Well Rob you have a pretty nice rig anyway so it won't show the stress hardware wise as much as someone who has 2gig of ram and a slower dual core CPU.

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

It's widely available on various torrent and warez sites. No point getting it other than for shits nd giggles yet though, it's only a Beta. It still has some bugs that could cause damage if you use it as a main OS. Plus you wouldn't be able to report them, as you're not an actual Beta tester...

Really, it looks like it's exactly the same as Vista, looks-wise. If it comes with fixes for all of Vista's cock-ups, I'm sold. I have a stack of PCI cards and USB gadgets that I can't use because they aren't Vista driver-compatible. I can't complain about Vista's resource usage though, hasn't bothered me unduly since I started using it. In fact, drivers are pretty much my only Vista problem, and that's mainly because it's the 64-bit version

IIRC early vista development builds had the same xp interface / theme.

when will it be released?

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

It's widely available on various torrent and warez sites. No point getting it other than for shits nd giggles yet though, it's only a Beta. It still has some bugs that could cause damage if you use it as a main OS. Plus you wouldn't be able to report them, as you're not an actual Beta tester...

It's a pre-beta, actually... Beta won't be starting anytime soon according to MS...

They were giving 7 away at the PDC (preinstalled on a laptop) and at WinHEC (on a disc)... Of course it had to be on the net sooner or later...

Quote from G!NhO :

when will it be released?

2009, atm, but remember Vista (released in 2007) was originally meant to be launched in 2003.

Either way while I may not like M$ that much, I must say that the £63 I paid for Vista x64 Home Premium was well worth it. If Windows 7 is just little improvements over Vista, then I'll probably try to buy the "ultimate" version this time.

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

It still has some bugs that could cause damage if you use it as a main OS.

eh? who gave you that laughable idea?

Quote :

Really, it looks like it's exactly the same as Vista, looks-wise.

only if you cant figure out how to get the actual proper w7 gui

Quote from Shotglass :

eh? who gave you that laughable idea?

The fact that it's a pre-beta (thanks bbman, thought it was beta)? If it was in perfect condition they'd release it, to try and get over the Vista fiasco as soon as possible. If it was perfectly bug free it wouldn't still be pre-beta...I said could anyway, I don't want to lose my stuff because of a slight bug that could have been avoided by dual-booting/using a VM.

Quote from Shotglass :

only if you cant figure out how to get the actual proper w7 gui

I don't have Windows 7 yet (no point really, Vista suits me fine), but a google images search on "Windows 7" leads to some very Vista-esque screenshots

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

The fact that it's a pre-beta (thanks bbman, thought it was beta)? If it was in perfect condition they'd release it, to try and get over the Vista fiasco as soon as possible. If it was perfectly bug free it wouldn't still be pre-beta...



I don't have Windows 7 yet (no point really, Vista suits me fine), but a google images search on "Windows 7" leads to some very Vista-esque screenshots

It's pre-beta, but every blogger and reporter who got his hands on it (supposedly quite some MS-cynics in that group) said that it ran absolutely fine... Apparently, the developers made a 180° turn in the way they program the OS and every feature in the pre-beta is complete and stable...

Quote from bbman :

It's pre-beta, but every blogger and reporter who got his hands on it (supposedly quite some MS-cynics in that group) said that it ran absolutely fine... Apparently, the developers made a 180° turn in the way they program the OS and every feature in the pre-beta is complete and stable...

Well that's a first for MS. I stand corrected then

Quote from dougie-lampkin :

I don't want to lose my stuff because of a slight bug that could have been avoided by dual-booting/using a VM.

if you use a beta to handle any data that is in any way important you more than deserve to lose it

Quote from Shotglass :

if you use a beta to handle any data that is in any way important you more than deserve to lose it

Which is why I said you shouldn't use it as a primary OS. And then you questioned that

yes because theres a difference between damage and data loss

Not really. It was kind of meant as damage to your files. It's hardly going to cause a riot and thrash your hardware, now is it?

Quote from boosterfire :

This is what they had to say about the naming:

Yep. And to turn all that on it's head, because it's only a 'minor' update to Vista, they are (or at least, were) planning to internally version it as 6.1.

So Windows 7 would be 6.1, meaning they would get to release Windows v7.0 (presumably with a name rather than a number) again as the next major update? Talk about confusing.