Windows 7 Beta Reviews

I doubt it could have been the same package,
It was oem the cheapest version. There is no real difference to retail though, because you can transfer the oem licence to new machines. At worst you need to make an automated call. Incase of xp oem I didnt need to do that even - they accepted the licence transfer automatically through internet validation.
I've never seen Vista Ultimate(retail box) for less than 260$. I'm going to install it on a seperate hard drive, I don't even want to take the chance of trying the dual-boot setup.

Multiboot is very easy. Just divide hard drive to i.e 4 different parts and you can install 4 OS:s there. Heres dummy guide on how to dualboot with with vista/xp - I used it myself:
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm
 
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I had serious problems w/ XP64, especially with hardware drivers. The video drivers that came w/ my laptop for instance said they were 64 bit but I couldn't get them to install. It turns out they were just repackaged Southbridge drivers. I had to go to PlanetAMD64.com to try to find workarounds all the time.

Things improved as Windows Server became more popular but not enough. This is why I am glad for Vista64 because its the OS of choice and any new driver or application is designed with this version in mind first.

When W7 is released and people start picking it up like its Coke Classic or something I think we can expect more improvement and maybe more devs with will take advantage of multiple cores as well.
 
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I want a Mac.
I want a Ferrari ,so what?

I have about 20 GB free on my C: do you think I should create a partition and install it(win7) there or try it on virtual?
 
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It was oem the cheapest version. There is no real difference to retail though, because you can transfer the oem licence to new machines. At worst you need to make an automated call. Incase of xp oem I didnt need to do that even - they accepted the licence transfer automatically through internet validation.


There is one big difference that many people aren't aware of. The retail version of Vista Ultimate actually includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit DVDs in the same package.

I was originally going to wait for Windows 7 as well, but I honestly don't believe we'll see a stable version in less than 18 months.
 
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There is one big difference that many people aren't aware of. The retail version of Vista Ultimate actually includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit DVDs in the same package.

Vista32 is waste of time imho. Vista64 works great and runs really smooth with i.e 6 gigs of memory. Its amazing that they are still making a 32 version of w7. They should drop the support allready and concentrate on 64 version.

I was originally going to wait for Windows 7 as well, but I honestly don't believe we'll see a stable version in less than 18 months.

If its just improved vista it could be made stable faster. I.E the drivers are all the same.
 
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Its amazing that they are still making a 32 version of w7. They should drop the support allready and concentrate on 64 version.

Definitely, I've been saying the same thing since they announced the Windows 7 beta. It makes no sense to develope a 32-bit OS at this point. By the time it's released, most users will have 4GB of RAM on average, and will be upgrading to more soon afterwards. What is the purpose of releasing an OS that can only address 4GB of memory?


If its just improved vista it could be made stable faster. I.E the drivers are all the same.

True, but we're talking about Microsoft here. ;)
 
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But I want a Mac. Waah!

Seriously, it would be nice if MS produced something that was a step forward for a change. Windows 7 seems to be a step in the right direction. It remains to be seen how much damage the Vista detour has done them.

Our company has still not approved Vista for use in our network. This is largely due to Microsoft's arrogance -- Vista broke Samba when it came out, and while Samba has been updated by now to work with Vista, we haven't actually tested this on our network. Thus far, it's been simpler to either downgrade any new computers we've bought to XP, or upgrade them to Ubuntu, or just buy Macs. Put another way, we've been gradually phasing out Windows. Win 7 will have to be a major leap forward if this is to change.

Anecdotal, of course, so just consider it one data point.
 
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Had they pushed 64bit for everyone in Vista there would at least had been some advantage to this whole circus.
 
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Definitely, I've been saying the same thing since they announced the Windows 7 beta. It makes no sense to develope a 32-bit OS at this point. By the time it's released, most users will have 4GB of RAM on average, and will be upgrading to more soon afterwards. What is the purpose of releasing an OS that can only address 4GB of memory?

I don't know in what world you're living, but all the computers I see around me have 1GB. Mine has 2 and I don't see a reason to upgrade yet (of course, I use XP). In fact, I still haven't seen one computer with more than 2GB except the servers in my company.
I am almost sure Microsoft will want to release W7 as soon as this year, specially since everybody says it's pretty much Vista rebranded or "Vista SP2" (they needed to get rid of the 'Vista' name as it's too tainted to save right now)
 
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I don't know in what world you're living,

The real one.... maybe you should join it.

I said "by the time it's released", and trust me, I know many people that already have 4 GB right now. Those people are enthusiast of course, but even the average PC in retail stores right now has at least 1.5-2 GB of RAM.
 
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I don't know in what world you're living, but all the computers I see around me have 1GB. Mine has 2 and I don't see a reason to upgrade yet (of course, I use XP). In fact, I still haven't seen one computer with more than 2GB except the servers in my company.

I know many who bought 4gb. There's not many, but some games benefit from having 3gb over 2gb such as Assassins Creed. The thing is not that there's a huge benefit of having it, it's just that 4gb is really cheap, and it's not uncommon to see most memorypackages in onlinestores that are sold in 4gb kits rather than 2gb kits.
 
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The same ones who are saying Apple is going under now were saying it back in the '90's when they actually were in trouble.

Now Apple has missed a tremendous opportunity, as if the Mac OS-X had been allowed to install on non-Mac hardware (currently it detects whether the MB and such are Mac units or other), they could have gathered tremendous market share. Had they pushed harder for more software development across to the Mac OS, better marketing, and maybe a lower priced laptop (around $500) and desktop ($350) to actually compete against the Win-based systems, they would be taking all of those who refused to downgrade to Vista.

I eventually was forced into Vista, because my last computer's MB fried, and I wanted a laptop. Since I found out the only ones making games I want aren't major developers, and very rarely push even what little of a system I have now, a $1700 gaming rig didn't make sense. Since Apple doesn't want my business (they staff their stores with some of the most arrogant wastes of carbon I've ever seen outside of Washington DC), it was either vista or a used laptop.

I may upgrade (or downgrade as the case usually is with Windows) later. Then again, I may pick up XP and enjoy a slightly better experience. When i want a stable, fast OS, I'll install Ubuntu.

I am NOT enjoying Vista. It's barely tolerable for a few games like Wizardry 8, and that's it.
 
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Anything gaming relevant to Win 7? Vista introduced this computer rating system for games which I thought was a good idea - even I have a hard time sometimes judging the system requirements, now that you have single, dual and even quad-core processors with varying processor speeds, and untold multitudes of graphic cards. Is this being developed any further?
 
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