Anyone crazy enough to run Win7 beta as their primary OS?
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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:
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It is working great for me. It is fast, stable and had only one minor compatibility issue: "Daemon Tools". But anyway I found a compatible replacement that works fine on mounting virtual drives on Windows 7. If you are not all excited about experimenting with new things you shouldn't do it. But as I am, I'm using it as my primary OS at home. No real problems at all. One thing blew me away though. I didn't know we would have a new version of DirectX in it already. I was installing a game and I checked the DirectX version, its 11!
Fabio Franco wrote:
But anyway I found a compatible replacement that works fine on mounting virtual drives on Windows 7.
Mind sharing the knowledge? ;) Daemon Tools not working under 7 is one of the few things stopping me from installing Win7 as my primary OS. If I knew what to use instead, I'd be typing this from Win7 now (or, to be more correct, I wouldn't be typing this at all :D)
"impossible" is just an opinion.
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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.
Jon Rista wrote:
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 believe they've always had that in their Betas. if it annoys you, its possible to turn it off in the registry: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/01/22/how-to-remove-windows-7-send-feedback-watermark-text/[^]
"impossible" is just an opinion.
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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 did, because for the first time over 8 years I faced a problem I couldn't solve on my XP installation, and I didn't regret moving to Windows 7. Yet!
-- Wessam Fathi
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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 only have two machines at home, an older PC and newer laptop, so they're both primary to me. I popped in a new hard drive in the laptop, did a system recovery (Vista 32-bit) and then installed Windows 7 on top. I installed VS2008, SQL Server 2008 Dev, and Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on it with no problems. I've only had two issues so far: (1) I can't customize the sound card settings - the program runs but there's no text in the controls and the drop-downs are empty; (2) I can't seem to figure out how to modify the LocalizedString value for "My Computer" {20D04FE0-...}. Everything else has been working fine (knock on wood) but I'm still trying to figure out the "Libraries" feature. Maybe I'm just used to managing files myself between my user profile and the public repository instead of having the OS determine what shows up where - but Microsoft knows better than me, right? :^) But overall, I like it better especially the fact I don't have any problems connecting it wirelessly. With Vista, I had to literally fight and wrestle the OS to connect to my router.
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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:
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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:
Win 7 runs great for me on my laptop, other than that I had to install my RTL8187 Netcard drivers in Vista compatibility mode. I tried to install them in normal mode, but the drivers complained about not being installed on Vista, so they refused to work at all. Other than that, (and the fact that Daemon Tools will not install no matter what I do to get it to do so, and that the makers won't fix it for a 'beta level' OS) Win 7 kicks all sorts of Vista butt... If Vista had a butt, that is. Just my 2 cents, keep the change.
Some say that ignorance is bliss... Blissful, aren't they?
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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 was crazy enough to *upgrade* from Vista to Win7. Almost everything worked, just had to install the latest wireless drivers. Chrome doesn't work. Who. Cares. Anyway. 7 beta is fast and really worht the upgrade. And the taskbar has progressbars when copying or downloading (w/ IE) files. So cute :)
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Yes, and it's really nice to use. MagicDisc nearly stuffed my installation by stopping windows explorer from seeing drive C but everything's back to normal now I've got rid of it.
AxisFirst For Business
Yeah I had the same problem with MagicDisc it was a bi%^ch to get rid of but finally got it uninstalled. The only other problem I had was with Acronis, it wouldn't install and all my backups use it but I don't think I'll need them anyway unless its to retrieve something I forgot to get off my XP system before converting. Mike
"It doesn't matter how big a ranch ya' own, or how many cows ya' brand, the size of your funeral is still gonna depend on the weather." -Harry Truman.
Semper Fi http://www.hq4thmarinescomm.com[^] My Site
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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
We are using it at work now (driver devlopment) and I have been pretty impressed with the stability so far when I compare it to the work we had to do on Beta levels of Vista.
