Anyone crazy enough to run Win7 beta as their primary OS?
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Judah Himango wrote:
Anyone crazy enough...
I'm crazy enough! But unfortunately I don't have time... :sigh:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:16) :badger:
I'm also crazy :laugh:
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It's being widely used within MS and it is much more stable and speedy than prior beta releases of Windows. Apparently, although I haven't tried it on my laptop, connecting to WiFi networks is blazingly fast.
I'm currently using it as my main OS on my Desktop PC. Seems very stable and most of my development/graphics tools works great (VS, Adobe Flash, Photoshop etc..) Except for Dreamweaver CS4 :( (strange considering all the other Adobe apps installed perfectly - Dreamweaver 8 works though) So i've decided to keep windows 2003 on my other pc just for Dreamweaver CS4 cause I love it. Dwain Browne
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A couple of devs here have replaced Vista or XP with the Windows 7 beta, and are saying how great it is, now using it as their primary OS. I tried it through VPC 2007, and yeah, it's nice, but I can't really use it under Virtual PC for day-to-day use. So, any CPians have experience living on the bleeding edge and using Windows 7 as their primary OS? Is it insane to rely on the Win7 beta for day-to-day activity?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
Hey, my company's mandate is still Windows 2000. I'd be quite happy to try ANYTHING new!!
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I have replaced Vista Ultimate with Win7 (64bit) since the day it was made available on TechNet on my Dell m1330 notebook. At first it was great and it really is just Vista but fixed (for the most part). I have had some BSOD originating from the network, but they only seem to come about if I am running Virtual Server 2007 (64bit) and power up another system on the same network. I also have issues with the nVidia desktop backgrounds becoming corrupted and forcing the video card to restart after a while, but disabling the background slideshow (which is a nice feature) seems to solve that one. I would say, as Betas go, this one is very good, so much so, that even with the issues above, I still prefer to use Win7 (and this is a Dev box, so it's thrashed very hard). I really dislike Vista (32 and 64bit) as it is a sluggard and, well enough said, you all know it by now...
I also had the nVidia display driver reset on me. Also had a BSOD when changing folder to look for pictures to select for the wallpaper slideshow. And after the reboot this forced, Windows asked me if I wanted to send the crash info to MS and on clicking the "Send Information" button it BSOD again. Next reboot I cancelled the send info and never had an issue since. The wallpaper selection window should be tweaked a bit, it should not automatically select all pictures in a folder for slideshow just by selecting the folder... What I would like is select a few pics in a folder, a few in another, and so on... Anyway, overall a very good and stable Beta. Faster than Vista with a lower memory footprint. Win7 uses about 800 Megs of RAM after booting while my Vista Ultimate with all same apps installed used about 1100 Megs.
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A couple of devs here have replaced Vista or XP with the Windows 7 beta, and are saying how great it is, now using it as their primary OS. I tried it through VPC 2007, and yeah, it's nice, but I can't really use it under Virtual PC for day-to-day use. So, any CPians have experience living on the bleeding edge and using Windows 7 as their primary OS? Is it insane to rely on the Win7 beta for day-to-day activity?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
I've been using Win 7 as my primary home OS and I am a big fan. I loath going to work and using XP. Although... I'm not sure REPLACING your Vista or XP install is wise either. This is assuming alot on Microsofts behalf; mainly, that you won't be left high and dry when August rolls around and the beta dies, they don't release beta 2, and its not in production yet. Sure, they COULD release beta 2 or production before then, but why chance it? I used Vista's computer management to create a new partition on my hard drive and do a dual boot. This way I can use it as my primary, but when the beta dies, my laptop doesn't turn into a paper weight!
"It's like the sixties, but with less hope."
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Yeah, the "loads of bugs" is my thought too. But everyone's saying how it's the most stable beta MS has ever put out, and how it's running without problems for so many. Wanted to hear if anyone's had experience otherwise.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
The only "bug" I've found is the lack of a functioning audio driver for my MoBo (but to be fair, the manufacturer didn't even release a Vista-compatible driver in the first place, forcing me to install the XP driver in compatibility mode. For some reason, that doesn't work in 7). Other than that (and a few minor issues that are mere annoyances at this point), it runs great on my older machine.
“Acer, Gateway, and eMachines are the same company now. Great! Now we just need a really big toilet, and we can get rid of all three at once.”
