Author Topic: windows 7 beta available for free Jan 9 (!) (Read 144,006 times)

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #50 on:** January 10, 2009, 12:29 AM »

The blog page has now removed all reference to 'come back this afternoon'

fenixproductions · « **Reply #51 on:** January 10, 2009, 12:48 AM »

Quote from: Hirudin on January 10, 2009, 12:17 AM

Microsoft would have to release some kind of small "ISO checker" program that people could download to verify that the torrent is complete/legitimate after it's finished downloading.

Simple MD5 or SHA1 would be enough.

Hirudin · « **Reply #52 on:** January 10, 2009, 12:53 AM »

Quote from: fenixproductions on January 10, 2009, 12:48 AM

Simple MD5 or SHA1 would be enough.

True-dat.
As big of a nerd that I am, I don't think I've ever successfully checked an MD5 (or any other checksum). I've heard Directory Opus will calculate them, is there a "built into Windows" solution available?

I realize more and more that I apparently have no qualms about going off topic.

40hz · « **Reply #53 on:** January 10, 2009, 12:55 AM »

They have an estimated 2.5 million parties queuing up (at Microsoft's invitation) to download a multi-gigabyte ISO - and they're trying to act like they're surprised by the bandwidth hit on their server farm?

Coupled with the torrent "leak" last week, this whole thing is starting to feel like they're trying to engineer a little "press" for the product.

I'd really hate to download something that size simply because there was no other alternative for getting it.

I am hoping they'll include it in the next MS Partner Action-Pack distribution. If we're expected to help them sell this thing, we're going to need a little more to work with than a white paper and some extensively choreographed videos.

fenixproductions · « **Reply #54 on:** January 10, 2009, 01:15 AM »

Quote from: Hirudin on January 10, 2009, 12:53 AM

is there a "built into Windows" solution available?

Nope but there are few shell extensions for seeing that in file's properties window (ex. http://beeblebrox.org/hashtab/ ).

Darwin · « **Reply #55 on:** January 10, 2009, 01:19 AM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 10, 2009, 12:29 AM

The blog page has now removed all reference to 'come back this afternoon'

Damn! That means that I've been loading a cached copy for the past hour

Darwin · « **Reply #56 on:** January 10, 2009, 01:21 AM »

UPDATE - I just checked and Carol is correct. This note is now featured underneath the blurb about having listened to the userbase:

Quote

Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal—we're in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We're sorry for the delay and we'll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.

f0dder · « **Reply #57 on:** January 10, 2009, 01:39 AM »

Quote from: fenixproductions on January 10, 2009, 12:48 AM

Quote from: Hirudin on January 10, 2009, 12:17 AM
Microsoft would have to release some kind of small "ISO checker" program that people could download to verify that the torrent is complete/legitimate after it's finished downloading.
Simple MD5 or SHA1 would be enough.

And completely unnecessary - you'd get the .torrent file from Microsoft, guaranteeing authenticity, and BitTorrent does it's own hashing.

Anyway, I decided to grab the 32-bit Win7 beta from *cough* alternate sources *cough* (don't really see a problem in doing so), and have tried it under vmware 5.5.9 (64bit host). Gave it a single gigabyte of memory (I have 8, but decided to stress Win7 a bit

), and it seems pretty nice.

Initial impressions:

Install time still takes a while, and still requires multiple reboots. Not a big issue since you aren't going to do this often, but I still feel MS could do better.
The video driver from VMWare tools messes up the system - but even without that driver, the GUI (although quite sloppy) still seems snappier than XP without a proper video driver. Might be different on real hardware.
UAC now has 4 levels - from Vista-style to completely off. Default is level 3, which is like Vista except that control panel and such doesn't have elevation prompts. If this is implemented without being a glaring security hole, it's a really nice thing.
System seems very responsive, and relatively low memory usage. Around 300meg used after boot without additional apps installed.
The new taskbar is interesting. I think I could grow to like it... basically, quicklaunch is removed but you can "pin" shorcuts to the taskbar. Those shortcuts will work both for starting apps, but also group running apps. Seems like it might need application support to do the "all in one" thing, though - firefox works perfectly, xplorer² ends up having the "launch icon" and an icon for the running processes.
Startup seems relatively fast.
Control panel still has a zillion clicks like Vista, but at least you can directly right-click your desktop and choose "change resolution" now
Moving a window to the far right or left side of the screen maximizes it to half the screen resolution, this seems very useful for widescreen monitors. Moving to top of screen maximizes fully. Dragging and shaking a window minimizes all background windows.

