Windows 7 Beta

[Riggen]

Yep, the Windows 7 Beta. I downloaded and installed it not long ago. I have to say I'm shocked at just how nice it really is. It leaves me with a much better impression than Vista at the same stage of development. The only benchmark that I've used so far is the framerate counter in World of Warcraft, but the new OS has already produced some very favorable results compared to XP. The main benefit I've noticed is an end to annoying texture loading hitches ingame, resulting in a very smooth and consistent framerate. My only complaint is the somewhat buggy support of my aging Soundblaster Audigy, which considering the circumstances is a minor quibble. For the time being I've switched over to my motherboard-integrated audio which is fine, if a little plainer.

At this point, though I have quite a bit more testing to do, I'm inclined to say it's likely I'll make a purchase of Windows 7 when it hits the bigtime.

[Ddrak]

I like it too - just need to find some time to put the beta on my main gaming rig.

If you haven't already downloaded it and feel inclined to play with a beta, it's pretty decent. Just make sure you get it soon:

link

The shutdown of general availability for the Windows 7 Beta will occur in 3 phases over the course of the next few weeks:

* Starting January 27th, the Windows 7 page will be updated with a warning that time is running out on downloading the Windows 7 Beta and that we will be limiting downloads shortly. People will be encouraged to register and start the download of the Windows 7 Beta sooner rather than later.
* February 10th, new downloads of the Windows 7 Beta will no longer be available. People who have already started their Windows 7 Beta download and have not yet finished will still be able to finish their download and are encouraged to do so.
* February 12th, people will no longer be able to complete their download of the Windows 7 Beta. Anyone who hasn’t finished downloading the Windows 7 Beta will be unable to do so.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

It'll probably still be available on MSDN after that. I might install it onto a virtual machine someday.

[Klast Brell]

Everyone said they hated vista and would wait for the next OS. So what broken parts of vista does it actually fix? I'm not talking about the new features it brings to the game. I'm taking about the things you hated in vista that have been fixed in 7.

[Ddrak]

It's basically Vista with some shell tweaks and performance/stabilization work. They've added very little that's new and really only worked on Vista's biggest criticisms:

- Performance. 7 is as fast as XP for gaming, even in beta (at least according to benchmarks).
- UAC. 7 has much more fine grained UAC control so you can set the nag level where you feel comfortable. (Actually, Vista had all of this but you needed to hack the registry to get at it)
- Drivers/backward compatibility. 7 works with everything Vista does. Sure, not an apples-to-apples comparison with the jump from XP to Vista, but Vista's been around long enough now to be the "standard".

They *didn't* hit any of the "bad" or "ugly" in my original review of Vista, but I never really disliked Vista in the first place so I'm hardly an unbiased viewpoint there. My take on 7 so far is that it's as least as good as Vista.

Dd

[Taxious]

So far I'm really liking Windows 7.

Everyone said they hated vista and would wait for the next OS. So what broken parts of vista does it actually fix? I'm not talking about the new features it brings to the game. I'm taking about the things you hated in vista that have been fixed in 7.

I haven't played around with it too much yet, but the biggest change I've seen is that it's a lot faster than Vista. Startup, loading programs, etc...

I also like they they got rid of (or defaultly disabled) user account control - so Windows no longer confirms 5 times when you try to delete a file. They added some subtle GUI animations that are nice.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Something I noticed on our test machine here at work, it came running DX 9.0c and not 10 like Vista came stock with.

[Arathena]

Review I read mentioned that it had significantly less automatic-bloat than Vista. Truth?

[Ddrak]

I also like they they got rid of (or defaultly disabled) user account control - so Windows no longer confirms 5 times when you try to delete a file.

The default is now to warn you when a program tries to do something automatically but not to warn you if it's a direct result of user action.

Something I noticed on our test machine here at work, it came running DX 9.0c and not 10 like Vista came stock with.

Running DX11.0 on my laptop (according to dxdiag). Did you get the latest video drivers for it?

Review I read mentioned that it had significantly less automatic-bloat than Vista. Truth?

Haven't noticed it running any less than Vista. Maybe a bit better at hiding it though - they've streamlined some of the UI.

Dd

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Something I noticed on our test machine here at work, it came running DX 9.0c and not 10 like Vista came stock with.

Running DX11.0 on my laptop (according to dxdiag). Did you get the latest video drivers for it?

They probably didn't, I didn't really mess around with it much other than logging in and looking around a bit.