Author Topic: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing) (Read 244,562 times)

Darwin · « **Reply #150 on:** January 26, 2009, 01:36 AM »

God I hope that Windows 7 doesn't derail a Vista Sp-2 release (or an Sp-3 release for that matter...). Not that I'm complaining about Sp-1, mind you. I love it, but I'd hate to see the product dropped completely after only a couple of years.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #151 on:** January 26, 2009, 11:19 AM »

WRT to installation issues on mobos with integrated graphics I have posted a summary solution at:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/2664066a-242b-43ad-ad97-1a84fae53295/#page:4

(see 4th post on that page)

zridling · « **Reply #152 on:** January 26, 2009, 02:16 PM »

I still think it would go a long ways toward customer relations and good PR to give all registered Vista users a free or deeply discounted price on the full Win7 version. It won't happen, but that my half cent.

Darwin · « **Reply #153 on:** January 26, 2009, 02:36 PM »

Free would be nice... deeply discounted reasonable... I still half wonder if Windows 7 beta isn't a variant of the Mojave experiement on a grand scale. Whatever their longterm plans, this is a sharp marketing move. I don't remember so many people beta testing a new windows release in the past and they've managed to generate a heck of a lot of interest in it. Caveat: they'd better deliver this time, because there was a lot of excitement about Vista (without, to my mind, the extensive beta testing base) that turned into excrement being heaped on it

The blog nontroppo linked to yesterday is a good read about this:

Quote from: nontroppo on January 25, 2009, 11:36 PM

Scott Finnie ain't singing the Windows 7 anthem either:

http://blog.scotsnewsletter.com/2009/01/18/windows-7-beta-1-im-not-impressed/

He doesn't see the performance boost he saw with Win 7 alpha, suggesting this is a classic cycle where the MS OS gets slower as it marches to RTM... And homegroup can be less than ideal to setup. Why can't Windows 7 interoperate, it can't play with any Macs on the network, yet Leopard can see both Macs and PCs. Bonjour is open-source and wouldn't kill MS to extend its interoperability.

zridling · « **Reply #154 on:** January 27, 2009, 04:36 AM »

Finnie makes some good points. He made the jump to Mac several years ago pre-Vista. I think [Windows] users will welcome 7, but what will it offer the enterprise customer? If businesses don't jump on it -- and face it, they don't have the money to upgrade hardware or licenses these days -- then Microsoft will need a Plan B business model. As Finnie notes, users are not willing to pay for single-platform data lockdown in the age of the cloud. The OS takes a backseat to the app.

40hz · « **Reply #155 on:** January 29, 2009, 03:53 AM »

Don't really know if this is on-topic or not, but Ubuntu 8.04-2 installs and peacefully coexists with Windows 7.

The Grub configuration script (bless it's pointy little head) identifies Win7's loader just fine and installs to the MBR without incident.

(I'm composing this in Ubu as we speak.

)

Hope this continues when the final MS code gets released.

f0dder · « **Reply #156 on:** January 29, 2009, 01:42 PM »

Quote from: zridling on January 27, 2009, 04:36 AM

Finnie makes some good points. He made the jump to Mac several years ago pre-Vista. I think [Windows] users will welcome 7, but what will it offer the enterprise customer? If businesses don't jump on it -- and face it, they don't have the money to upgrade hardware or licenses these days -- then Microsoft will need a Plan B business model. As Finnie notes, users are not willing to pay for single-platform data lockdown in the age of the cloud. The OS takes a backseat to the app.

It's probably going to matter a lot more to the enterprise than desktop user, actually - there's been a lot of tweaking and serious code restructuring going on in the kernel to reduce scalability bottlenecks... check the Russinovich video on the topic.

Edvard · « **Reply #157 on:** January 30, 2009, 01:42 AM »

I'm still struggling with how to get this on my box. Right now I'm thinking the old-school way we used to install Win98, only I'll be doing the copying from a Linux...
Right now, I have downloaded everything on my computer at work. I've made a 'Slim' distro with vLite and have the files packed into an ISO, which is mounted as a drive so I have access to the files.

1-Copy all files from the mounted ISO to a USB stick.
2-At home, copy those files to a free NT partitioned disk, in a folder labeled "Win7".
3-Boot to a DOS prompt via floppy.
4-Run "C:\win7\setup.exe"

Think it'll work?

The only thing I'm wondering is if the DOS prompt will be able to run the setup program, considering the 16 vs. 32 bit barrier.

Oh well, here goes nothing...

f0dder · « **Reply #158 on:** January 30, 2009, 01:47 AM »

You used to be able to do that previously, but I haven't tried since the win2k days - so dunno if they dropped the capability.

Edvard · « **Reply #159 on:** January 30, 2009, 02:10 AM »

With XP, you copy the 'i386' folder and run 'winnt.exe' from there, because "setup.exe cannot be run in DOS mode".
I expect I will find a similar trap waiting for me with Win7 because there is no winnt.exe to fall back to.
The Win7 installer apparently can run from an already-running XP or Vista (doesn't need it's own boot environment) so maybe I can run setup.exe from Wine?

@40hz:

Quote

The Grub configuration script (bless it's pointy little head) identifies Win7's loader just fine and installs to the MBR without incident.

Does that mean a generic

Code

title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

entry in Grub does the trick?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #160 on:** January 30, 2009, 02:17 AM »

AFAIK all newer Windows setups can run from any earlier version of Windows - most will just allow a fresh install but where an upgrade is possible it will be the default mode of operation and you need to specifically choose clean install and the destination if you don't want an upgrade.

Is there a reason you can't run it direct from a bootable DVD?

zridling · « **Reply #161 on:** January 30, 2009, 02:36 AM »

There will be no upgrade path from XP to Win7, says Microsoft. Must do a clean install.

