Windows 7 Beta, The TBL Experience.... Part 1

I'm sure by now you have read many a glowing review of the Windows 7 Beta recently dropped by Microsoft earlier in the year. And fortunately I won't be taking the shine off much with the info below. I say fortunately, because as a positive person I like to see things work, and it is good to see that Microsoft (regardless of what I think of them, they still command the desktop market) is going to have a good OS that is not just going to fix the Vista woes, but also integrate better hardware and the new online world.

Mojave Experiment Windows 7 Beta

I never really used Windows Vista, mostly because I was really happy with my Powerbook, and didn't want to spend the money on a MS product that I wasn't going to use. Also I don't have many clients who upgraded or need to upgrade.

Besides, who could ignore all the bad press Vista has been receiving? What is the saying? "400,000 bloggers can't be wrong". Well of course they can, but who has the time to find out when you don't need to. But I did start organising some time when I saw that the possible saviour of the Windows platform was getting a limited public Beta. Not so much because it was Windows, but more because Microsoft were venturing into the public Beta space and this move needed to be supported.

Although I don't think they really get the point of releasing a Beta. The software I have seems to have the stability of a seasoned Windows release, and the support of a seasoned Windows release with patches. Can you say Mojave Experiment?

I wasn't going to race out and buy or build a new PC for the testing, though. First I pulled out my old Media Center box, a P4 2.8, 1Gb of ram, and FX5200 128Mb Video Card, oh and 2 monitors. I then put it on an older Core2Duo in the office, on the office domain and lastly sacrificed my work laptop so as to test the software we use on jobs. The reason for the older hardware was to see if it can be done, and to see if MS have repeated the history made with the move from Win 2000 to Win XP.

Let me explain. Back when Win 2000 was launched, it had some pretty high specs. It was a struggle to run it on a Celeron because some said that it was optimized more for a P3. But when XP came out, it was optimised to run on a Celeron and up, thus meaning that I was able to run XP on a machine that couldn't run 2000. So with this test I wanted to try and run Win 7 on a machine that would struggle with Vista.

If in the next couple of paragraphs I mention cool things that Win 7 Beta does that are features in Vista, I'm sorry. As mentioned I missed Vista, and I believe that Win 7 is just a slimmed down and re-skinned version of Vista (in the same spirit as Mojave). As mentioned in previous posts when I have had a chance to work with Vista I have found it (after all the updates/service packs) pretty good, so please give me a break.

The Install

On the install of Win 7 Beta I have nothing really to say, but it is quick and caught me a little by surprise, as I was planning to do something else while it was installing. It was nice not to have to go thought a 12 step install, but I have to wonder where the simplified install process came from. All the same, it was nice and all the blanks that the install process filled in were right.

On the P4 desktop I only had to install the drivers for the video card (the Vista drivers) and of course all my favorite software. It is almost OSX-like in its ability to detect and install hardware. On my work laptop it set up everything except the 3d drivers for the video card, but wireless and track pad worked straight after the install.

The only other hardware problem I seem to have with the Laptop is that it locks up after a few hours use, I was wondering if Win 7 Beta isn't running the fan correctly and there are heat problems. But it turned out to be a long standing problem with theIntel 915 graphics and the fact that they being a WDDM driver. A little annoying as it works great with Ubuntu and all the 3d effects. The solution seems to be to remove the Intel drivers and just leave the default Win 7 ones, no glass for me though.

On the work desktop it grabbed everything but audio drivers. Apparently the Realteck AC97 is a rare chip-set, who would of thought? After spending some time trying to find said drivers, it turns out that they are a little rare, so in went a old Creative Labs Live card I had floatingaround.

The Performance

Performance overall, when discussing a Beta, is always silly subject. Traditionally Beta software is more a "proof of concept" than a product ready for the masses. But what Microsoft have done is drop an OS that is ready for release.

For my everyday use, the Win 7 on the P4 has worked really well. I'm looking to put a bit more RAM in the machine, but that is only to help when I have a heap of windows open. I have only had a handful of programs crash, usually because I was doing silly things with them. However, I haven't been trying too many legacy programs. I have been trying to work within the Microsoft world, in an effort to not break Win 7, and find out how much Microsoft has adapted to the online world.

Of course, the Core2Due runs the best and again, the stability stands up. There are a couple of us using this machine and the big plus seems to be the OS's connect-ability. It easily supports a number of devices and has been great with a number of odd USB devices that we use for work.
Overall, the surprise was the how well Win 7 ran on my work laptop. It seems to be a little faster than the P4, which may be due to the 1.5GB ram. Apart from the speed, everything else worked out of the box. Most notably the wireless, which has always been a hassle with other installs. There is the above issue with the 3D video, but for an under powered laptop that just runs a handful of work apps and e-mail, I'm happy enough.

Jason Remnant

"If it ain't broken, try the Beta."

Comments

[Uncle B]

Please donate your old boxes to a church-group or some needy student in these hard times! To comply with the law, and with Microsoft's leasing policy, you can now replace Microsoft OS with the free (download from the net) Ubuntu OS, which can be set to erase the hard drive of all traces of the “illegal to give away ” Microsoft system and your private information, before donation! Now, explain to your lucky recipient that all the manuals they will ever need are available for free on the internet! Just ask for them in Google! OpenOffice, which is installed already is plenty adequate for homework assignments and with a little exploring, everything else can work well too! Happy computing!