Windows 7 rc1!

Anyone who's into this kind of thing, Microsoft has released release candidate 1 of their upcoming version, Windows 7. This is a full public release of the first candidate for the official operating system, and can be downloaded for free at MS's website. Now, I'm not usually a fan of Microsoft, being more of a linux person myself (but using XP out of necessity), but I've heard a lot of good things about 7, from a good friend of mine who's in the IT industry like myself, has a similar dislike for MS as me, and has tried 7. If he gives it good word, it must be good. So I'm going to dual-boot it onto my hdd today and I'll leave feedback.

Grabbing it now. Want to help me dual-boot along with Vista? :) Eager to give it a shot...

I have been using the beta that they had out and put it on VMware. I have to say that other than just fixing the vista problems with always asking before opening things it really didn't seem to different. Then again I'm not a system operator so not really sure of all the changes.

Windows 7 is a massively revamped and reimaged Windows Vista, basically. It's cleaned up, improved in tons of areas, and serves to improve the tarnished image caused by Vista. I have it dual-booting with Vista (it's still a Release Candidate - I don't want to risk data loss). When I'm not doing site work, I'm using Windows 7. The taskbar is leaps and bounds better than the old Windows standard, I love the way I can turn off annoyances and notifications, and XP mode will definitely help 7 sell more copies in the corporate world. Overall, it's not exactly revolutionary, but it's the best Windows OS I've ever used.

If you've got the time, the hardware (if you're running Vista, you do), and the knowledge (you can partition your drive - can't you?), I suggest taking it for a spin. Don't worry about drivers - so far, Windows 7 has supported my hardware with basic drivers upon install, and, once you start it up, it automatically finds the latest drivers for your hardware and installs them via Windows Update.

lol... just one question ... what's with the dislike of MS? I don't know anyone who doesn't use xp or vista... So yeah. =___=

Anywayzzz... I'm not familiar with installing these drivers xD... So i'll have to do it with feedback from you guys :)

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Originally Posted by Yarbone

lol... just one question ... what's with the dislike of MS? I don't know anyone who doesn't use xp or vista... So yeah. =___=

Anywayzzz... I'm not familiar with installing these drivers xD... So i'll have to do it with feedback from you guys :)

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Microsoft is notorious for not knowing what their users want - their software is useful, don't get me wrong, but it gets very annoying when it tries to convince you that you need antivirus software or a restart to finish installing updates. Windows 7 comes with a completely different mentality - everything is easy and unobtrusive. Don't like that an app automatically shows up in the tray after installation? Hide it with a click-drag. Don't like that annoying pop-up about a drive lacking disk space? Toggle off the notification with a couple of clicks. Before, all of this was insanely difficult to accomplish, sometimes requiring editing the registry in order to get the results you want. Microsoft learned with Vista that their operating system needs to stay out of the way of the user as much as possible, and it shows in Windows 7.

Anyway, Windows Update should automatically discover and begin installing the latest drivers for your hardware without any fuss. So far, I've yet to see any hardware configuration that 7 hasn't been able to find relevant drivers for - one of the many great things about Windows 7.

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Originally Posted by ConfusedCartman

Microsoft is notorious for not knowing what their users want...

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Yeah, basically since the have a monopoly on the market their mentality has been: "Learn to do it our way, and if you don't like it - tough."

I'm not installing this that's for sure.

Isn't it the version that is only good for one year? I think after 9 months it goes into "reboots every 2 hours mode" and then after 12 months you simply can't use it anymore.

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Originally Posted by RangerZero

I'm not installing this that's for sure.

Isn't it the version that is only good for one year? I think after 9 months it goes into "reboots every 2 hours mode" and then after 12 months you simply can't use it anymore.

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They do need to make money from it after all. You can simply uninstall it at that time, or if you liked it, buy a copy yourself.

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Originally Posted by RangerZero

I'm not installing this that's for sure.

Isn't it the version that is only good for one year? I think after 9 months it goes into "reboots every 2 hours mode" and then after 12 months you simply can't use it anymore.

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Of course the Release Candidate expires after a year - it's essentially a free operating system, complete with security updates and other fixes, so it wouldn't make sense to allow people to use it indefinitely. It goes into automatic reboot mode as a reminder - many people would forget that it was going to expire and lose data because of it. However, it is rumored that you can just buy a Windows 7 license and update the license status of the RC instead of doing a clean install (although I wouldn't want to do that - I like a clean install).

The actual product won't behave that way because it's an actual product - right now, Windows 7 is still in testing, which is why you can get it for free as a Release Candidate.

I will hold it as long as can anyways for Windows7 because I bought a Vista Home premium 64bits 2 months ago...

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Cool! Think I'll stick it on a virtual machine.
Like, now!

I also just recently got a vista computer. I'll wait a couple of years before upgrading, unless I truly, TRULY have to. My computer can handle vistas slowdown, though the popups for confirming things are...annoying as hell.

7 looks terrible. I can't see myself ever wanting it.

Its leaps and bounds ahead of vista, from all I've heard.

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Originally Posted by solidturtleman

7 looks terrible. I can't see myself ever wanting it.

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Why? Are you used to a different UI or mentality when it comes to OS's? Personally, I'm a "try everything" guy - I've installed every operating system I could get my hands on, just to know a little more about it before forming an opinion. The only OS I haven't been able to install is OS X, due to the weird workarounds you have to do to get it running on any hardware other than a Mac.

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Originally Posted by Echonian

Its leaps and bounds ahead of vista, from all I've heard.

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Definitely - I would describe it as "what Vista should have been". 7 really fits in with the Windows ideology while still being evolutionary enough to show that Microsoft learned from past mistakes. Like any software, it's not without it's faults, but dual-booting Vista and 7 really shows you how much better 7 is.

From what I've read, it's really good if you have a touch-screen.

-does not have touch screen-

My friend's getting a do-it-yourself touchscreen pack and putting it onto his netbook. That should be cool.

But anyways, my wireless hardware is one of those little out of the way things that practically nobody's ever heard of, and 7 still picked up on it right "out of the box" so to say (there's no box, i burned a dvd), so it gets credit for that. And even if it can't find a driver, it's not that hard to go to your computer's website and find drivers. I do it all the time.

I went ahead and did a clean install last night and am currently having some driver issues. I've gone to Sony's site to install drivers and - as a result - am surprisingly having compatibility issues. As far as the OS goes I think I like it. Seems more intuitive than both Vista and XP in my opinion and performs nicely.

When I have about ten hours to kill I'll probably grab all of the drivers I need, do another clean install, and go through one by one and see how much success I have that way. If that doesn't work then it's back to Vista for me for the time being; I honestly hate it a lot less than the general population...

I've had it running on my Laptop since it first went beta, and it's a great OS.

I've never had any problems with it, and it made my laptop tons faster!

I want to install it on my new computer, but it's running XP and I'm not quite sure how to partition my disk. Any help?

I'm starting to wonder if I overdid it myself by running straight to the Sony website and pulling in drivers. Dumb on my end, really. Should I have let Windows 7 work its magic first, do you think?