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Windows 7 Beta leaked over BitTorrent
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 29th December 2008
The public beta of Windows 7 is just under a month away, but thanks to some naughty file sharers you can get an early peek at the next iteration of Microsoft's OS.
The ISO image file is – according to DownloadSquad – Windows 7 M1 Build 7000, which is the same version which will become the public beta at the start of next year. Featuring improvements to the stability of the system along with shiny new features – such as the icon-based task bar reminiscent of the Apple Mac OS X dock we mentioned earlier in the year – enabled by default, the rather naughty pre-beta leak is already entertaining Windows fans across the globe.
If you're curious, but want to know a little more before investing the time and effort of downloading an unofficial – and possibly modified by naughty third parties – installer this close to the official beta release, Paul Thurrott has taken the time to add a raft of screenshots from this latest build to his website. There's nothing that will shock anyone who has been following the development of Windows Vista's replacement, but it's nice to see that pretty much every promised feature has made it into the final beta – and ahead of schedule, too.
Being a beta, Windows 7 is still a fair way away from being ready for day-to-day use. If you're already running build 6801 – the version that was previously made available as a closed beta – then there's no easy way to upgrade to the 7000 short of completely re-installing the operating system. If previous public betas are anything to go by, that's a process that you'll have to repeat once the final Release To Manufacturing version is produced and made available. Still, if you feel the need to sit on the bleeding edge, these are small obstacles.
Will anyone be snagging an early beta copy of Windows 7, or is it worth waiting for the official release in January? Will you even be trying the beta, or is Vista good enough for the foreseeable future? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Im still waiting for an x64 version before i give it a serious run but from playing with earlier builds its a pretty damn solid OS imo
If they manage to make it cheap aswell, maybe it will get over the problem of pirating to some degree. £100 for a full retail edition mid range OS version like home prem of vista.
but I don't want that 86x I want 64x :) so I will wait ;)
I've had enough of MS wish someone would nuke Bill Gates' backside off the planet. I wont be buying it or even trying it out on principle.
MS has shafted those that bought Vista good and proper. Arseholes.
do your homework, Mr. Gates hasn't been running MS for a long time now, i believe he is in semi retriement.
He is one ****ING man in a ****ing massive company of which he probably has little control of right now making millions from software, that people dispair is horrible but dont have the intelligence to ****ing use something else.
I hate seeing Microsoft being bashed, not cus i am a fanboy, because the arguements are so retarded.
I actually liked vista alot and windows 7 looks quite good too.
Ah thats ok then. I take it all back.
I hate seeing MS bashed. If it wasnt for MS the PC wouldnt be were it is today. But its time they and the rest of us moved on. MS is doing nothing but peddling its own self interests, bringing nothing innovative anymore and holding back development. I have no doubt they put in some 'unique' features into win7 to make me buy it. If it came with a free gold bar dispenser I still wont be buying it.
At least Microsoft gives their money to charities unlike other big name companies. The Gates Foundation has given aways billions to people in need!
Topic:
I really like Windows 7. It's the way Vista should be and it runs really well even on my low end PCs.
ATi have their own dedicated Windows 7 Catalyst 8.12 Preview Drivers
http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/banners/catalyst_8.12_promo.jpg
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=39069
No i stand up to MS, over the years they have bought out smaller companies but kept the people on and then used there technology/research to be intergrated into there OS and software.
MS could have easily released there own photo imaging software to compete against Adobe, but they haven't. MS is only as big as we made them, windows is a standard same with office files, this is because its easy.
No my only problem with MS is there pricing and security solutions on there OS, XP was ok, up until you had to link it with MS to check that its not a copy, but vista takes the piss.
I like my freedom, nothing worse than your OS going tits up at a lan event, and hitting the wall with vista install security and spending a while on a phone trying to get the code or re-activation. Thats why i am still XP.
and death to XP!
You know i dont think XP will die, and thats the problem MS faced upon release of Vista, they made such a hash off vista's performance on laptops that companies demanded XP to be installed.
XP is that old dog that refuses to die, and only when all software moves to a pure x64 enviroment will it die out, and then i bet you'll still find people using it on there 2nd machine! lol!
