Win7 RC

Is anybody else having trouble with their overloaded site right now?

I've had it with vista, I'm going to install the RC as my primary OS.

*Please note this is not an invitation to tell us all how you got it weeks ago because you are in technet or MSDN

No, cancel that, downloading now.
Goodbye vista you fucking stupid, miserable excuse for machine code.

installed it last night on my netbook because my almost-working copy OSX was starting to wear thin.

impressed thus far.

Will work for a year too!!

Which should be enough time to organise a decent hardware upgrade with an OEM purchase....

Orrrr...

Finally be the latest to get a mac instead with Snow Leopard.

Overloaded for Windows update?

Downloading the ISO not so much.

Which netbook you got hrsy?

Well it was really the CD key I was more interested in Not too bad really, they've definitely polished it up, but its unnervingly mac like

Is it noticeably different to the earlier Win7 beta?

I've been running Win7 as my primary OS for like 3-4 months now, with no issues whatsoever. It's awesome..

It does seem to be a lot more polished, and I did'nt use the beta much but as far as I can see there have been a few changes to taskbar behaviour.

Which brings me to my first aggrivation-

When looking through media on my PC, because of the new taskbar behaviour, playing a new song maximizes WMP. Which means you have to click off wmp and back to explorer to keep scrolling around- WMP in Win7 got rid of the miniplayer that sat in the taskbar and it is -EXTREMELY- annoying having to click away from WMP just to go back to whatever you were previously doing.

Does anybody have a workaround for this, I've played with every setting, tried some skins and right now have taken the desperate measure of using winamp again, which I haven't had on my PC for years. Very frustrating, any ideas?

Have been using the beta on my laptop since it came out. I like it.

I'm thinking I might install the RC onto my main PC at home on a spare HD I have and try out some stuff like gaming.

For super tech noob - I'm considering backing up all my files to my external drive (for safeyness) and then overwriting my Vista install with this 7.
Couple of questions:
- I presume I need to find my Vista install CD to be able to reinstall if goes pear-shaped?
- Is it an "upgrade" on top of the Vista install? Or do you reformat and install a whole new OS?
- Is the hard-drive footprint much bigger? I'm already reaching the limits of my C Drive on the laptop cause I like to keep my music on there rather than external.
- Is there an expiry date on the RC that eventually you have to pay to get the proper release of 7?

Considering it because laptop is relatively budge and looking for the performance improvements that supposedly come with 7.

- I presume I need to find my Vista install CD to be able to reinstall if goes pear-shaped?

Probably.

- Is it an "upgrade" on top of the Vista install? Or do you reformat and install a whole new OS?

Yes you can upgrade, but you cannot upgrade 32bit Vista to 64bit Win7, to do that you need to do a clean install, and vice versa.

- Is the hard-drive footprint much bigger? I'm already reaching the limits of my C Drive on the laptop cause I like to keep my music on there rather than external.

You need 16 gigs min for Win7, I did the upgrade from vista, not a clean install because I CBF reinstalling anything for something I'm going to wipe as soon as the production version comes out. For the record, it asked me to free up at least 10.5 gigs on C:\ for the upgrade.

- Is there an expiry date on the RC that eventually you have to pay to get the proper release of 7?

The RC will work till June 2010, but two months before this, will start shutting down every two hours, to force people to upgrade.

Considering it because laptop is relatively budge and looking for the performance improvements that supposedly come with 7.

From slashdot this morning:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/24805/1231/

An alternative to reinstalling vista if things go bad is making a backup image of your vista drive. DriveImage is a free program that will do that, and there are others with more advanced options if you look...

I think you can upgrade, but would recommend a fresh install.

From memory it is about the same, could be wrong though.

In March it warns you that in 2 weeks it will restart every 2 hours. By June (from memory) it will stop working. Details on the MS website.

gah.

Jeez, 10.5 Gig on top of existing is not space I have free on the laptop at the mo.
Although, that link you posted suggests that a fresh install into a clean machine used under 8Gb?

Ya fresh install is way more betterer.

Give me 5 and I tell you exactly how muhc a fresh install is using.

10gb.

And that's build 7077

My Beta build used 6.8 GBs, Which is lucky cause I only allocated 10 GB's to the VMWare machines and needed to install Office too.

PS I would agree about making an image of your Vista install. That way if you get fucked off you can restore it using say Ghost in a few minutes.

So I'd:
- burn Windows 7 disc
- put all my files on external drive,
- format laptop drives (?)
- start up laptop with W7 disc in it which would kick off install
- Reinstate files

Sorry if that's off, is clearly a noob question. But laptop is getting slow and annoying so feel a fresh start couldn't hurt.

Yes

I have a 50gb partition for vista and documents go on a different drive, when I installed Win7 beta, I decided it was time to try using windows the way it was intended, using documents folders etc. I put it on a different drive that was about 300gb.

