RSSHow to really test the Windows 7 Release Candidate
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 5, 2009, 2:31 PM
Download Windows 7 Release Candidate 64-bit from Fileforum now.
If you're like me...first of all, my apologies. Nevertheless, although you have more than one computer you use every day, you do the majority of your production work on a Windows XP Professional-based system. You could have upgraded to Vista, but you didn't, and it wasn't out of procrastination. It's because you knew the costs involved and the headaches that would ensue, and because you also knew from experience that Vista, in the end, was slower for everyday tasks than XP. Certainly it's more secure, but you have enough access to security software that you can stay vigilant and maintain your systems without serious trouble. Yes, that's if you're like me.
The promise of Windows 7 is that it's the Windows XP upgrade you've been waiting for. The problem with Windows 7 is that it won't upgrade Windows XP, at least not directly. You can make the two-step jump from XP to Win7 through Vista, as we discovered a few months ago, but you need a Vista installation disc to do it. You don't have to register the Vista installation in-between, so you can legitimately borrow one from a friend.
But if you're like me, then what you need to know from the Release Candidate is this: Will the software you use every day be able to survive the jump from XP to Win7 mostly intact, or would you actually sustain fewer headaches by installing Win7 on a fresh PC and reinstalling all your apps? And if the latter is the case, then should you even bother even a test upgrade?
Here's the part where I can start congratulating you for being like me, because you're at least smart enough to know that your desktop production PC should have at least two hard drives, and that your documents and media should be located on the second one (drive D:). You keep your operating system and applications on a smaller, faster hard drive that's easier to maintain and upgrade. I keep XP and its apps on an 80 GB drive -- today, it's almost impossible to find an 80 GB drive new. So now have this option: You can purchase a relatively inexpensive hard drive that can easily hold two copies of your prime partition. A half-terabyte Barracuda costs about sixty-five bucks.
Creating an image backup to an external USB drive is an almost academic process now. I use Acronis True Image as my backup program, and it hasn't failed me once -- you can download it from Fileforum, use it now, and pay for it later. You'll need a good backup program like this to take a snapshot of your C:\ drive that can be recovered later to your new, bigger hard drive without endangering the activation on your XP.
Acronis comes with a recovery system that enables you to boot a special hard disk restoration environment from CD-ROM. You'll actually want to use this to restore XP to two partitions -- one just for using XP normally and doing your regular work, and the other for testing Win7 knowing you have a safety net if all goes wrong.
As an alternative plan, if you have never used the BartPE system recovery environment, you may come to wonder why you haven't let Windows fail more often. You do have to build the recovery CD-ROM yourself, because it requires you to supply Windows XP as the kernel, and BartPE can't supply XP for itself. Once you've booted your system with BartPE in the optical drive and your new hard drive installed, you can use it to create your two partitions.
Although technically you should be able to boot essentially the same operating system (for now) from two partitions, there's a chance you may need to manually edit the BOOT.INI file to ensure that there's two options when you boot from your new hard drive, and that the second option accounts for partition(2). Once that's worked out, you should be able to boot to the partition you've chosen for your Windows 7 test.
We've heard two stories from different sides of Microsoft. Company strategist Mike Nash has been quoted as saying you should treat the RC just as though it were a final release; at the same time, we've heard it might not be desirable to "upgrade" from the RC to Windows 7 RTM once it becomes available. My suggestion is that, while you do go ahead and test your applications in the Windows 7 partition you've created, you do not plan to upgrade from the RC to Windows 7. Instead, make a note of the best practices you've learned from the business with the Win7 partition, and then be prepared to wipe the RC clean and start over with a fresh upgrade...if you take Acer's word for it, once October rolls around. As long as you keep your vital documents and media on a separate drive anyway, you do compensate a bit for all the trouble you're putting yourself through. (That said, you might consider backing up your documents and media anyway before proceeding, for reasons I'll talk about in a bit.)
Next: What should you be testing for?
I installed the beta on a Lenovo R51 and despite not having a native wireless driver for the aged out chipset, it worked perfectly, well the games don't work, but other than that, its fine. I had to install the XP drivers for wireless and it worked. On the RC, I installed last night and they do not support these drivers anymore but after connecting to the interwebs, Windows update gave me the right ones.
Surfing is all I do on this but I do have office 2007 on it. I did not do an upgrade, but a new install. I like it but it looks like UAC is going to be just like Vista. What I would like (and I submitted this to MS) is to have certain controls for UAC. If you have ever installed Ubuntu, it does similar things (the UAC that is). I changed some of the settings after it annoyed me enough to look for them and was very pleased with the few things I let it prompt me for.
