Windows 7: Try the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 RC Today!

z3r010 · 04 Mar 2009

Quote:

Last week we announced the Release Candidate (RC) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2. We initially made it available for TechNet and MSDN subscribers. Today, we’re making it available to anyone interested in testing SP2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 prior to final release.

You can download the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 RC from our Customer Preview Program site or install through Windows Update using our Windows Update Experience Kit.

If you have the SP2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Beta installed, you will need to uninstall that first before installing the RC.

You can also check out the SP2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 RC notable changes here. And you can submit feedback on SP2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 here on the TechNet Forums.

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win7 · 04 Mar 2009

Working well but after using 7 on the same machine i can't see much point, other than the lovely theme by vishal AeroVG.

Its using more disk space and more memory though the actual performance is not much different from my seven install. Better with games due to driver support, my WEI is .5 better in vista sp2rc for gfx but im not sure vista WEI works the same as 7 so...

I may see about grabbing the extra games etc while its installed to see if they work on 7. Could be cool.

petrossa · 05 Mar 2009

what's weird is that the build on that site is an old build 16497, whilst the most recent build which i have now installed is 16670.

16497 is a bad build, slow and eats processorcycles like the great munchy monster, 16670 closely resembles win 7 in performance

win7 · 05 Mar 2009

Im not sure why this is, the 16670 was leaked a while back.

But can agree even though its using more of my ram and disk the performance is not far off seven.

petrossa · 05 Mar 2009

hadn't noticed the ramfootprint before but indeed with the same setup footprint went up from 23% to 29%. Most be said i don't use virtual memory.

The diskactivity i can't pinpoint, i have most distributed over 4 hd's.
I merged the program files & program files (x86) between vista and windows 7 on one disk, the os's on 2 other disks and a data disk for both.

Looking now, where before under sp2 before 16670 i always had all 4 cores active going in idle from 15% to 45% over all cores!

At present with 16670 i have intermittently 1 or max 2 core which hover about 9% and the rest silent.

They'll have to pry 16670 from my dead cold hands.....

win7 · 05 Mar 2009

Im not that impressed but yeah its not bad, i will be getting rid of it for 7 RC though.

petrossa · 05 Mar 2009

If win 7 comes for a reasonable price i might consider switching. Haven't found much that would get me to shell out more then 100 euro, given the faint diff between the 2.

win7 · 05 Mar 2009

I find 7 better on systems with lower spec.

petrossa · 05 Mar 2009

Never tried on a low end box. With the average midrange box you'd be hard put to notice any real difference in everyday usage between the 2 os's.

Benchmarks just are way to measure how well your box runs a benchmark, great for the fanmags but precious little to do with normal use.

If my app launches 2 ms faster or slower, if i use 10% of 8 gb or 15% who cares

win7 · 05 Mar 2009

If you tried this on a system like my laptop then 7 you would notice the difference, but sure if you have more than enough resources you will not notice.

Windows 7: Try the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 RC Today!

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