A proper Windows? Can it be?

I'm running vista Ult. x64 right now with 4 gigs of gaming ram, 3.0 duo core and a ATI 4870, sitting on a ASUS P5Q Deluxe and it runs smooth, but is that what it takes? That's ridiculous...:dunce:

Quote from Monkay :

A proper Windows? Can it be?

I'm running vista Ult. x64 right now with 4 gigs of gaming ram, 3.0 duo core and a ATI 4870, sitting on a ASUS P5Q Deluxe and it runs smooth, but is that what it takes? That's ridiculous...:dunce:

I can't comment on Vista, but 7 is on par with XP, if not better - so upgrading from Vista should blow your mind...

Quote from Monkay :

A proper Windows? Can it be?

I'm running vista Ult. x64 right now with 4 gigs of gaming ram, 3.0 duo core and a ATI 4870, sitting on a ASUS P5Q Deluxe and it runs smooth, but is that what it takes? That's ridiculous...:dunce:

pass. if i ever go back to windows it'll probably be win2k... much better memory footprint than xp or vista... i highly doubt "7" will perform any better. i tried the vista beta and i've used vista since, and they both annoy the shit out of me.

(i guess that begs the question, does lfs run on win2k? or did they follow suit like other games and force the requirement of xp?)

Quote from Slartibartfast :

Dadnabbit. I missed the beta. I looked at the ms site but can't figure out when it releases. Anyone know?

Word on the street is a late September, early October release.

Quote from bunder9999 :

pass. if i ever go back to windows it'll probably be win2k... much better memory footprint than xp or vista... i highly doubt "7" will perform any better. i tried the vista beta and i've used vista since, and they both annoy the shit out of me.

(i guess that begs the question, does lfs run on win2k? or did they follow suit like other games and force the requirement of xp?)

The newest server edition based off vista was probably MS's best release so far.

That said I love 7 so far. The only bad thing is googling for help with issues. With Xp, typing windows XP was unique, so hits were easy to find. With windows 7 I get a whole bunch of crap from google.

Am about to start installing windows 7 beta. Has anyone done an upgrade installation and did you have success? Recommended or not?

I'm a bit confused that if I partition my HD, I will lose data- I'm not confident with partitioning as never done it before, so I'm thinking about more simple option to upgrade install.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Am about to start installing windows 7 beta. Has anyone done an upgrade installation and did you have success? Recommended or not?

I'm a bit confused that if I partition my HD, I will lose data- I'm not confident with partitioning as never done it before, so I'm thinking about more simple option to upgrade install.

While installing, in beginning it gives you option to partition. Very simple and easy. You won't lose data unless you have less than 6 GiB of data free on Hard Drive. Unfortunately I bought a new HDD to install anyways, because XP wouldn't let me partition old one XD

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Am about to start installing windows 7 beta. Has anyone done an upgrade installation and did you have success? Recommended or not?

I'm a bit confused that if I partition my HD, I will lose data- I'm not confident with partitioning as never done it before, so I'm thinking about more simple option to upgrade install.

Creating and managing partitions is very easy, but for creating a new partition, as far as I know your must have enough non-partitioned space. If your previous Windows is installed on a partition that covers all your HDD space, you won't be able to create a new partition unless you format the old one (making two smaller partitions instead of one that covers all HDD space, but formatting will lose any data on the drive). Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Upgrading
Windows will create a backup of your older Windows folder, documents and files, it'll be called Windows.old (this is a folder) and you'll be able to open it and access all files whenever you want after installing Windows 7, but you won't be able to start the old operation system anymore, just Windows 7.

Installing on a new partition
If you are able to create a new partition, you can install Windows 7 on that new partition. If you have a older windows version (i.e.: xp or vista), Windows will create a dual boot prompt when you start your computer, and after the install you'll be able to customize the booting file on windows. You'll still be able to start both OS: Windows 7 and your the other one you have installed on the computer.

What I did:
I have 2 HDDs, primary 160GB (OS + programs), secondary 500GB (games only)
The primary HDD had only one partition that covered the whole disk space, so I formatted it, and created 2 partitions: 1st - about 97GB, for Windows 7 and its programs. The 2nd partition with about 50GB, for Windows XP and its programs. The secondary HDD has no partitions (just a single one that covers the whole disc space), and is used only for games.

