Microsoft gave a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show late yesterday, and as the Associated Press reports, the company revealed that a public beta of Windows 7 is right around the corner. In fact, you should be able to download it tomorrow.
The AP says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also gave the impression that Windows 7 is “almost ready for prime time,” but CNet News heard a slightly more conservative pitch from Windows executive Bill Veghte. According to Veghte, Windows 7 may or may not ship in time for the coming holiday season. “I’m telling them that it could go either way . . . We will ship it when the quality is right, and earlier is always better, but not at the cost of ecosystem support and not at the cost of quality.”
Going by a post on the Windows Team Blog, enthusiasts will be able to grab the public Windows 7 beta right from this page on January 9. MSDN and TechNet subscribers should have gotten early access on Wednesday, although pirates got an even earlier look when the beta leaked out on BitTorrent networks late last month.
Regarding Windows 7 :
Very much like Vista but seems a little more peppy.
Drivers are immature but they work.
I like it.
§[<http://xkcd.com/528/<]§ LOL!
The news channels around here are just dumb. They are reporting that Microsoft announced and is releasing a new version of Windows today to replace Vista. They then stated that the upgrade can be obtained for $100
Using the W7 64 bit beta right now…it rocks.
I haven’t followed W7 at all, what is so different about W7 that makes it more palatable than Vista?
Different name, and XP is even more older now, meaning people will be more eager to upgrade and less wary. And instead of innovating (from MIcroSoft, I call it MISinnovating) they mainly took Vista and spent a year ripping out all the junk that made it junky. If Win-7 gets delayed another year we’ll end up with XP again.
But it might be a substantial improvement, if Ballmer got bored of MISmanaging Microsoft and went yachting for a year, took some other executives with him, and left the engineers to their own devices in the interim. It could even be a huge improvement, if during that yachting trip, a 35-foot robotic great white shark attacked and ate their cellphones, compass, sextant, peg-legged captain, then turned on UAC on their Vista ME Edition navigation system and swam away.
hi ReNae.
Dang, windows 7 tomorrow and my Bose system gets here tomorrow as well. Double whammy. Hopefully Windows 7 supports my Laptop’s integrated sound. Wanting to plug it into the new stereo tomorrow. Does anybody know if Windows 7 features FULL configuration of Hi-Def integrated audio yet?
I was reading on the Windows Blog that you can only (legally) used the Win7 beta as an upgrade to Vista SP1
§[<http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/01/07/information-on-downloading-and-installing-windows-7-beta.aspx<]§ l[
That is only in an upgrade scenario. Brandon later clarified in a comment you can do a clean install without you needing to have Vista.
l[<.... you can most certainly do a clean install of the Windows 7 Beta. I usually do clean installs myself - especially on my laptops. The statement applies to upgrade scenarios.<]l
Ah, cool. I didn’t read the comments.
Those who have already mucked with it: will this be an ISO that I’ll need to burn to CD’s/DVD’s and then boot to install? How large is the download? Just need to know the necessary level of preparation.
The leaked version was 2.4 GB, and needed to be burned to DVD.
Front page Vista bashing on CNN
§[<http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/01/08/microsoft.ballmer/index.html<]§
No, they are just relabeling the same underlying design.
Windows 7 = Vista SP2 or Windows 98.
It just shows how senseless FUD can ruin a brand name.
As long as W7 is to Vista what 98 was to 95. A more polished, refined, better OS then the one we originally got. Then I am all for it.
That is exactly what is going on.
Windows 7 is a more completed version of Vista.
MS is forced to change brand names because all of the negative FUD that surrounds Vista. What is funny is that most of the FUD is BS or user error.
Umm..we’ll have to disagree on that last part. There were issues in vista that were M$ fault.
I’m going to put this on my backup computer to get a feel for it. It’s a 2GHz A64, but it only has 768MB (and I’m not putting any more money into it). Would I be best served to go 32-bit because of the scarce amount of RAM?
Wrong thread
I have almost the exact same situation. I was putting some old parts together (2.4 gHz Athlon 64, 7600 GT, 1 GB DDR1) and was going to put Ubuntu on it, but I think I’ll go with this Windows 7 beta. If I like it, then I’ll just buy it (I’m a university student and have access to extremely cheap MS products). If I don’t like it, then I’ll just put Linux on it and use it for folding.
64-bit for performance and security. It’s not even a valid question today. It’s the default choice.
I was just wondering if the low amount of memory would be a problem with the 64-bit.
I’ll probably just swap a couple DIMM’s and have 1.5GB in my main and 1.2 in the test system.
only having 768 MB will be okay.
If you like Vista 32 or 64 you’ll probably like Win7a lot.
Its very stable for a beta and is a cool upgrade from Vista.
More 3D on the desktop than before,this OS has some pretty nice eyecandy but still feels quick and happily,starts up a fair bit faster than Vista ever did.
After using it for a week now I don’t really want to go back to Vista.
As soon as the 64 bit edition of Windows 7 is released I’ll buy it.
x64 is on TechNet, so I would expect to see it on a torrent host near you soon.
Or you could just wait for the public beta and do things the legal way…
If it’s like the Vista betas it won’t matter – everyone running a Vista public beta used the same key (as evidenced by the fact that I registered with two different email addresses to increase the chances of being chosen, as well as a cow-orker who also got the same key in his email)
If downloading a free, public beta operating system from somewhere than Microsoft gives you a guilty conscience you’re a better man than I.
It’s more of a why-not? If company X says that they’re going to give something away for free, why is there incentive to steal it?
I’m going to wait for the official beta, it’s worth the peace of mind, and I’m in no rush for anything windows pre-SP1 anyway.
Does it mount in the usual VM’s wellg{
I think he means, like, for sale. Not the beta.
How do you actually pronounce Bill’s surname?
Vette, like Corvette.
Actually, it’s pronounced Vech-tee.
Been running the W7 7000 build for over a week now, and it’s pretty damn slick.
“We will ship it when the quality is right, and earlier is always better, but not at the cost of ecosystem support and not at the cost of quality.”
Does he mean the mad plague of the Vista-hating horde? If so, I’m glad they learned their lesson (although they seem to have forgotten some learned with the WinMe fiasco).
Anyhoo, I am as excited as anyone else about 7. I like XP and all, but I do want progress.
Is it a coincidence that Windows with “names” have been failures? Millenium, Vista… Maybe for those iterations the marketing department were in charge…
What about Windows Whistler = XP = Experience?
I may actually throw this on my iMac, as it’s interesting to see what the “competition” is up to.
Why stop there?
§[<http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp<]§
dude, if it’ll run on the Mac, I’ll do it.
I found a guide to triple-booting Linux, Windows, and OS X, I’m sure solaris would be similar.
For anyone with the leaked version or thinking of getting this tomorrow (or off Technet which has it today), be aware of the bug in WMP12 which can corrupt your mp3 files.
MS have been working on a patch and you hopefully might be able to get it tomorrow with the beta.
Thanks much!
Patch is available now on MSDN – KB961367
That’s a feature. Anything that kills that horrible sounding excuse for a codec is fine by me.
uh, which codec? mp3 itself is a containerg{<.<}g
Not to mention modern mp3 encoders (read: LAME) have been tuned to the point where almost everything audio can be stored transparently.