Windows 7

[juiceuk]

Do this to get a product key. http://blog.hznet.nl/2009/01/10/how-to-receive-a-valid-windows-7-key

I did it and it gives you a product key but the download link takes you back to the windows7 homepage. Will these keys work or are they going to do a reissue when they get the servers back up and running. I pressed back on my browser hoping to try the download button again and it gave me a different product key! Got two of them now if they work. I think I read that one key works on up to 3 PC's?

[Myst]

The offical d/load site is now fully running along with the activation codes too.

Just need to log in with your passport /Live ID

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

[zappaDPJ]

I won't be trialing it but I will almost certainly be upgrading to the retail version and I expect Microsoft to allow me to do this on all four PCs/laptops we have running Vista for free.

Vista is in my opinion the most rancid operating system ever produced. It's certainly not fit for purpose and therefore it's only right that they deliver a working product with a free upgrade path for those of us that have paid for Vista.

[Gary]

I won't be trialing it but I will almost certainly be upgrading to the retail version and I expect Microsoft to allow me to do this on all four PCs/laptops we have running Vista for free.

Vista is in my opinion the most rancid operating system ever produced. It's certainly not fit for purpose and therefore it's only right that they deliver a working product with a free upgrade path for those of us that have paid for Vista.

Well my pc came with Vista 64 bit and it works great, runs fast, we all have different views though, for me its great and windows 7 is not going to be that drastically different from Vista sp2 from what I have seen so far but never the less it will not be a huge leap forward in features and GUI, I will see when SP1 comes out in 2010/11 and what people think. I think with Windows 7 64 bit computing would be the way to step anyway, all the moaning over Vista this or Vista that is, well its dull now. People seem to forget what xp was like in the beginning and the nightmare patching hell we went through with all the security issues while we sat and waited for SP2. God help the people who had to update XP on dialup in those long years between SP1 and SP2, let alone the mess that SP3 caused some AMD systems, we all want and see things differently, and our computing needs are no exception which is good and that helps us progress, as far as Rancid goes though, well that's pushing it a bit far I think, now if we were talking about my grandmothers suit pudding

[kinmel]

I have got Windows 7 running on a spare hard drive, it seems to be very stable once up and running.

They have calmed the hand holding down a bit, but it still wants to set up a "Home Group" every time I try to add it to my existing network though.

It had the latest drivers for my ATI HD4850 video and all the other mainstream hardware built in, so that's a big improvement.

It looks and feels like a mature Windows environment, now I need to find where all the tweaks have been hidden.

A vast improvement on where Vista was at this stage of the roll-out.

[cavillas]

I downloaded and tried the windows 7 but find it much the same as vista.  It is no faster and doesn't seem to have many differences from Vista so I can't see what all the fuss is about.  I will stick with Vista as it is stable, fast and reliable on my little machine.  I have a Celeron 432 with nvidia 8400gs 256mb card and 2Gb memory with all upgrades and latest drivers for everything so my Vista perfomance will never go above 3.8 but I can run everything extremely well so no use in changing.

[Noreen]

Another post from American forum, that may be of interest. It was in answer to a query about drivers.

For now that's all there is, but it's incorrect to say that all Vista drivers are going to be compatible. For example, I am unable to use the VMware SVGA II driver with Windows 7. It doesn't work. I'm stuck with the Windows VGA driver (which gives decent resolution and colour depth, but no 2D acceleration)

Drivers are going to need testing and revising. Apparently though, recent Nvidia drivers (e.g. 181.x) do work in Windows 7.

[Rik]

I wonder whether hardware manufacturers will do better this time around?

[Noreen]

Another post from that forum.

It destroyed my machine....I installed it as an upgrade over Vista Ultimate SP1 and it installed ok but when it came to desktop it gave me the crash window saying windows halted loading to prevent computer damage...I did what it said and tried again and a load echoing came out and then the blue screen. Glad I made an image before doing this with Acronis...8 minutes and I was back to where I was prior. Maybe it didn't like my installed programs??? people have been raving on how stable it is...Not for my rig it isn't.

He was told that he should have done a full install.

[Rik]

Ah the joys of beta testing.

[Sebby]

I've got the 64-bit version waiting to be installed, but I've got to resize a partition, so I think I'll leave it for a bit.

[Sebby]

I'm now running Windows 7 x64. First impressions are that it's a massive improvement over Vista, even if a lot of it looks much the same.

Internet Explorer 8 is just ghastly, and seems incapable of displaying most websites properly. I didn't think MS could make the next version of their browser less compliant than the last.

I'm not convinced about the look. I can see what they're trying to achieve (basically something more like Mac OS X!) but I can't help but feel it looks a bit tacky.

[Rik]

MS can do anything, Seb. So, do you think you'll convert, as a first reaction?

[Sebby]

At the moment, no, but that's because things have just taken a turn for the worst. I was just trying to install the critical update re MP3 corruption and I got a message saying something like "disk structure corrupt." I ran chkdsk a couple of times, which fixed a lot of errors, but the problem remains. A quick Google reveals I'm not alone.

That aside, I'm not sure. Coming back into XP felt much nicer. Vista and Windows 7 just feel a bit "fluffy" to me. I'm undecided at this stage.

[Rik]

Thanks, Seb. I quite miss DOS, so I know what you mean. On any Windows machine, my first job is to turn off all the eye candy and bloat.

[Sebby]

You'll have a hard time doing so on Windows 7.

[Rik]

That sounds bad.

[Sebby]

I've just tried to do you a screenshot, but Paint won't save the image. Either Windows 7 is seriously buggy (even at the beta stage) or it's something to do with the fact that I'm running the x64 version, but I can't see why that would be.

[Rik]

Time to get the camera set up on a tripod then, Seb.

[Ted]

Here's a screenshot of windows 7, with all the eye candy and bloat turned off. 

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Rik]

That would be the Linux version would it, Ted?

[Sebby]

I thought it was for a minute!

I've now formatted the Windows 7 partition and will perhaps give the 32-bit version a go. It was virtually unusable...

[Ted]

That would be the Linux version would it, Ted?

Its called Winux 7 

[Rik]

That would be the one Abba did the song about, The Winux takes it all?

[Sebby]