Windows would start chewing through cpu while idle, I can quite remember what the process was, but I got sick of it and wiped the installation and went back to vista. I installed vista on the same 300gb drive. Same problem. It wasn't a Win7 problem.

So I went back to my 50gb partition and put a fresh copy of vista on that, no problem.

I do wonder what caused the issue though. Do large single partitions cause problems??!

Chur.
Of course when I inexplicably set something on fire I'm going to blame you.

It was probably indexing all your documents. When you have them on a different drive, it's not indexing them unless you tell it.

Indexing is good.

Update:

Fresh install
Office 2007 Enterprise -Outlook -Groove -Infopath +Viso +SP2
eTrust
Nero8 minimal install
Firefox
Drivers/Windows/Office updates

13.7GB

Ahhhhhh crap, just remembered my Office install was from possibly "less than reputable" sources and I don't believe I have that disc any more.

I'd personally be happy with OpenOffice but think le wife will want Office for the business.

People still use OpenOffice?

Ha, well I don't actually, but am unaware of anything else freely available between Google Docs and MS Office in functionality?

lenovo ideapad s10e
10"/1.5gb ram/160gb hdd

might upgrade ram to 2gb

oh and it's white

OH AND 6 CELL BATTERY UPGRADE

so yeah like 6 hours+ battery life

ok finished

Another major issue I've found-

Punkbuster flat out dosen't work with win7. PB say they wont do updates for pre-release products, which means to BF2 & 2142 for me :-/

I've spent the last 3 hours searching forums for registry hacks, permission and compatibility loopholes, everything.. and got nowhere...

Surely that is a PB issue not W7 shame you silly gamers!

Guess you have tried updating punkbuster manually?

Well yeah it is a PB issue, which is a crap, awful program to begin with. Yep have tried manual pb update. Its an api error with directdraw or some such.

Prolly have to go back to vista now (shudder)

Admittedly, I haven't used it in years, but after trying to roll it out to all staff (before MS gave all schools Office for free), I never ever ever want to give that piece of shit the time of day again.

I can probably sort you out Office if you really wanna give it a go.

Liking? I had no idea of their existence until a few days ago. NSW has just signed an A$150m contract to give one of them to all 200,000 year 9-12 students and 25,000 secondary teachers, along with MS and Adobe products, for free, to keep.

I'm wanting a Hackintosh-able netbook for shits and giggles, leading contender is the Dell Mini9, since ALL the hardware is supported. Boot with an EFI mod ting, and install with an un-modified retail Leopard DVD. I just need to figure out how to make someone else pay for it. Dammit.

One assumes you've tried Compatibility Mode? I ask only because people totally forget about that and it actually works a lot more than you'd think.

Punkbuster: run as administrator for stuff and do manual updates according to this:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?s=b996b3230de4bd10c2097bc931e2fb05&showtopic=731816&pid=590910078&st=0&#entry590910078

Well last night we signed the business up to the MS Partner Program and it looks like we'll get most software free through that so score!

Yep, compatibility mode for xpsp3, vista, vista sp1, vista sp2. Obviously tried admin mode for punkbuster and battlefield, and gave all users (including system services that are users full permissions to all directories involved with BF and appdata\..\punkbuster as well as system32 where part of PB sits. Tried 'allowing service (punkbuster A & B) to interact with local computer (option in services.msc). Read somewhere that PBA.exe actually downloads a replacement default copy every time its initalised so even wrote a batch file to switch this option on and repeat every 60 seconds while the game is running. No joy

All in all tried about 20 different things from various game forums that use punkbuster.

Gay.

Punkbuster issues may be fixed:

http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/572-punkbuster-44.html#post94108

...although it appears some people are still having problems. But many people say it's fine now.

Been living with it for a month now, loving it.

#Sleep/hibernate performance is WAY better, particular in my use case where I leave home, sleep it, go to work, slap it in docking station and unsleep it. Detects the changed hardware (screen, wifi > wired, external kb/mouse) about 100 times better than Vista. Also changes to the appropriate resolution instantly every time too, unlike Vista which only did it about half the time.

#Love the UI changes. Required some tweaking of my workflow and software options (for things that minimise to taskbar for example), but I can now do things like pinning frequently used saved RDP connections to the taskbar icon, where before I had a custom toolbar menu.

#Libraries has lots of potential.

#VASTLY improved network and connections dealio. Sweet automatic switching from wifi to wired when I plug in to my docking station as mentioned. Actually need to test that with a bog standard cable too.

#Themes are way better managed.

#File copying is WAY faster than in Vista, and the simple act of telling me exactly which file it's working on is something that's been missing from Windows since 1.0. The 'progress bar in taskbar icon' thing is cool too.


Anyway the reason I post is I just came across this: AWESOME
http://lifehacker.com/5262386/middle+click-to-close-applications-from-windows-7s-taskbar

Quite a few interface enhancements I really like, but the one I'll mention is having the recycle bin next to what used to be the system tray in the taskbar. Always in easy access.

