RSSWindows 7 RC now being distributed to MSDN, TechNet subscribers
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published April 30, 2009, 11:06 AM
The first "real" copies of Build 7100, the Windows 7 Release Candidate -- quite likely, the only one there will be -- were officially distributed to subscribers to Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet subscribers at 11:00 am EDT / 8:00 am PDT Thursday morning. Included in this morning's distribution are the 32- and 64-bit editions of the Ultimate SKU of the operating system, plus the all-new Windows Driver Kit Release 7 for those who'll be building device drivers for the new OS using the revised driver model; the Automated Installation Kit for remote deployments using servers; and the updated Windows 7 SDK RC in x86, x64, and Itanium editions.
11:15 am EDT April 30, 2009 - Almost immediately upon the RC's public release, the response time for Microsoft's Web services became extremely slow. It's a good sign for the company in one respect: Not all of Microsoft's developers took the bait and downloaded one of last week's leaks.
11:35 am EDT - The slowdown lifted about three minutes ago, and downloads resumed at a respectable pace -- fair enough when something this important and popular is happening.
5:08 pm EDT - Almost immediately after installing Windows 7, you're given some fresh hints and clues -- obviously quite deliberately -- that you're not using Vista (or XP) any more. One is the first notification of the existence of the Action Center, the new upbeat, centralized component for handling and monitoring system security matters. It lets you know it's there for the first time, in a fresh system, by reminding you that there isn't any antivirus software installed.
Another nice feature that hasn't gotten a lot of play, but which suggests folks at Microsoft have finally been listening to users: After installing applications and rebooting, Windows 7 is capable of restoring open applications to the state they were before the reboot. We've seen this behavior so far with Internet Explorer 8 and with other Windows 7 apps open, such as the new version of Paint (with the "Scenic Ribbon"), but we're interested in how deeply this behavior can extend to other apps including non-Microsoft brands.
Not one single person, on this site or other people and companies, ever speak about people with disabilities, I wonder why, are you and them in denial...what about ( Win7 ) are they looking out for poor people, like senior citizens and disabled veterans...know wonder software has problems...you need to be able to read and write easy, and have a graphics user friendly software product, my food for thought today...I am glad Betanews is here, so I can voice my concerns for the people you can't...until then have a nice week...
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|"Not one single person, on this site or other people and companies, ever speak about people with disabilities"
Oh really?!? I certainly have. You can even use Google to search this website for my comments on the matter. Please bother to actually research your statements before you start making them. Or are you trolling? After all, you ignore the Ease of Use section in Vista and Win7.
EDIT: http://www.betanews.com/...Windows_Ever/1149533106
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|That screen shot would have looked much better if Aero was turned on
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|i kind of leave my desktop like that, only with aero minus transparency but i keep it light gray... i love it that way lol, oh well... thats the best part about Windows, you can do what you wish, easily
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|This was taken in a virtual machine. As soon as you figure out how to enable Aero for Win7 in a VM, let us know... ;-)
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|I - Love - This - Thing.
The OS is fast, stable, devoid of the angst that plagued Vista (nickel and diming you to death with myriad small bugs) and the Magnifier implementation is worth its weight in diamonds to me.
It is everything Vista should have been - and failed abysmally to achieve.
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|:p
Amazing how they can follow such an abysmal launch with something as proficient as this, isn't it?
While I will grudgingly admit that Vista now has the performance and a good deal of the stability (and I still believe is better than XP), the UI bugs the hell out of me. Has ever since the Win7 Beta. I really think they did something right with it this time. Win-P, controlling window arrangement with Win-Arrows, the taskbar...all so much better than the minor annoying interface upgrades they did from XP for Vista.
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|Just installed the RC and it is really fast. Did anyone try to install a free antivirus? it won't let me install avira or avg on it, won't let me open the dammmmm file :(
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|From MSDN:
Windows 7 Ultimate RC (x64) - DVD (English)
en_windows_7_ultimate_rc_x64_dvd_347803.iso:
SHA1: FC867FE1AB2E0A9796F9E4D155B44EA6998F4874
Windows 7 Ultimate RC (x86) - DVD (English)
en_windows_7_ultimate_rc_x86_dvd_349010.iso:
SHA1: 7D1F486CA569EFFFFB719CFB48355BB7BF499712
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|oops their servers are being overloaded :)
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|They really should get on the bandwagon with torrents
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|Problem with torrents is ...the potential for issues beyond your control....poisoning etc. Also you will never have any real statistics of how many people have downloaded.
