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Post by rabin on Feb 3, 2009 15:13:07 GMT
MS are running an open beta of Windows 7 - all you need is a hotmail/Live address to sign up with on the Windows 7 site, free download, works until the 1st August 2009. They have now said on the site that they will close access to the beta in a few days. If you want to try it out, grab it today! Friends of mine have tried it, dual booting obviously, and claim it gives much better frame rates than Vista for gaming. Downloading it now  |
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Post by funkydoodycool on Feb 3, 2009 16:50:42 GMT
Will give it a go. As we discussed elsewhere I've had no problems with Vista and games, except OUtrun 2006 which has speckly bits on the graphics. But thats no biggy.
We'll soon see what improvement there are. I just wonder if MS are gonna offer money off for those of us who spent a fortune on Vista... I suppose it'll be the upgrade option.
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Post by rabin on Feb 4, 2009 0:01:16 GMT
Installed, working and so far me like Feels smoother than Vista and runs my games on a par with XP. I'm dual booting it with my XP for comparisons - I'll try it out on my Vista system when I'm feeling braver, hehe. I like the new themes, the gadgets are now totally movable and it found all my devices except my strange Graphics Card (AGP Version of an ATI HD card) which was fixed easily by downloading the latest driver package from Sapphire (for Vista). I had no sound to start with, but that's my fault. W7 found BOTH of my sound cards and set the Audigy as default, when I usually use the other one - so if I'd just plugged the speakers into the audigy.... hehe. Was a very easy fix once I saw what it had done, just open the sound hardware screen, click on one picture, done. So far it's looking good and I'm now saving my pennies up for a retail version |
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Post by funkydoodycool on Feb 4, 2009 5:10:15 GMT
Finished downloading overnight, I'm gonna work out what to do with it this evening after work. My laptop is hardly the machine to test it, so I'm gonna have to set up dual boot on this desktop of mine, and hope it doesn't ruin everything... Maybe I'll buy a second hard drive and swap out between W7 and Vista.
I don't know if you have the 64 bit version, but I do so assuming you have the 32 bit version, maybe we'll see some differences? I haven't done much reading yet, but I don't know what the 64 bit driver support is like yet. Does W7 use Vista drivers or do you absolutely need W7 drivers? Shouldn't be a problem for most - I have Nvidia 9800 GTX+ cards, and a X-Fi, would imagine they're supporting the beta.
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Post by soggyshoe on Feb 4, 2009 9:01:55 GMT
w7 is a lot less resource hungry than vista. I'm running it on the laptop and an old p4 2ghz machine with no problems,
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Post by rabin on Feb 4, 2009 9:53:43 GMT
It seems to be happy to use all my Vista drivers so far - the only thing I can't get working is an old network dongle by Zydas, who seem to have gone bust and never released any updated drivers since about 2006 |
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Post by rabin on Feb 4, 2009 9:58:40 GMT
Addendum: Installed it on one of our Vista laptops in "upgrade" mode (I'm dual booting on the gaming system) and it took about an hour and a half to do it, but it was silky smooth. Everything just worked and I now have a windows 7 laptop.
It retained all my Vista settings/desktop/software. The only software problems so far are
1) It won't recognise that my Iolo Antivirus is running properly and reports it.
2) The new IE8 won't open the HotUKDeals website properly - screen layout is wrong (I use FireFox anyway)
I reported both problems using the "send feedback" link you find on every window, so I expect they'll fix it before release.
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Post by soggyshoe on Feb 4, 2009 12:36:24 GMT
re hotukdeals site - you just clck the broken website button and it works lovely!
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Post by funkydoodycool on Feb 4, 2009 15:54:17 GMT
Hmmm all thats on my Laptop that would be annoying to lose is World of Warcraft - only cos it takes hours to install on the bloody thing! I'm gonna check the spec requirements for W7 first, but might try to install it on that to play about with it.
Its Celeron 1.5Ghz, 1GB RAM, Intel graphics.... piece of cr*p really but worth a try if W7 really isn't hungry.
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Post by rabin on Feb 4, 2009 17:00:07 GMT
I played WoW on the Win7 laptop all afternoon today - not a glitch at all |
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Post by funkydoodycool on Feb 4, 2009 17:09:16 GMT
Rabin whats your laptop spec? I can play WoW on my laptop at 1440x900, but everything must be turned to minimum. Still an enjoyable experience - the graphics add to the experience, but aren't that important to it.
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Post by rabin on Feb 4, 2009 17:53:11 GMT
The Win7-ified laptop is an Athlon x2 1.8Ghz, 2GB ram, NVidia 7100M (fairly low spec chip). Plays WoW with most settings Med->High
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Post by soggyshoe on Feb 4, 2009 18:26:52 GMT
Graphics has to be DX9 for W7
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Post by funkydoodycool on Feb 4, 2009 19:43:24 GMT
I'm pretty sure mine is DX9... it ran Vista, albeit very slowly.
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Post by rabin on Feb 5, 2009 11:53:23 GMT
full specs (from the Acer utility)
Manufacturer Acer
Product Name Aspire 5520
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Processor AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55
System Memory 2 GB
Hard Drive 1 TOSHIBA MK1237GSX ATA Device, 111.79 GB
CD/DVD Drive 1 MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ870QJ ATA Device
Video NVIDIA GeForce 7000M / nForce 610M
Total Available Graphics Memory 751 MB
Audio Realtek High Definition Audio
Ethernet Card 1 NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller
Wireless LAN Card 1 Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter
Runs sweetly and uses less resources than Vista.
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