I feel inclined to finding a spare harddrive and giving the beta a go on real hardware, load it with programs etc... I'd like to see how much advantage Superfetch brings compared to XP's old prefetch.

cmpm · « **Reply #58 on:** January 10, 2009, 04:06 AM »

from
'Download Squad' feed
received at 5:20pm EST/USA

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/01/09/direct-download-links-for-windows-7-beta-iso-surface/

so far it works for downloading
it will take a while depending on your connection.....

i would have posted this sooner
but i was at my workplace
without access to my feeds

f0dder · « **Reply #59 on:** January 10, 2009, 05:01 AM »

cmpm: probably works, thing is you don't get a beta key - so you're left with a 30day trial (or 120 days if you use the rearm trick, probably). I got my ISO at 2MB/s, didn't take long

cmpm · « **Reply #60 on:** January 10, 2009, 05:09 AM »

yes, that is correct fodder

just giving alternatives
not everyone knows how to get it the way you did
nor is it advisable for a novice
i would think

in fact the beta would be for a knowledgeable software person
imho....

i'm glad you got it though
looking forward to hearing more about it from you

f0dder · « **Reply #61 on:** January 10, 2009, 05:13 AM »

Yeah, I wouldn't advise people in general to run the beta - and definitely not replacing their current OS with it. If the vmware experience is any indication of how it runs on real hardware, things will be good. As soon as I pull myself together, I'm replacing the 400gig disk in my fileserver with a 640gig disk (part of moving to a new RAID MIRROR because the other 400gig disk died), and I'll thus have a (fast) 400gig disk that I can do a test install of the Win7 beta on, on real hardware.

I certainly hope MS don't mess up the OS from now and until release - and I hope vlite will support it soon. Too bad MS don't make it more modular from the beginning...

Hirudin · « **Reply #62 on:** January 10, 2009, 05:21 AM »

~~Aw, direct links no work no mo.~~ Well, they didn't at the time, now they are again...

cmpm, any chance of you getting it from that other source and comparing the 2 isos? Hopefully you got the x64 version.

I'm fairly confident I'll get a beta key whenever they release them, so I could use the 30 day demo until then.

f0dder · « **Reply #63 on:** January 10, 2009, 05:25 AM »

If you decide to grab the 32bit ISO from an alternate location, you can verify it against this md5sum:

Code

f9dce6ebd0a63930b44d8ae802b63825 *7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #64 on:** January 10, 2009, 11:37 AM »

The two versions (both from ISOs at the microsoft website):

Windows 7 Beta - 32 bit (7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.ISO)
MD5: F9DCE6EBD0A63930B44D8AE802B63825
SHA1: 6071184282B2156FF61CDC5260545C078CCA31EE
CRC32: AABA5A48

Windows 7 Beta - 64 bit (7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO)
MD5: 773FC9CC60338C612AF716A2A14F177D
SHA1: E09FDBC1CB3A92CF6CC872040FDAF65553AB62A5
CRC32: 8E2FAD39

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #65 on:** January 10, 2009, 03:46 PM »

Anyone had any joy getting either 32 bit or 64 bit versions to install?

I have tried both and for both versions I get to the point were windows is starting up for the first time and then it goes into an endless reboot cycle.

Each install was performed on a clean empty primary partition.