Its likeable, but we shall see what the MS fairy brings in the full release. likely it will be marginally better than XP and that is ok I guess.
Oh and i used the easy transfer wizard. it was easy.
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|"What I would like (and I submitted this to MS) is to have certain controls for UAC."
Control Panel - users - UAC. You can select from one of I believe 5 options in there top to bottom, the top being the most secure.
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|I think most people that choose windows xp over vista for there own personal reasons, usually would know that a windows upgrade is not advisable anyway, fresh install is the only way really, corporate and businesses depend heavily on upgrading,
But home users can easily (and should) prepare for and install a new OS from scratch,
although the consensus so far is Win7 is a lot faster than XP, let me just remind you that many testers, and bench mark reviews also said the very same thing about Vista, even when nearly all home users who done there own tests said this isn't so, for quite a while there was a lot of conflict between the truth and what actually is, personal judgement and natural Bias was taking place, and of course the way the bench marks were being done, the benchmark reviews would tell you the rigs they would use, but wouldn't list what drivers they installed (versions) with the exception to graphics, but most know that chipset drivers are even more important,
All I’m saying is, do your own benchmark, there are a lot of demo's software out there, and for the home user that's all you need, (remember to use the latest versions)
this is the only way, because I found that even some of the most respectful reviewers out there claimed windows Vista was faster then XP, it's surprising 2 years later how they too have changed there tune, without any explanation of there previous claims, been paid off (Ohh, did I say that out loud) and the thing is, every system is different, and Vista has proven to be very touchy when it comes to individual system, mainly because of it's very limited Driver database, meaning general drivers will be used by default.
so do your own tests with win7, but like I said, the consensus so far is Win7 is a vast improvement over it predecessor, and like wise can beat XP in some things, but still falls behind in others (will not list what, not looking to starting a debate), however it is agreed that although Win7 uses resources more friendly (thanks to heavy optimizing of Windows code), the windows footprint is still just as big, and needs just as much as memory as Vista (shame).
one thing I will add, if the operating system has grown to need such amounts of memory, 2GB minimum for Vista and above, what will happen in the future, 32bit Operating system have a limit of 4GB, I guess 64Bit will be forced on everyone one at some point out of necessity, (although I’m fine with that, x64bit is far more stable, just not that much more efficient as one would expect, usually only a 5-8% increase in performance over it's x32bit counterpart. i find this so shameful, with x64 bit CPU's, and full x64 bit windows, we just are not seeing the performance that mathematics should say we should be getting, tried doing some research on this issue, but didn't find much material, only that x64 programming is still being written using x32 bit thinking (philosophy is not my thing), i wonder why x64 bit programming is not that much better)?
even Microsoft was surprised that x64 code didn't offer that much of an improvement, i remember when MS was working on x64 bit to begin with, how they said what it would be able to do, 30% faster then x32bit, on paper it should of been, i wonder what Win7 x64 will be like, looking forward to trying it out,
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|"let me just remind you that many testers, and bench mark reviews also said the very same thing about Vista, "
Let me get this little gem off the record for ya:
Google Search, by date, Vista Beta.
You will notice 2 things: Prior to starting from scratch (WinFS was still there, the old core was still there) the reviews were rave and popular. After the change-over to the new kernel and starting over, the popular culture around the OS quickly turned sour. Popular review sites began commenting on the numerous bugs, incompatibilities and other issues the new build introduced and that none of the builds actually seemed to *solve* any issues from previous builds.
FWIW: I completely missed that as well when Vista was nearing release. Blinders and all that. ;)
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|Suggestion:
If you are going to use the "Second Drive" Scenario: Unplug the power to your "XP" drive prior to install. This will *force* Win7 to install everything (even boot code) to the second drive. There hacve been cases in my own experience where the OS will write the boot code to the first drive *regardless* of where you choose to put it. Just remember to plug it back in once the install is finished.
The only caveat: You'll have to select your boot drive from the "boot menu" of your POST, instead of through any "Windows boot menu".
The upside: Your windows versions won't collide (aside from the aforementioned crawling of your media files by Win7).
Of course, I would not suggest this to anyone other than people like Scott (Poor SOB's they may be). ;-)
For the rest of ya, install it on a secondary system or don't even try it unless you have *very* reliable backups. Period.
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|I agree with completely disconnecting your drive when you do the install if you are afraid of contamination. However, once you have everything working, you can always add your other version to the "Windows Boot Menu". I would use the one from Windows 7, as I'm not 100% that the XP boot Menu can handle Windows 7.
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|Excellent idea!
Thank you.
