan speed, my 8800 and 8600 was defaulted at around 33% and 25%, i upped mine to 54% and 48%. if you overclocked your processor, up the fan speeds also and make sure you do a stress test to make sure the overclock is stable. plus make sure memory sticks are seated properly.
I had a vista box running (before I installed windows 7 in it) for months sending media all over the house to my xbox360 and to my other computers. windows 7 is doing this even better...it was much easier to setup.
next time, don't blame the software for your hardware problems. Vista has been very stable for me and Windows 7 is much better. It is a win win situation
Just because Apple uses a different naming convention for it's OS releases doesn't mean that they're all bug fixes. Frankly, I happen to enjoy the fact that Apple is constantly upgrading and fixing issues that arise as time goes by. It is completely ridiculous to insist that Apple has poor software because they continue to refine it. You must be one of those people who is incapable of understanding the complexities of software engineering and expect the first release of an operating system to be perfect in every way. When you can write perfect code that never needs updates, you will be the richest man on earth. Until then, ****.
I mean come on... Vista came out 2 1/2 years ago, coming on 3 years by the time 7 comes out. If you are going to make me wait 3 years for a new O/S, expect me to wipe my hard drive to install it, and then charge me $100-$200 to get it, I am going to be expected a vastly different experience, not Vista 2.0.
Honestly, though, I'm a big, big fan of Apple (insert fanboy joke here), but Windows 7 is something I'm seriously considering to purchase a license for to install on my spare desktop. I had been running Linux on there because the computer was crawling under Vista (and that's the included Vista BASIC not the less), but it flies with the Windows 7RC.
-Adam
I've seen many under the hood improvements with the thing: faster networking speeds compared to Vista (and Vista's already were awesome to be honest), faster bootup times compared to Vista (this is one place Vista STUNK ON ICE!), etc.
Windows 7 simply is NOT Vista SP3. It would be like calling Vista Windows XP SP3.
[CNET editor's note: Offensive comments deleted.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet-Troll
To answer your question, yes, monkeyfun14 did quite accurately call you a troll
Ha, oh Microsoft you crazeh fools.
Sure maybe somebody will break the expiration on the RC, but MS won't be releasing any security patches either.
Sounds like a good way to become part of a bot-net to me.
Yes... Ideally, Windows 3.1 should have been was Win95 was... Win 95 should have been what Win 98 was... Win 98 should have been what Win98SE was... Win98SE should have been what Win2k was... Win2k should have been what WinXP was... and so on. Realistically, you cannot cram everything in a release, and each product in the world - whether its OSX, iPhone, or Windows - each product needs to improve incrementally. I am happy MS got it right finally with Win7, and I will be happy to pay up for it.
You paid for what you got, not what it could be. If you buy a 2009 Toyota and then they come out with a 2010 model with better features do you really think you're entitled to a free upgrade? That reasoning doesn't apply to cars or any other products, why should it be any different with operating systems?
You can certainly make the argument that people expect too much in hindsight (expect Windows 3.1 to be Windows 95, etc), but I think there's a difference here: Win95 had a different GUI, 32-bit operation, and was a genuine graphical OS (rather than just a shell over DOS, as Win 3.1 was).
By contrast, Windows 7 (while it's admittedly much nicer than Vista was, in several ways) is much more incremental, and something that Microsoft [i]could've[/i] delivered in 2007, if they'd've taken their time with it, rather than rushing it out the door.
Having said that, I'm not complaining. It's a worthy upgrade, even if it should've been the OS of 2007.
I still think that Win7 justifies the price tag, but still warrants discounts for Vista adopters.
I'm a Mac user but I am using Windows 7 RC daily and I do like it and I will buy it once it is released. It plays nice in bootcamp and vmware (AIT 3d acceleration issues aside)
Actually my rig with 3gb of ram runs vista faster then the same machine when its running XP
All OS products have issues. I had to restart my MacBookPro because Firefox got hosed bad enough to take down the OS. Do I blame Apple for it crashing? Nah, it's a computer, I don't expect it to be perfect.
@meh100:
"It's painful to use Vista on anything with less than 2-3 GB of Ram regardless of how good the processor is."
Perhaps it is painful for you- how many applications did you have running at the time? 15? 20? 50? Vista is fine with 1 Gb, but it likes 2Gb more. It's not needed however. It runs in as little as 512 if need be. If you find your system is slow with that amount of memory, then you need to look elsewhere than the OS for your performance issues.
I have two Mac's running OS X. The laptop I use mainly on my couch when I'm not doing anything remotely productive has not crashed once. My dual quad-core workstation that I use on a daily basis for work has crashed many, many times.... Like complete system lockup.
There's a reason for the intense memory usage, to boost responsiveness. Rather than loading frequently used dlls and such to virtual memory on the HDD, the slowest player on the team, Vista caches what it can to RAM. This slows boot and shutdown time to be sure, but greatly improves performance during the session. And these days, 3 GB of RAM doesn't cost much (unless you're using Rambus, which would suggest you have deep pockets anyway).