Was MUCH faster. Found it slowing down last night, some Task Manager checks show the Search Indexer and an Audio EndPoint Builder were hogging. Have left it on, hoping that they just have to do an initial build and then will drop back again.

Tis much snappier than Vista though.

Huh? Screen shot?

Oh and yes, indexer will sort itself out eventually.

Um, when I get home I'll do a screenie if you like, but my explanation my render it redundant by that time

It's not out of the box, and not as rock-solid as it would be if it were...

From memory, what you do is enable Quicklaunch which now opens on the right side now as a tool bar and put a shortcut to the bin in there and set toolbar options to display the icon only. So I guess you could do the same thing in vista except the bin would be on the left side (using macs all day at work, that would mess with my sensibilities ) and it would be a small icon.

Because it's a shortcut in quick launch rather than a deliberate OS feature, if you aren't careful you can end up dragging stuff into the Quicklaunch instead of into the trash. Still, I rather like it.

Anyone had any sound issues with Vista and 7?

Flatmates computer has been having random BSODS, which usually occur during, itunes, youtube etc...

He has tried Vista 64, 32 and WIN7 64, but still has similar problems. All drivers have been updated many times. I have the feeling this is pointing to a motherboard problem (Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 ). Is it even possible to test it? Would it be worth trying a separate sound card?

Another thing is on boot it sounds like it is restarting about 7 times before posting. It makes that click noise.

click of death? - hard drive about to die.

Yeah had sound pop issues ever since vista. The drivers suck and still suck.

Oh btw:

Actually I have criticism, hopefully there is a solution, but it's a very typical MS thing to do. The search has been retarded. No advanced search options and the search that you can do doesn't find anything. WHY can't they get it right? 3rd parties do, Apple does. But MS for some unknown reason can't. WTF?

Weird I dont have my recycle bin there.

Yeah I can't figure that out either even with the instructions. Odd.

I've just turned it off in the past anyway.

If it can't find anything, then likely the folders you have stuff in are non-indexed.

Anything that goes in the 'My Documents' etc file structure is automatically indexed, but lets say you keep your documents and media on another drive, then it wont see them until you add to the indexer.

Advanced search is fairly redundant, when the indexer has EVERYTHING catalogued because it's near instant search, you don't need to drill down to reduce the number of results.

Note that Spotlight/Quicksilver or whatever on OSX works in the same way. Long as the index is valid, it's good to go.

have been using the RC for a while now, very impressed. Will be using it on my new machine come a couple of months and then obviously upgrade when the real deal comes out.

Didn't know about that recycle bin trick, will be doing it myself from now on, very cool.

Actually what's bugging me is c:\windows\fonts. I've read a couple of bits of documentation but haven't had time lately to pour too much research into it. But that's what bothers me about MS is that they change something and you have to research it and waste hours trying to get the answer you want.
The fonts folder doesn't display all fonts. Something to do with only displaying fonts in use or installed or something... Using a 3rd party search called "Everything" I know that there are more fonts in the folder, but I can't access them.
InDesign can access them though. Right now it's accessing a bung version of Myriad that I want to diagnose and replace... but I can't because Windows hides it. %^&#!!

When I have time today I have to spend possibly a few hours working out how to do something that used to be basic rather than using that time to do the design work that I'm trying to finish.

That my friends is why we don't design on a pc

just download an alternative file manger like nomad

http://www.nomad-net.info/downloads

or just type file:///c|//windows/fonts/ into IE or firefox to get a directory listing..

Thanks, I used nomad to see what was really in there. Apparently Win 7 ships with 235 fonts, but according to one webpage I found, "...it is incredibly difficult to find a list of the mandatory system fonts"
Want to strip it of most fonts and plug them into a font manager instead. Will have some time to muck around with it soon. yay

Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 went RTM last night!

Can expect to see it out to OEM's and MSDN guys by the first week of August and about 8 weeks after that you can expect it to be in the shelves.

Have to say the more I use it the better it gets.

IE8 however is a complete fuckup

What do you like about 7 and what do you dislike about IE8?

Just curious.

A variety of things I love about it cbf posting it all now but I will post later.

IE just fucks me off because it crashes for no reason. And its not just this machine it happens with any other system I have used as well.

Ugh you wanna know what really pisses me off? No? too bad.

And osx does this too, so don't box this is smiley comparing OS's again, I'm bitching about design mistakes and oversights. It's a stuuupid one and quite annoying.

You go to drag a file somewhere and while dragging it you happen to move the mouse over a drive in the side bar that is not spinned up or over a network drive. Suddenly it all pauses while you are holding the icon to wait for the drive to become accessible.
I WASN'T EVEN GOING TO DRAG IT THERE DIPSHIT.

yeap thats annoying