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|It's just awesome. I just downloaded it from official MS site (after one of the early beta versions dit work, but just my 3rd monitor had some problems)
Got the key, burned the iso, reboot, 'starting windows' *WHAM* BSOD Stop 0x00000124
Nice. Thanks. Very informative. It appears that removing graphics cards and stuff doesnt work, disconnecting my second sata doesnt work, goodbye Windows 7...
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|Reburn at the slowest speed possible. :)
Bad Disc.
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|Also tried copying files from windows in mounted .iso. same problem.
Guess they 'fixed' the fact that it worked on my pc since the betas...
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|Try different media or just redownload the ISO. Could be the download got a tad corrupted.
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|Definitely. Redownload, check the MDS, then burn at the slowest speed possible. ;)
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|you should really blame your bad luck or any weird hardware, especially if it is a laptop... is it? a friend o mine got problems trying to use 7 in his HP laptop, which came with Vista home basic.
Almost no one is having problems, less BSODs.
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|You might want to check the MD5 also. ;-)
Also, I just recently rearranged my drives and decided to clean-install Windows 7 RC this afternoon after I got home from work. I was definitely impressed with the relatively short installation process... much improvement in that area alone.
One peculiarity that I've noticed when reinstalling applications is that it appears to be randomly placing " *.lnk.temp " files on the desktop during the installation process (supposedly representing the application desktop shortcut), and is sometimes not removing them when the installation is complete, though the actual shortcut is also present (as expected). Most recent program that has exhibited this behavior is WoW... all 3 discs.
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|"You might want to check the MD5 also. ;-)"
I always knew that deep down, you were ... a jerk. ;)
Oh, and the "lnk.temp" bit? That's WoW, not Win7. :p
http://www.google.com/se...al&client=firefox-a
Silly belf.
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|I know how to download an iso. It came straight from Microsoft and i have never ever had any connection problems. That looks *very* unlikely to me.
After further investigation on MS forums, i found some people on the Win7 forums are having the same problem.
It seems to be a PCI Express graphics card problem:
http://social.technet.mi...-4eaf-af39-d07e6cfa712d
Will try again tonight with pci express card (Geforce 8400 GS) removed and with onboard video or PCI graphics. Problem will be: how far does it go, and will i have Aero after installation?
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|"I know how to download an iso."
Rrrawr...
Someone's feeling a little defensive. We *all* know how to download ISO's....you'd be surprised how often it becomes an issue though.
*shrug*
Regardless, If it is the PCI issue from Vista... Wow. You'd think they'd have caught that? Well, leave it to MSFT to throw a few doozies in an otherwise promising OS...
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|"Oh, and the "lnk.temp" bit? That's WoW, not Win7."
I appreciate that. Odd that it never did that with Windows 7 Beta Build 7000. I fairly vigilant with regards to the cleanliness of my Desktop, and anything out of what I consider to be ordinary I tend to notice almost immediately.
"...a jerk."
I appreciate that. I have a good role model. ;-)
The only major issue I've had with a clean install of Windows 7 RC is the severe crackling and popping sounds coming from the X-Fi ExtremeMusic card (a fairly well-known and documented problem with their products ever since Vista's release). Creative had finally gotten the problems resolved with some of their more recent Vista drivers (a year later... whoopie!), and the problem never followed to the Windows 7 Beta upgrade I performed.
However, with a clean Windows 7 RC installation, the problem resurfaced... with a terrible vengeance. Tried the latest Creative beta drivers which supposedly support Windows 7 Beta, and Daniel_K's modified drivers also, but no luck. Ended up re-enabling the integrated audio controller on the motherboard (sadly an AC97) and everything's peachy.
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|"I appreciate that. I have a good role model. ;-)"
I do what I can. :)
Yeah, the soundblaster age has passed for me. I'm not a huge audio-nut, and I don't really have the time or inclination to set up surround-sound for gaming...just not that big of a deal to me. Been using the onboard SoundMAX thing since I built this system (for Vista...). Haven't had any issues other than updating the driver to get all four speakers working (using a quad+Sub package I got about 6 years ago for a steal).
Creative has done a horrifying job of supporting their soundcards since the launch of Vista; Hell, even their XP drivers are nigh on impossible to find (and poor quality). It hurts, because they *used* to be the best. The AWE32 was probably the last of their *really good* cards. (Dates me a bit, but...)
Meh... wiped and reloaded last night with the ISO I got direct from MSFT, installed VXP (XPM, whatever) and played around with that a bit. No real difference from 7077, which I was using prior to the RC in terms of performance or usability. I'll probably stick with the RC until General Release. No real interest in the "latest and greatest" builds now that they are basically done adding stuff.
x-fi FIX:
http://www.neowin.net/fo.../index.php/t723610.html
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