Deozaan · « **Reply #66 on:** January 10, 2009, 04:21 PM »

Here's how to get your license key for Windows 7 Beta. I just tried this and it worked for me.

Quote from: http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/10/psstheres-how-to-get-your-windows-7-beta-key

Here's the steps for a key:

1. Visit TechNet Downloads, sign in at the top right and let the page load
2. Within the same window copy and paste "https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/scripts/gcs.aspx?Product=tn-win7-64-ww&LCID=1033" into the address bar or "https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/scripts/gcs.aspx?Product=tn-win7-32-ww&LCID=1033" (64bit key but will work on 32 too, if you get an error refresh a few times)...enjoy the result below (32 bit link seems to work better), whilst stocks last. If you are still having issues try clearing your temp files and deleting all cookies.

EDIT: From the same webpage it says there's a bug in Windows 7 Beta that corrupts your MP3 files.

Quote

Microsoft is also providing a QFE patch for the MP3 corruption issues that have plagued build 7000, this should be online shortly as KB961367. It's extremely important you apply this patch as you may lose parts of your MP3s if the patch is not applied. 32bit and 64bit patches are now available.

Deozaan · « **Reply #67 on:** January 10, 2009, 04:29 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 10, 2009, 03:46 PM

Anyone had any joy getting either 32 bit or 64 bit versions to install?

I installed the 32bit version just fine in Windows Virtual PC 2007. But then when I tried to install the Virtual Machine tools it prevented Win7 from booting up. That's when I found out Win7 has a neat little "Your PC can't be booted right now. We'll see if we can fix it."

I think it did a system restore automatically (well, it prompted me to do one), and it worked.

f0dder · « **Reply #68 on:** January 10, 2009, 04:33 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on January 10, 2009, 03:46 PM

Anyone had any joy getting either 32 bit or 64 bit versions to install?

I have tried both and for both versions I get to the point were windows is starting up for the first time and then it goes into an endless reboot cycle.

Each install was performed on a clean empty primary partition.

32bit installed just fine for me under vmware, as mentioned above. Just don't install accelerated video driver for vmware, the rest of the vmware tools (NIC and mouse driver) work fine, though. And after the hard-reset, I got a "want to fix stuff auto?" kinda thing, which did a system restore. Glad I hadn't turned that off as I usually do

Oh, and it did insist on creating a 200MB "boot partition" kind of thing - at least I couldn't figure out how to stop it from doing so. That partition includes the BCD and whatnot.

As for the MP3 bug, that's only if you use windows media player - and who does?

Darwin · « **Reply #69 on:** January 10, 2009, 04:41 PM »

Thanks Deozaan! That just worked for me as well

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #70 on:** January 10, 2009, 04:47 PM »

Strange that it won't install on hardware though for me!

System is:

ASRock 939N68PV-GLAN motherboard
AMD Athlon64 939 (single core CPU)
2Gb memory
WD Caviar SATA hard disc (with Win XP, Vista and Vista 64 installed in separate partitions)

Onboard graphics and sound.
Standard MS AT style mouse and keyboard
LCD 19" monitor

Nothing else connected.

f0dder · « **Reply #71 on:** January 10, 2009, 04:48 PM »

Sounds weird, Carol.

I'd try disconnecting all harddrives and putting a completely blank one in the machine, to avoid any potential multiboot issues.

mediaguycouk · « **Reply #72 on:** January 10, 2009, 06:07 PM »

Quote

As for the MP3 bug, that's only if you use windows media player - and who does?

I thought that one of the major

to Win7 was that now WMP plays WMV, DivX, Xvid and H.264 it will play most things people throw at it

Josh · « **Reply #73 on:** January 10, 2009, 06:13 PM »

wait what? wmp supports all of those out of the box now?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #74 on:** January 10, 2009, 06:16 PM »

The official download page is now up and keys being issued. You need to use Internet Explorer if are downloading the ISO files because it only allows you to use MS's own download manager which is an ActiveX browser helper.

Go to: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd353205.aspx