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windows 7 beta available for free Jan 9 (!)

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f0dder:
Umm, it's the beta that's free...

Stoic Joker:
Well given the tone of this thread, I’ll have to sign in as one of the Idiot Virtual PC users … however I have ran upwards of 8 OS simultaneously on this box with it and experienced zero lag anywhere (so it works for me).

That being said, I already had a (alternately sourced) copy of Win7 Milestone2 (unsure of the build, but it was just before the new taskbar was added) running in a VM so I took a shot at upgrading it to see what would happen. The VM was only given a 20GB HDD and 512MB RAM to work with to make things nice and difficult…

The upgrade took 2 hours… and 5 reboots.

While the host machine has an extremely fast SATA RAID5 array, due to the enormous I/O load the upgrade caused this was the first time I have ever seen this machine lag. Processor usage never went over 50% and memory usage wasn’t even worth mentioning, but getting anything on or off the hard drive wasn’t gona happen soon … and waiting for things a clicked to happen (eek!) was new…

All went back to normal after the install finished. The VPC addons had to be reinstalled to get them working, and the (Win7 VM) sound didn’t work. The volume icon had a red X and the new Action Center had a (persistent)” Can I fix” it balloon message sticking out of it. Being in the habit of dismissing wizards, I told it to go ahead (and fail since it wouldn’t go away) and damn if it didn’t actually resolve the issue…without asking any silly questions.

While I haven’t had time to beat on it extensively, I did browse around looking for the basic move it, find the network, get on the internet, & open a bunch of dumb stuff to see if it will complain behavior. Surprisingly even with only 512MB RAM it never managed to violate my “If it takes more than 1 second to get a response, you suck” rule. Vista (RTM) failed that test (with 512MB RAM) on native hardware opening MS Word.

Granted the transparency doesn’t work and fancy graphics render badly in VPC, but I don’t give a damn if it’s pretty … I want it to work, and Windows7 (works) is looking like a very good thing.

40hz:
I'm not sure people here agree with me. But i think microsoft is moving towards Opensource and Free software movement slowly.
-mahesh2k (January 17, 2009, 12:15 PM)
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IMHO: If they are, it is only to get close enough to hit the F/OSS community over the head when it least expects it.

 ;D

But seriously, as long as Ballmer and Microsoft persist in sending mixed messages about patent infringement, I doubt any move by Microsoft towards the OSS community should be construed as completely friendly.

Microsoft has been repeatedly asked to formally renounce any potential patent claims that may exist between itself and the FOSS/Linux community.

To date, they have consistently refused to do so despite a great deal of ambiguous and waffling PR talk that tries to portray their position otherwise.

And their licensing arrangements with certain distro developers has succeeded in doing little more than to drive a very large wedge into the whole Linux community.

Having worked with Microsoft in the past, my experience leads me to believe that if they are moving towards an accommodation with Linux, it will be either under Microsoft's own terms - or not at all.

I'm not the world's deepest thinker, but I don't see how you can reconcile the goals and behaviors of a free and open software community with that of a multi-billion dollar corporation whose dominant global position depends on their continued control of a closed, proprietary software product family.

But why should they do otherwise? They didn't get to where they are today by playing nicely with others.

And despite all the negative things said about Microsoft, the one thing you'll never hear anybody call them is "stupid" or "weak." Microsoft combines the ruthless mindset of an entrepreneurial venture with the financial and political clout of a megacorp - which makes them a very formidable factor in the software world.

And as far as the Win7 beta is concerned, I think that it came about more as a "smart business" move than anything else. Especially when viewed in light of the whole Vista debacle.

I don't have any personal axe to grind with Microsoft. I have a lot of respect for them as a business, even though I am less impressed with their products. But when it comes to business, Microsoft will always watch out for numero uno. They wouldn't be Microsoft otherwise.

mahesh2k:
IMHO: If they are, it is only to get close enough to hit the F/OSS community over the head when it least expects it.
--- End quote ---

it will be either under Microsoft's own terms - or not at all.
--- End quote ---
Yes. 100% Agree.

I'm not the world's deepest thinker, but I don't see how you can reconcile the goals and behaviors of a free and open software community with that of a multi-billion dollar corporation whose dominant global position depends on their continued control of a closed, proprietary software product family.
--- End quote ---

With their strategies behind these projects:


* Heroes Happen Here
* Codeplex
* Oxide
* Funding for Mono
I found them moving in that way. So that's why i made the point. Even though Vista was failed, Linux Distros unable to take advantage of diverting Windows Users to Linux. Still people prefer Windows, and this is where Microsoft made their business move by releasing Windows 7 Beta openly. They never made such move with XP (Or even Vista, i think Vista betas were leaked and not official;y distributed).

So i agree, Microsoft will always watch out for numero uno. They wouldn't be Microsoft otherwise.

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