Poor kids.
i have vista, i love it is far superior than XP and i will buy win7, sorry if you are incompetent enough to disable UAC and make 2 or 3 tweaks around
:)
what about those with porn database and no parents check on them for weeks ? ( like me )
Good god, they don't check in for WEEKS....dude, you must have a very sore hand.....
on topic : Win7 will likely be my next OS after XP....
and also, i can't get aero to work in VMware, even with VMware tools installed.
Sorry if you are too incompetent to understand UAC... I use Vista nowadays, and I think it's superior to XP by far... But nothing beats the freedom Linux always gave me, but my boss doesn't like it...
Windows 7 still seems to much like KDE, and I totally dislike KDE...
I'm not really looking forward to the new windows myself- vista 64 ultimate pretty much does everything I need it to do currently.. I will d/l this though and see what's up on my laptop- I bet it's just a stripped down version of vista though that can run with less memory.. I've worked on pre-builts with 1 gb of memory and vista- lemme tell you it's not a pretty sight! but put in 4 gigs, superfetch, you wonder how the other half lives =]
Sam
Win7 seems to be far better, basically it's what Vista was supposed to be from day one, but M$ just offloaded a premature, non-ready, bloated and crappy system to earn some money. That's okay with me, but saying that it's "superior" to a system that was perfected for quite a few years is just a funny way of saying that you have no idea what you are talking about and are too lazy to even test it yourself. Or at least read about it. Or think for yourself.
Just show me ONE aspect of Vista that is better than XP. And no, "shiny, transparent windows" is not an argument, unless your IQ is lower than your waist (in inches).
7 seems better tho, performance is still worse than XP, but far better than Vista. It crashes less often too, so it seems that it's going in a good direction.
SECURITY...
(and I didn't even have to think about that one...)
Want an other? Resources management... It actually USES your RAM like it should...
I've run all these os's so I can be a fair judge.. you guys clinging onto xp, that's great for you.. as long as your happy.. but spreading lies about vista makes you useless on a technical forum
superfetch really works.. and uac works- there are many tweaks I use personally on vista related to the uac, and turning it off is not one of them.. you can have it load in all apps without the uac prompt on boot using the task scheduler.. and if your upset with driver signing, check out an app called readydriver plus- it allow you to disable it without F8 (annoying)
alot of other tweaks also to make it more user friendly.. xp is nice for the newbie really, it's the other way around.. or peeps with older rigs- I was on xp for years and I did enjoy tweaking the f out of it- but I gotta tell you, your missing out on vista 64 if you believe those apple commercials =]
heck even dreamscene is pretty cool and stable nowdays.. the media center works great with a remote- if you have a hd tv it's a really cool interface.. bitlocker.. dx10.. there's a list that can go on and on really- stability is the biggest factor
peeps who bag on vista are the exact kinds of people you say run it.. they get stuck and refuse to try new things
@thehippoz
I tested Vista x64 on many machines, including my main rig (16GB of RAM, two Opterons and a 4870) and performance was poor. Boot times, in-game framerates, number crunching - you name it, Vista sucked in it.
About XP being for newbies - it's the other way around. Vista is for newbies, with all the "automagic" wizards, shiny stuff and so on. It couldn't even run in my network (which has several layers, three domain controllers and about nine other machines connected at all times), it just gave me a BSOD every time I tried to change any options. "Network map" just freezes. XP and windows7 work OK after some configuration (obviously).
All in all Vista was just a premature $$$-maker for Microsoft, 7 might be better (although I would love it to be x64 only). We'll see.
LOL I love that one, people load up their PCs with 4 and 8GBs of RAM, then complain when their OS uses it. Vista uses the RAM that you bought with your money. The only ones who complain about it using too much RAM are those people who have large amounts of RAM just for the e-peen they think it brings.
Ubuntu 8.10 host, Athlon 64 X2 4200+, 2GiB host memory (1GiB assigned to the guest) and configured with a SATA disk of 20GB. I stuck 32MiB of graphics memory in there, but obviously there's no D3D support for Aero.