Makes sense.
_______________
@40hz - Good to know Ubuntu accommodates Win7.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #162 on:** January 30, 2009, 02:39 AM »

True ... but I bet if you put your DVD in with Windows XP running it will start the installer.

Edvard · « **Reply #163 on:** January 30, 2009, 02:55 AM »

@Carol: No DVD reader at home and no DVD burner at work.
I do have a 4 gig USB stick, but no capability to boot it via BIOS on my box at home, hence my troubles.

@zridling: Carol is right, when I mount the Win7 ISO, it pops up the installer. Apparently, while you can't upgrade to Win7, you can install it to another disk or partition from a running Windows.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #164 on:** January 30, 2009, 11:25 AM »

In that case copy the contents of the whole ISO into a folder in your existing partition and then look in AutoRun.INF to find out which file is launched from the DVD when it is inserted and double click that - it should allow you launch the installer from Windows and then make sure you choose a fresh install in a new partition.

40hz · « **Reply #165 on:** January 30, 2009, 11:59 AM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 30, 2009, 11:25 AM

find out which file is launched from the DVD when it is inserted and double click that - it should allow you launch the installer

Windows 7 still uses setup.exe for the installer.

Edvard · « **Reply #166 on:** January 30, 2009, 04:23 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 30, 2009, 11:25 AM

In that case copy the contents of the whole ISO into a folder in your existing partition and then look in AutoRun.INF to find out which file is launched from the DVD when it is inserted and double click that - it should allow you launch the installer from Windows and then make sure you choose a fresh install in a new partition.

EXACTLY what I intended to do. Unfortunately, I discovered there is no AutoRun.inf or Setup.exe on my vLite'd ISO, so I'm going to try to copy them over and try again tonight.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #167 on:** January 30, 2009, 05:04 PM »

If it isn't a daft question why use vLite on a beta installation of Windows 7? If you are installing to an empty partition why not just use the proper installer - there will probably be enough issues because it is a beta version without adding vLite into the mix?

FWIW I got some feedback via the MS forums about the mysterious hiding the currently active OS when you install Win 7 beta on a separate partition. Apparently there were some partition table corruption problems when Vista beta was first released and so to avoid the issue recurring they decided to hide the original operating system from Win7.

Personally I think this is a ludicrous solution as they are writing the partition table every time you swap OS on your system and it seems to me to make it more likely they will corrupt your system! How difficult is it for a company like MS to get partition tables right - nothing much has changed in years with partition tables!!!

Edvard · « **Reply #168 on:** January 30, 2009, 05:55 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 30, 2009, 05:04 PM

If it isn't a daft question why use vLite on a beta installation of Windows 7? If you are installing to an empty partition why not just use the proper installer - there will probably be enough issues because it is a beta version without adding vLite into the mix?

Not a daft question at all... I suppose I haven't revealed all the details:

1- I have no way to burn the ISO to a DVD. The only suitable media I have is a 4 Gig USB stick.
2- The Win7 ISO is 4.6 Gigabytes... 600 Megabytes too large for the USB media.
3- My target box has no DVD player nor does it have capability to boot from USB media. I didn't care until now.
4- My target box is a 1GHz Celeron with 512 Mb RAM. Any resources I can shave off by using vLite can only help, and I'm not entirely sure I would be successful even with a proper installation DVD.

So, all my canoodling is simply a sorry attempt to deal with the physical limitations of my particular set of resources.

justice · « **Reply #169 on:** January 30, 2009, 06:13 PM »

If we all pay 1 credit each you can easily buy a dvd recorder and be done with it what you think? edit: done.

Darwin · « **Reply #170 on:** January 30, 2009, 06:14 PM »

Quote from: justice on January 30, 2009, 06:13 PM

If we all pay 1 credit each you can easily buy a dvd recorder and be done with it what you think?

I'm in...

Edvard · « **Reply #171 on:** January 30, 2009, 07:03 PM »

Just so I can play with a Windows beta?

Aw, you guys are too much...

Being a Linux guy, I'm actually wondering why I'm going through all the trouble.
Then, in a fit of lucidity I realize that Windows still rules in most of the world and I'm going to have to teach my son the ways of it. *sigh*

Besides that, I hear Win7 is shaping up to be a pretty nice little product.
Curiosity and cats and all that...

Darwin · « **Reply #172 on:** January 30, 2009, 07:27 PM »

I hear you, Edvard. I need another flavour of Windows like I need a hole in the head, but the hype does have me curious and I like to stay abreast of the latest versions of Windows because all my friends and family (barring parents who are on OS X Tiger) run everything from Win 98 to Vista. I'm the default go-to guy for all computer related problems, so it doesn't hurt to know what's going on...

That, and I just plain love doing this crap! Why, I don't know... it certainly doesn't pay the bills - just creates 'em!

zridling · « **Reply #173 on:** January 31, 2009, 10:29 AM »

Quote from: Edvard on January 30, 2009, 07:03 PM

I realize that Windows still rules in most of the world and I'm going to have to teach my son the ways of it. *sigh*

Make him get a job to pay for a copy? That might make that Linux DVD look a little sweeter. (Microsoft still plays nasty with your MBR with Win7.)
_______________________
That said, Windows users will enjoy Win7 compared to XP and Vista. If you're coming from XP, you'll be delighted with the improved UI. And if you're coming from Vista, you'll be able to exhale. Win7 might be another XP, where it lasts on machines for ten years! With most computing time being done online, Moore's Law has had to take a back seat.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #174 on:** January 31, 2009, 11:30 AM »

I can't get my hands on it. Post your Windows 7 Desktop screen-shots guys.