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Does the Vista drivers work for Windows 7? I am also thinking about installing it on my laptop but not too sure about the drivers?:confused:
I installed it on my dell inspiron e1705 laptop and win7 had drivers for it. The only driver I had to install was for the touchpad (so I can scroll) and I used the vista/xp driver and it works just fine. The OS runs great and is very stable on it and faster than vista I must say. I have everything running smoothly on it; VS2008, SQL Server 2008 (and 2005 Express) as well as all my other tools. I've not encountered any problems yet (knock on wood :-D )!
~ballistikx
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A couple of devs here have replaced Vista or XP with the Windows 7 beta, and are saying how great it is, now using it as their primary OS. I tried it through VPC 2007, and yeah, it's nice, but I can't really use it under Virtual PC for day-to-day use. So, any CPians have experience living on the bleeding edge and using Windows 7 as their primary OS? Is it insane to rely on the Win7 beta for day-to-day activity?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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A couple of devs here have replaced Vista or XP with the Windows 7 beta, and are saying how great it is, now using it as their primary OS. I tried it through VPC 2007, and yeah, it's nice, but I can't really use it under Virtual PC for day-to-day use. So, any CPians have experience living on the bleeding edge and using Windows 7 as their primary OS? Is it insane to rely on the Win7 beta for day-to-day activity?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
Yes. I replaced Vista on my laptop with Win7 Beta and suddenly my VPN (and a few other things) started working correctly again. The new taskbar and window-snapping to edges features have made my life much easer. So far it's great. I've had a few compatibility issues (virtual clone drive quit working), but for the most part it's much better than Vista was.
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A couple of devs here have replaced Vista or XP with the Windows 7 beta, and are saying how great it is, now using it as their primary OS. I tried it through VPC 2007, and yeah, it's nice, but I can't really use it under Virtual PC for day-to-day use. So, any CPians have experience living on the bleeding edge and using Windows 7 as their primary OS? Is it insane to rely on the Win7 beta for day-to-day activity?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
I've been using Win7 as my primary OS on two systems...a Media PC that runs my living room, and my main PC at home. So far, Windows 7 is very impressive, from a variety of angles: 1) Its fast! Very fast! 2) Its lightweight...boots up with 28 processes running. 3) Its stable...at least as stable as vista (no major crashes yet...media player gets wonky sometimes). 4) Its clean! Win7 has the cleanest UI of any OS I've used recently. I like it better than OS X. 5) Its easier to use. The workflow and usability of Win7 is really nice. Its an evolution of Vista, but still an improvement. It does have some compatability issues. I am a big NetFlix fan, and for some reason I can't install their Instant Watch viewer without the installer crashing. Not sure what the deal is, but Win7 has some nice "Send Feedback" links on all the titlebars, so its really easy to report issues to Microsoft. I am in the process of upgrading my main system to a Core i7 system, and I plan to use Win7 as my primary OS again.
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I've been using Win7 as my primary OS on two systems...a Media PC that runs my living room, and my main PC at home. So far, Windows 7 is very impressive, from a variety of angles: 1) Its fast! Very fast! 2) Its lightweight...boots up with 28 processes running. 3) Its stable...at least as stable as vista (no major crashes yet...media player gets wonky sometimes). 4) Its clean! Win7 has the cleanest UI of any OS I've used recently. I like it better than OS X. 5) Its easier to use. The workflow and usability of Win7 is really nice. Its an evolution of Vista, but still an improvement. It does have some compatability issues. I am a big NetFlix fan, and for some reason I can't install their Instant Watch viewer without the installer crashing. Not sure what the deal is, but Win7 has some nice "Send Feedback" links on all the titlebars, so its really easy to report issues to Microsoft. I am in the process of upgrading my main system to a Core i7 system, and I plan to use Win7 as my primary OS again.
Thanks for the info. I might just switch.
Jon Rista wrote:
I am a big NetFlix fan, and for some reason I can't install their Instant Watch viewer without the installer crashing
Have you tried their new Silverlight instant player?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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I've been using Win 7 as my primary home OS and I am a big fan. I loath going to work and using XP. Although... I'm not sure REPLACING your Vista or XP install is wise either. This is assuming alot on Microsofts behalf; mainly, that you won't be left high and dry when August rolls around and the beta dies, they don't release beta 2, and its not in production yet. Sure, they COULD release beta 2 or production before then, but why chance it? I used Vista's computer management to create a new partition on my hard drive and do a dual boot. This way I can use it as my primary, but when the beta dies, my laptop doesn't turn into a paper weight!