And it's rather nice, although the boot-up time is painful. I quite like the UI improvements.. Like, quite a lot. It might look like KDE in a way, but that's where it stops if you ask me. The system tray, task bar and even Windows update are all well-improved. IE8 is quite neat (and reminds me of Firefox, oddly.)
Performance (aside from boot-up) seems awesome compared with Vista, and although I've not compared the two, its certainly doing well with only 1GiB RAM. After a fresh start the memory usage was ~320MiB, with variable amounts of caching: from a few MiB up to almost all of the RAM. Generally virtual machines suffer with disk I/O performance, so I shouldn't take my boot-time experiences as an indication of doom.
It feels quite nice. I'd be half tempted to install it on a spare partition in my host, but I've not got the time. The install base (remembering that it's the Ultimate edition) was only ~6.47GiB.
I'm quite impressed.. It's Vista 2, but at least they appear to be doing better this time 'round. :)
thehippoz: I'd be quite grateful to hear some of your vista 64 tweaks in greater detail if you find yourself wanting to expound.. i have been sticking with the 32 though i have both on 2 machines.. not sure why exactly.. Anyways, happy holidaze all.
Chem
Now, Isn't that a sorry sight.
I used to post alot of guides on evga before I got banned for being.. well me.. here's the major tweaks I use.. http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=515947&mpage=1&key=& the registry compact in vista manager really improves system performance if you run it every once in a while- it's comparable to the old compactor in norton for xp (it's not a registry cleaner- reorganizes for faster access)
enjoy .. happy new years guys.. think might have found a new forum to play in- been using different forums since my banning at evga- it's thier loss imo.. was just cracking jokes and a new mod and some out of control mods couldn't handle it I guess.. might have hit too close to home =]
you guys in the uk are alright.. seems like your more into the technical of how things work instead of- look at me I got a couple thousand to spend.. now tell me what to do with it :)
Oh, and they have finally upgraded paint and the calculator (The latter have become pretty damn good, BTW).
It can be changed to show text as well, but still group. Works great :)
Nah. just move the mouse to the bottom right corner, and everything disappears. ;)
For some reason some people believe that more RAM = faster computer. I talked to a guy a couple of days ago that wanted more RAM because hes computer was getting slow. Turns out that hes C: partition was 98% full....
But it's really not that sketchy tbh. Particularly not for anything stressful. I don't think anyone would have advocated switching to using it as your primary OS, however. :)
they updated task manager to now show available ram (dono why thay added Free ram in taskman on vista (that most likey started all that all my ram is been used up crap and should remove free completely from windows 7), Resource Monitor to Show users who do not understand ram usage to much (click on the memory tab in Res Mon)
seems to work very well for an beta
The first thing I couldn't believe; the install speed. From putting the installation disc in for the first time to being on my desktop was under an hour.
The next thing I noticed was how smooth it ran. Mind you my machine is pretty modern, but I had absolutely no hitches; everything loaded near-instantly. It definitely runs way faster than my Vista 64-Bit (which runs faster than my other friends' 32-Bit XP and 32-Bit Vista configs). Furthermore, it hasn't frozen or BSOD'd yet.
Thank god the all Vista drivers are compatible with Windows 7, because only ATI so far has been kind enough to prepare Windows 7 preview drivers.
The start bar is kinda weird. I like everything about it except for the lack of text. The common tasks are useful, the group works very well, and I cant live without the window previews (since Windows Vista).
I could go on for hours about the new features, changes and improvements, but I thought I'd just touch on the first impressions.
Here's there wierd thing though. I am running 4GB of RAM, and in addition to that I have a 512MB ATI HD4850. Even though it was 32-Bit it some how recognized (and as far as I know addressed) all 4GB of RAM.
If you have any specific questions, I'd be more than willing to answer them.
-Indybird
I've been running Windows 7 now for the past 3 days, played games on it and watched HD movies among other stuff I usually do without thinking that this is a BETA operating system that much.
PunkBuster kicks you off servers if you play online games protected by it because it thinks the new API functions in Windows 7 are cheats (modified OS code). EvenBalance is not likely to update PunkBuster for Windows 7 before it hits RTM. Valve's VAC protection however runs just fine on Windows 7.