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|Doesn't concern anyone with the rapid release of SP2 for Vista and WS2008 with only a very brief RC period? Doesn't it concern anyone for Windows 7 to go from beta to RC status as quickly as it has? And is Windows 7 really all that different or is it just a repackaged Vista (with changes like the new device driver model)?
Just curious as it seems that MS is trying to rush things to market when the market isn't ready.
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|Vista had the new driver model....Windows 7 is just polish on top of the underlying work done to Vista. About 3 years apart....
.....Very much like XP was the polish on top of the underlying work done in Windows 2000. ...about 3 years apart.
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|They are working with a completely different development model than they were in the past (including Vista). The code going into winmain is now already tested, fixed, and tested again. The only changes that would need to be made going from beta to RC to RTM would generally be compatibility changes with other code in winmain, not actual functionality or "bug" fixes.
This is one of the reasons even the Betas were so stable.
It was the opposite with Vista. A feature was coded, put into the main branch and then tested... this made it harder to pull the code back out and fix it as they got closer and closer to release with more features/code dependent on it. This is what made Vista so broken upon release...there was a lot of code still in there that simply wasn't tested (or couldn't be pulled, fixed, and re-included).
The new model is faster, more efficient, and will hopefully produce a far more stable product.
Some of these changes to the process are detailed in early posts to the "Engineering Windows 7" blog.
As for the market being ready, I think pretty much everyone is ready to forget about Vista. :)
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|Not really. Windows 7 is basically a new skin and some bug/feature fixes ontop of Vista. If you get Vista SP2, you get ~85% of what is in Windows 7, only you do not have to pay a ton of money to Microsoft to fix the broken OS which you already paid a ton of money for.
For example....
"Almost immediately after installing Windows 7, you're given some fresh hints and clues -- obviously quite deliberately -- that you're not using Vista (or XP) any more. One is the first notification of the existence of the Action Center, the new upbeat, centralized component for handling and monitoring system security matters. It lets you know it's there for the first time, in a fresh system, by reminding you that there isn't any antivirus software installed."
Kind of like that same component in Vista, the one which has a red shield with a big' X' on it in my task bar right now?
Or.....
"...such as the new version of Paint (with the "Scenic Ribbon")..."
ROFL....Scenic Ribbon. Hey, got to justify charging $399 for that single user Ultimate edition somehow. OSX costs $129 for a non-arbitrarily stripped down, fully functional three machine license....($43 USD a copy) versus the outrageously overpriced Windows Vista SP2.5(Windows 7).
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|"Kind of like that same component in Vista, the one which has a red shield with a big' X' on it in my task bar right now?"
Um, no? The action-Center is now the repository of *all* (hopefully) "balloon notifications". Instead of having 18 task-bar notification icons, we're down to one. Yes, the "Security Center" is now *part* of the "Action Center", but they've rewritten the notifications API and are trying to get 3rd party devs to start using it so the "system tray" are isn't quite so abused.
"ROFL....Scenic Ribbon. Hey, got to justify charging $399 for that"
Yeah...they're charging $399(sic) for the ribbon interface. Nothing more, nothing less. Right.
...and you think you're *not* a troll?
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|Hopefully the XPM download will go live shortly allowing us to see that in action.
I'm actually hoping it takes at least 4 months to go from RC to RTM, and another 1-2 to hit GP release. Give the Hardware manufacturers some time to get stable, optimized drivers out there.
Amazingly, both ATI and NVIDA have beta drivers for Win7 already, thought hey are far from feature complete and still very prone to failure. (Win7 restarts my video driver at least once a day)
MSFT needs to give them time to do a proper job of it.
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|it has ARRIVED, time to ditch Vista and wait for the real deal
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|Now, be nice.
Don't be a hater...
;-))
And I had thought that Vista was supposed to be the cat's meow...hmmmm....
"supposed" I guess is the operative word...
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|Vista is fine, Windows 7 is better and i'll use the RC while i wait
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|Totally agree - I've found the "perception" of Vista is far different than the reality. I like what I've seen from Windows 7 but I won't pay a nickel to upgrade from Vista - will have to wait until I buy a new machine.
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