I first installed Windows XP, and then Windows 7, thus creating a dual boot. I'm using only Windows 7 until it's over (August probably), and then I'll get back to XP and wait until Win7 is released for purchasing

Quote :

While installing, in beginning it gives you option to partition. Very simple and easy.

I've tried to do a partition using the inbuilt program for Vista- I've got 213 gig to spare but when I want to shrink the C drive down for partitioning, the program says that only around about 6 gig is available to be shrunk. (i've disabled the pagefile and still only 6 gigs for shrinking)

I've definitely decided to not do an upgrade install, so having a working partition is my only option. You sure there's an option to partition when installing the beta? Does it come after you choose which drive you'd like to install on? Because I don't really want to wipe my C drive, or have everything moved to a windows.old folder where I can't access vista after the beta has expired.

Sorry, just getting a little jittery

Yeah, you can create a partition in the Windows 7 installation. It's much better than creating one in Vista because I also had trouble creating one. Vista only let me shrink 10 or so GB at a time so I had to shrink over and over to make one large space for partitioning. If it only allows 6 GB still, maybe you should try defragmenting?

Here is part one to a really great guide I found online. The guy goes through every step with really nice screenshots. He even tells you how to create a partition.
http://www.techtalkz.com/windo ... ation-guide-tutorial.html

Windows 7 installs very nicely as long as you don't have incompatible hardware. For example, I couldn't complete the Windows 7 installation and I got frustrated when it did the same thing no matter how many times I reformated my partition, made new disks, etc. When I unplugged my HDTV from my graphics card and left my smaller pc monitor hooked in, the installation completed with no problems. Then I was able to get the newest graphics drivers and I can use my HDTV.

Anyways, I'd still back up all my data or the most important bits of it somewhere just in case.

Thanks for all the help guys

hmm, booting from the DVD, I can't click on the 'new' button when trying to create a partition for C: (the new button is greyed out) screenshot below.

One quick (and stupid) question- do i need to reinstall all my programs for beta 7 on the new partition? Or can it access them from the old C drive? If the former, then it's probably a good idea to create a much larger partition- say 100 gig or so? And if the latter, then 10 gig (or rough minimum for the install) should suffice? (I've never used 2 OS's at the same time before)




in this screen...

Quote from Electrik Kar :

I've tried to do a partition using the inbuilt program for Vista- I've got 213 gig to spare but when I want to shrink the C drive down for partitioning, the program says that only around about 6 gig is available to be shrunk.

have you taken a look at your drive with a defrag program?

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Thanks for all the help guys

hmm, booting from the DVD, I can't click on the 'new' button when trying to create a partition for C: (the new button is greyed out) screenshot below.

One quick (and stupid) question- do i need to reinstall all my programs for beta 7 on the new partition? Or can it access them from the old C drive? If the former, then it's probably a good idea to create a much larger partition- say 100 gig or so? And if the latter, then 10 gig (or rough minimum for the install) should suffice? (I've never used 2 OS's at the same time before)

Each OS has its own programs, that means your Windows 7 install will be clean and you'll have to install your programs on it too. The programs you have installed on Vista will work only for Vista (although you can open their .exe from Win7, it's not recommended and not all programs will work correctly just because they are not actually installed on Win7).

There are 3 games I remember now that doesn't need to be reinstalled for working: LFS* ( ), Crysis (open the .exe), and Steam. If you have Steam, all you have to do is open steam.exe once and it'll make you able to play all your games wherever it is installed, and from both OS, that means you can share your Steam folder with different Windows and play from all of them, without needing to ever reinstall anything .

* Every time you open LFS from a different OS, you'll have to unlock it. So, this is my suggestion for you (and that's what I did here):
On Vista, copy your unlocked LFS folder to another place, thus making two folders. e.g.: LFS Vista, LFS 7.
When you boot Vista, play the LFS located on the Vista folder. When you boot Win7, open the game once, unlock it, and it's done. Just select the correct folder when playing on each OS and both LFS will be always unlocked (and also this will keep all your settings, user names, skins, mpr, etc).

Quote :

have you taken a look at your drive with a defrag program?

I'm not using the default Vista defragger, but Ultimate Defrag. Actually, now I think of it, that must be the problem- because it puts rarely used programs and files on one side of the disk, and stuff you use a lot on the other. So there are probably no big free chunks of space anywhere. (perfect disk is probably a better choice, because as far as I remember it crams everything together)

Thanks Shot

Velociroun- yeah, that's what I thought.

First thing is to defrag. Then, if Windows still isn't showing enough shrinkage, boot into a GParted live CD. It'll let you shrink it down to any size though, so make sure you know exactly how much is used beforehand, and make sure to defrag before too.

Quote from bunder9999 :

pass. if i ever go back to windows it'll probably be win2k... much better memory footprint than xp or vista... i highly doubt "7" will perform any better. i tried the vista beta and i've used vista since, and they both annoy the shit out of me.

(i guess that begs the question, does lfs run on win2k? or did they follow suit like other games and force the requirement of xp?)

You obviously haven't ran Win7, you've no idea how sweet it is, and it's not finished. Think about it, if microsoft screws up one more time, it's over. They need an incredibly good OS, and soon, and I'm certain they'll deliver. I absolutely love it, it smokes XP and Vista, and just runs, perfect, everything is instant, I haven't run into any bugs yet, and benchmarks show great performance, I can't think of anything negative about it, and I can't wait to buy it, the day it's released, woot.

Quote from DHRammstein :

Think about it, if microsoft screws up one more time, it's over.

Dude, false statement

But yep Windows 7 did seem to be legit when I used it briefly.

You could be right, but I can't imagine how many customers they'll lose if they foul up again. Regardless Win7 is gonna be a great OS, I can tell, I love it already.

Quote from DHRammstein :

You could be right, but I can't imagine how many customers they'll lose if they foul up again.

Not many, I guess. The people who do know a lot about computers have probably already switched a long time ago and the ones who don't know anything about them (which probably are 95% or more) won't switch anyway.

I disagree. Microsoft will loose even more if they put out crap. If they don't sell the new OSs it is as though people had just switched to Linux. Even though people might still use XP, Microsoft wont make any money since they don't sell XP anymore, only overstock. Not only that but people would probably never buy Microsoft's future OSs.

The people that haven't bought windows vista because of what they heard instead of what they experienced will buy 7 because it will/has received mostly good reviews.

Those who know about vista's follies will get windows 7 if Microsoft, which they most likely wont, don't make the same mistakes and put out annoying system pop-ups and alow permisions to administrator accounts. Why they put any restrictions on default Administrator is beyond me.


The big problem Microsoft has with Vista is corporate purchases. Noone wants to downgrade their system just because it's new, especially when the current one works with all its downfalls. Corporations are where the money is for Microsoft. A lot people pirate corporate versions and those people wouldn't even pirate Vista.

nVidia beta drivers for Windows 7
www.nvidia.com/drivers

Version: 181.71 beta
Release Date: March 02, 2009
Operating System: Windows 7 (32-bit)
Language: International
File Size: 94.6 MB

Version: 181.71 beta
Release Date: March 03, 2009
Operating System: Windows 7 (64-bit)
Language: International
File Size: 110 MB

Remember, these are not the WDDM 1.1 ones! The WDDM drivers are licensed 179.xx drivers for Windows 7 and can be downloaded from Windows Update (optional updates).

They are WDDM 1.1 for GeForce 8, 9 and 200 series, and WDDM 1.0 for the older cards.

I posted a short info about the benefits of WDDM 1.1 here.

O.K. - well I got the beta installed on the new partition finally! There are a few things in Windows 7 that seem to be an immediate improvement imo- I especially like how your open windows automatically organise nicely into those bottom left icons- much tidier now and also much easier to navigate to the window you're looking for.

My main problem is that I can't work out how to access the other partition of my C: drive (all my docs and files). I named this new partition I: but Windows 7 calls it C: again. There's only 6 gig remaining on this new drive so I'll need to be able to access the other partition to make things workable. (edit: figured it out - link to solution here)

Haven't tested any games yet.

Haven't installed the beta drivers yet, downloaded them last night though. I'll post a few benchmark differences later between the two drivers

It's probably Microsoft themselves that leaks these builds, and the beta keys still works with them, so no big deal imo. If anything, they get large scale testing out of it, which in turn leads to a better product.