"It's like the sixties, but with less hope."
Yeah, the time bomb is disconcerting. I just didn't feel like going through the hassle of a disk partition. (Had some bad experiences about 5 years ago.)
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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A couple of devs here have replaced Vista or XP with the Windows 7 beta, and are saying how great it is, now using it as their primary OS. I tried it through VPC 2007, and yeah, it's nice, but I can't really use it under Virtual PC for day-to-day use. So, any CPians have experience living on the bleeding edge and using Windows 7 as their primary OS? Is it insane to rely on the Win7 beta for day-to-day activity?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
I like being on the bleeding edge... I remember running Vista Alpha Build 4008.
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Yeah, the time bomb is disconcerting. I just didn't feel like going through the hassle of a disk partition. (Had some bad experiences about 5 years ago.)
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
Well if you haven't taken a look at this for 5 years, I would suggest at least taking a peak at it; it's come a long way. In Vista (and Win 7) they quietly added a "shrink" feature to the storage device management. It allows you to do a "live" repartition, with everything still running, and no reboot! You'll want to do a defrag before you do this though, cause it essentially finds the largest area of contiguous open space on your hard drive to create this new space. I was able to get a 16GB partition created (the bare minimum for a Win 7 install). Win 7 only uses about 7GB of that space, and then I opened the Vista partition to use for programs, music, etc. It's a real slick feature that does away with the old days of command line FDISK, or buying third party tools for more common partitioning operations.
"It's like the sixties, but with less hope."
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Thanks for the info. I might just switch.
Jon Rista wrote:
I am a big NetFlix fan, and for some reason I can't install their Instant Watch viewer without the installer crashing
Have you tried their new Silverlight instant player?
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Judah Himango wrote:
Have you tried their new Silverlight instant player?
:omg: I havn't...I didn't know they had one. Where do I find it on their site?
Yeah, Mac users by default get the Silverlight player. PC users have to opt-in if they already have the old player installed: Netflix Silverlight movie player[^]. My wife and I have used it at our house, works pretty good, no complaints. (Haven't tried it on Win7, but I would assume MS's crap runs on their own crap. :))
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Well if you haven't taken a look at this for 5 years, I would suggest at least taking a peak at it; it's come a long way. In Vista (and Win 7) they quietly added a "shrink" feature to the storage device management. It allows you to do a "live" repartition, with everything still running, and no reboot! You'll want to do a defrag before you do this though, cause it essentially finds the largest area of contiguous open space on your hard drive to create this new space. I was able to get a 16GB partition created (the bare minimum for a Win 7 install). Win 7 only uses about 7GB of that space, and then I opened the Vista partition to use for programs, music, etc. It's a real slick feature that does away with the old days of command line FDISK, or buying third party tools for more common partitioning operations.
"It's like the sixties, but with less hope."
Interesting. Yeah, my experience is with command line tools. It was always a crapshoot. Well, maybe I should stop being lazy and just partition it then. Thanks for the help.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Yeah, Mac users by default get the Silverlight player. PC users have to opt-in if they already have the old player installed: Netflix Silverlight movie player[^]. My wife and I have used it at our house, works pretty good, no complaints. (Haven't tried it on Win7, but I would assume MS's crap runs on their own crap. :))
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Does the Vista drivers work for Windows 7? I am also thinking about installing it on my laptop but not too sure about the drivers?:confused:
On my desktop I ran the upgrade just to see if it would impact performance, it's still quick and stable. No driver issues at all. On the laptop I did a clean install on a Dell Vostro 1500, All drivers loaded during install, so no problems. Only issue I have found is with the .msi installations, but they have posted a registry fix for that. Neither machine has a great video card in it, but Aero runs just fine on both. Ron
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On my desktop I ran the upgrade just to see if it would impact performance, it's still quick and stable. No driver issues at all. On the laptop I did a clean install on a Dell Vostro 1500, All drivers loaded during install, so no problems. Only issue I have found is with the .msi installations, but they have posted a registry fix for that. Neither machine has a great video card in it, but Aero runs just fine on both. Ron
rguilmette wrote:
Only issue I have found is with the .msi installations, but they have posted a registry fix for that.
Mind posting the link? I'm planning to install Win7 as the primary OS soon, and I'm bound to run into the .msi issues. And I don't think I'm the only one. Thanks ;)
:badger: