Try out Windows 7 free for a year
Microsoft says that Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 will get a public release on 5 May 2009.
Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 was finally released to Microsoft’s TechNet and MSDN subscribers yesterday, although the rush to download the new OS apparently brought Microsoft’s servers to their knees. According to ComputerWorld, attempts to download Windows 7 RC1 from MSDN during the rush resulted in an error reading: "Sorry, we were unable to service your request," while the TechNet download page simply said "We're sorry! The page you were expecting to see has been removed or is unavailable."
For those of us who don’t have access to MSDN and TechNet, Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc says on the Windows 7 team blog that “broader, public availability will begin on May 5.” Even so, this will still give people a long time to try out the new OS before they're forced to buy the full version.
As a point of comparison, Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 expired on 1 June 2007, just nine months after its release. After the cut-off date, PCs with the pre-release OS would reboot every two hours in order to drive you to purchase a full copy of the OS.
According to Microsoft, the new OS isn’t scheduled for an official release until January 2010, but our sister site PC Pro reports that Acer’s vice-president Massimo D'Angelo accidentally announced a release date for the new OS during a press event to announce some new Acer laptops. According to D'Angelo, Acer plans to ship Windows 7 machines by 23 October “and not a day before.”
Are you interested in trying out Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 for over a year, or would you rather wait until the full version is released? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyGo to: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx
Select x32 or x64 and your language, then sign in with your Windows Live ID. it should then present you with a valid key.
The Windows 7 ISO downloads are not directly available from MS anymore, although they can be easily and reliably sourced from other sites.
since beta expires in aug i thought that it will need different keys
I agree. Ever since vista came out It was clear that most of the people bashing it were just following the crowd. Vista is re released with a few tweaks (and named windows 7) and for some reason the crowd has done a U-turn and everyone loves it! It just makes me chuckle really.
I remember when XP was launched, many people disliked it, saying that it required too much ram. If you ask me, the main reason W7 is more popular than Vista, is that hardware has had two years to catch up.
Should an Os ship and work without tweaking, yes. Is Vista a 6 headed dragon bent on lawful evil domination of the world, No.
Thanks for keeping it real Turbo.
Yours in Lawful Good Plasma,
Star*Dagger
so far gui improvements with open apps.. they are improving performance with the way it handles memory with open apps too.. I'll switch my main rig next year with the retail release, use this install on new rigs
this is a good step for microsoft, gives them a chance to fix the ui for the facebook crowd and turn off some features in vista that aren't notebook friendly
they just need to get away from the word vista..
Also, they still have a lot of stuff to fix:
http://www.windows7taskforce.com/sort/popular/t/all
I'm definitely putting this on my laptop tbh, it needs a new install, what a perfect time to try it! :D
You CAN technically upgrade, but that would be like upgrading Vista to Vista... or Win7 to Win7.
What you risk is that bugs from the RC to the retail. And also, consider that probably it is something that is not tested by Microsoft, as it's kinda useless to spend money on something that will occur only once and for very few users. Time and resources could be spend in fixing bugs and improvement.
1. Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.
2. Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on the machine running the pre-release build).
Or simply unpack the ISO
3. Browse to the sources directory.
4. Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.
5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000.
6. Save the file in place with the same name.
7. Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.
Thanks for sharing. ;)
Good luck ;)
P.S. Zoom!!!
UK only.
Thanks for the heads up Good Bytes, sorry for wasting your clickyness!
I still did it. So easy.
If i partition my Drive, and make a partition to install W7 on, could i use most of the programs from XP on C:? Just installed and updated and installed a few games, be a PIA to start again.
If you create a partition for Win7, you can/should be able to, access file from other drives.
You may run software previously installed on a different partition (different Windows), but expect to have several programs to fail to work, because they might be missing files installed on Win7 that the program needs, or missing registry key items.
If the program does work, expect the following:
- No file association under Win7. (they need to be redone)
- Loss of the program configuration/layout set under XP.
- Loss of program registration.
As GoodBytes says, I wouldn't've thought you could run programs that are already installed on XP on another operating system because of the problems listed.
Programs that are stand alone such as CPU-Z for example may well work tho'. Anyone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one!
These programs are either all integrated as it has nothing "fancy" like CPU-Z, or are packaged like my tool I made, NV GPU Pro (which also explains it's large file size).
There's quite a few tweaks under Windows 7 hood.
I liked Vista to begin with, however, after using Windows 7 since the beta release, I can tell you I won't be loading Vista on any of my personal computers again. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been.
Vista isn't like ME, but it's very similar. Where it differs is people hate Vista just 'cause. People hated ME because it was buggy as hell.
Vista was a step in the right direction, Windows 7 will be the final push into a new operating system that I think many people will enjoy.
I can say that on anything. Oh the PS3 is what the NES should have been. Yes, you might say, "No because the NES was limited by the technology that did not exists back then". Well same for software. That is why you have Computer Scientist and Software Engineers working, make create new ways on improving or re-creating new parts to make them better. This is technology program. As soon as people will get out there has that software is nothing, and that an OS is just a GUI, the better. Software is like hardware.. technology progress applies to both.
You have no idea what WinMe was. WinMe is Windows 98SE where they changed some files with Windows 2000 system file and hope that it works. This is like you take 2 cars a Ford and a Toyota, you cut them in half, and you connect the Ford with the Toyota, and put chewing gum to hold both parts and fill the gaps. Have a save driving! This is was in a time were Microsoft was like third party companies with the Nintendo Wii. They think they can make a quick buck by selling crap, selling the name "Windows" and "Microsoft" on a peace of turd. Like if Apple would sell turn with an apple logo on it. This does NOT work. Since then Microsoft learn that, and a lot of changes has been done to Microsoft to stop being like that, and stop caring on what they release, knowing that if they can't make it, then they will lose. They are not invincible.
But you are correct on the "It's hip to say Vista sucks"-trend.
Also, the big surprise of the release. No buisness was expected to have Vista release after all these delays. It was like the Duke'nukem Forever of Windows. Since 2003 is was delays. OEMs and businesses were producing/getting non Vista ready systems, as they did not know better. YES Microsoft gave information to hardware manufacture to make drivers/software on Longhorn.. but that keep chnaging and changing non stop.. that the businesses didn't care, anymore. They did not even care about having Vista beta and use that to develop drivers, because they beleived it would change again. So it comes to a conclusion of not having any drivers. These are some reasons why Buisness IT manager didn't like Vista... not to mention the cost of training, new peripherals, new systems, just for employees to use Word and alike software. The cost was so high that they decide to wait until support gets too expensive and change the systems, and preferred to purchased additional security software, instead. And the recession did not help.
I would expect Win7 to be picked up by most companies at it's end of life.
:)
About Millennium Edition, I'm not saying they were built the same, I'm comparing the trend of hating Vista to the hatred of Millennium Edition.
People had a right to hate Millennium Edition because it didn't work, Vista on the other hand, works.
I just hate the ignorant computer users that hate an operating system just because they don't want to learn a new operating system.
Let me elaborate on why I believe Windows 7 is what Vista should have been.
Vista was a nice refresher, but I wasn't really blown away. Before Vista SP1, Vista startup was disappointing. I would have to wait 30 seconds or so for my screen to flash black for a brief second, before I could use my laptop. The sidebar was alright, but it felt limited in features. When I installed the Windows 7 beta, I got a feel good feeling. "This is something Microsoft can be proud of." That's what I thought. :)
Oh btw, I eventually read your post,
This Win7 One-year try-out is very good IMO.
Link please - google is not my friend today + all torrent sites I'm not keen on. . .
Both of these ISO are MSDN untouched the links should be direct torrent link to them so all you need is utorrent or something like it
32bit ver
http://www.mininova.org/get/2521167
2353 seeds, 2832 leechers
64bit ver
http://www.mininova.org/get/2521354
1734 seeds, 2727 leechers
or download it from news groups
UK
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/dd673591.aspx
or
US
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dd353205.aspx
if your not english goto google and look for < Windows 7 beta UK > (replace UK with your short windows code and it should come up with an link like above maybe) keys are not lang limited so if you get an UK or US key it work what ever lang you pick when installing
as with vista both keys are for both versons 32 bit or 64 bit Both keys work (as i proved on my laptop)
the md5 hash for the real x64 version is: 98341AF35655137966E382C4FEAA282D