Windows 7 Beta 1 Free?

[Gigabot]

Okay so remember when I said that the computer goes to standby after like 5 minutes when its on the dark blue screen? Well, I shutdown my computer and turned it on again and it said "Windows is resuming" and then the dark blue screen came up after that! So I think Windows is installed on there but there is something wrong with the drivers as Johnny suggested.

 

[Gigabot]

Ok so I finally got Windows 7 Beta 1 working!!! I had to repeatedly press F8 when Windows started and choose some 640x480 graphic setting option in the boot menu.

Now I just need to download and install all my drivers on the computer now. I wish I had known this the first time because this solution would have worked on the upgrade but at least I learned from this.

 

[kcnychief]

Interesting stuff - the downside to how you gained access to the Beta is that you might not be able to report bugs natively through built-in software. I would recommend you go to a newsgroup though and post about your experience, as well as your hardware profile. Sounds like an issue with your video driver - and all hardware that works on Vista is supposed to be Windows 7 compatible.

They may not have completed the driver stack yet, could be a milestone before the actual beta or RTM releases are final

 

[Not Bman]

So what version is this beta, or what it will be?

 

[Gigabot]

I went to the display settings and it says the recommended resolution is 1280 x 1024 so I tried setting it to that resolution and that brought up that dark blue screen! I changed the resolution to 1152 x 864 on my HPvp17 monitor. That's the resolution I'm staying at.

So far I've been having a really good experience with Windows 7 Beta 1. I never use Internet Explorer because it takes some time to switch between tabs or open new tabs but now Internet Explorer seems faster and it loads/opens new tabs faster as well! I copied all my documents from my flash drive to my computer and it took some seconds for everything to be copied. That was really fast. I viewed pictures from my SD card and the image previews of each image loaded noticeabley faster as well.

Compared to Windows Vista Business Edition/Premium Edition, I would say that Windows 7 Beta 1 is WAY better! (at least from the experience I've had with it so far)

I'm going to install Microsoft Office 2007 Professional, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Firefox, Google Chrome and see how it goes.

 

[kcnychief]

So what version is this beta, or what it will be?

Probably won't know for sure until it's released, which might be as early as CES (Jan 8th-11th).

 

[Gigabot]

Has anyone gotten Adobe Photoshop CS4 to work with Windows 7? I tried compatibility mode using Windows XP SP 2 but that didn't make it work.

Edit: Nevermind, I had to set the compatibility mode to Vista and it worked!

 

[kcnychief]

Some early looks at what is supposed to be Beta 1

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3222

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3223

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_beta.asp

 

[Gigabot]

I have 1 GB RAM on my PC but when I used ReadyBoost with my SD Card and Flash Drive simultaneously, the speed of this computer is noticeably fast. I'm running Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Windows Media Player, and surfing the web at the same time without any lag!

 

[ElementalDragon]

kcnychief: uuh... yeah.... that's the version we're using. Build 7000.

 

[kcnychief]

kcnychief: uuh... yeah.... that's the version we're using. Build 7000.

:lick:

I can't see pictures of what you post from work so sue me

 

[Not Bman]

I am going to be installing build 7000 tomorrow, when I get a chance. Should post back with any issues or not.

 

[kcnychief]

Installed it last night, played with it for about 20 minutes before going to bed. Loved it so far - my WEI is a 3.0 !!!!

I'm a little surprised about the boot graphic, although it's WAY cool. Didn't they leave it out of Vista to allegedly speed up boot times?

Anyone else notice that if you install on a clean drive with no partitions, Windows 7 creates a 200MB system partition for you?

Also - went to the Control Panel. There is some icon off to the left I can click on but nothing happens. Not sure what it is or what it does..

Love it so far - will be messing with it more at work today.

 

[Johnny]

Winbeta?

I am downloading the MSDN now ...

 

[kcnychief]

I am downloading the MSDN now ...

As in you have a MSDN subscription and it's there - or something else?

 

[Johnny]

As in you have a MSDN subscription and it's there - or something else?

I know some one from M$ who is giving it to me

 

[Mizzle]

Hehe I've got it running on a virtual machine - CPU: Intel Pentium III, GPU: 8 MB, RAM: 2 GB. Gotta love virtual machines It's running pretty smooth though. Very surprised by that.

I'm going to install in on my second hard drive when I get a DVD disc. Hopefully I can find all the necessary drivers, as my graphics card isn't working with Windows 7 right now.

 

[rotjong]

I so wish that I legitimately could use this. I simply cannot afford nor rationalize the cost for MSDN.

 

[Johnny]

I installed this on my laptop and have to say that with first blush; I LOVE IT !!! This thing is amazing so far.

 

[ElementalDragon]

rotjong: who says you NEED MSDN? lol

If M$ starts bitching cause people are bootlegging a beta... they've got some serious issues. If anything, i think they should be WELCOMING it. why not let the masses try out a new OS WITHOUT having to pay an insane amount of money for their service? Not only would they have a much larger user base for finding bugs, but it could also have the ability to have people sold on buying the OS when it hits store shelves. It's already worked for me!