Personally, my experience has been this, it runs snappier than xp, I think it may have crashed once, and it was a driver in beta problem, which is already no problem. The interface is clean and easy to use, there's relatively few annoying pop-ups when I want to change anything, updates and installations are seemless, the task bar is amazing, especially compared to xp, and overall, I'm so impressed that I plan on buying it as soon as I can, considering that I adamantly refused to buy vista, and stuck with xp, now I wouldn't stick with xp if you payed me.
Oh and why not linux? My primary reason is I can't use MS Office on it, and with windows 7 being so good, I don't want linux anymore, not that its bad.
Don't even get me started on overpriced Mac merchandise, but I do know this, all the studies done recently show that windows is way more secure than mac, it just so happens that mac is not used enough for people to want to hack it. So you mac users, just you wait, you'll be installing antivirus software soon enough!
I will admit mac equipment works well though, I just can't justify paying for it when my windows pc works great, and costs half the amount if not less.
So for those who haven't tried it, I will say this, I use windows 7 as my only operating system on my only computer and have no problems and love it, in fact I made a noob mistake and overwrote my xp os on my partitioned drive, and still somehow windows 7 kept all my xp files and so I just rescued my documents and pics and got rid of the rest and I was good to go, I almost fell over when I found out.
Also, I wonder if the final version will be up on MSDNAA any time soon.
The free swag by itself makes tuition worth it. ^_^
1.) you install it.
2.) you have a limited time to use it before it stops working, patches or no patches, bare bones install or not. (Generally about the time Micro$oft is trying to usher you into the next operating system)
3.) you discover setting the date back in your computer amazingly resolves a lot of issues.....
go figure. an operating system with a programmed life expectancy, kind of like Bladerunner, but its your operating system...
Yes, do that when your RC stops working. I bet it fixes it! Moron.
2.) you have a limited time to use it before it stops working, patches or no patches, bare bones install or not. (Generally about the time Micro$oft is trying to usher you into the next operating system)
3.) you discover setting the date back in your computer amazingly resolves a lot of issues.....
go figure. an operating system with a programmed life expectancy, kind of like Bladerunner, but its your operating system...
When has XP just magically stopped working?
Modifying the system to trick the system into letting you run a pre-release version that is not supported and inferior to the final release?
Boy, you guys are seriously cheap to go to all that work just to save a few bucks. Perhaps that really says all there is to why you have problems right there.
As for me, I'll be happy to buy the OS from Microsoft and Apple as they are released. Go legit and you won't have any problems. Try to cheat and steal and you deserve what you get.
I really don't want the hassle of using Windows at all.
Considering less than 10% of the pc market uses apple, and more than 50% of cnet's news is apple, i would say the opposite is true.
Nice try buddy, you're not on the cool side.
Technically if he is an Apple user, he is on the "cool side". I wasn't cool in high school, I wasn't cool in college, and I'll be damned if I'm cool enough now. I'll stick with Linux.
Don't judge a book by it's cover.
return 0;
would you buy and eat rotten vegetables, from your greengrocer, only because they're free?
and C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-ieframe.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_8.0.7100.0_en-us_1bf3afee85cb4074
This is not a joke. I installed Win7 RC1 two different times, and got two pairs of this Green Dam file in those same 2 locations. The first installation was never booted up for a first-run, because it failed to complete. So it became "Windows.old" on the second try. Update your antivirus to protect yourself from Microsoft.
Go and read the support forum at your AV vendor.
- by jcenteno June 24, 2009 7:59 AM PDT
- Windows 7, what's the hype? I've just tried last RC and it just sucks, come on people, even my ubuntu with samba works better with shared resources, try to create a folder in a shared resource, and tell me your results. Any operation on a shared resource, the explorer window jus don't get actualized. ***!!!!!!!!!!!
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by IanX211 June 24, 2009 9:37 PM PDT
- first of, this article ISN"T a review. It's talking about a "Free Windows 7" will expire and the author gave their opinion that people should give it a try. If you want to talk about how CNET are paid by M$, go to a review article.
- Like this
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (104 Comments)Do you want to see a really really cool interface improvement? Check http://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero/Plan and look for The Gnome Shell and The Zeitgeist Project, that's innovation. And that's just the interface with one of the alternatives for the desktop, forget about KDE 4.0 and other options, and last, forget about the price, the security, the no-DRM issues, the no-viruses, the fast response, the little hardware resources needs, and the list just keeps going....
Why does everyone has forgotten the DRM issues, security issues, the promised and never delivered features like a brand new file system ?
Hey CNET how much are you getting from M$ for your "good" reviews ?
Second, I visited the link you provided. It's good but I wouldn't call it innovated. Might be better than 7 and Snow Leopard (in some minds) but doesn't take the leap that will have others copy what they did.