Hi, how many of you have finally done it?

I had to boot back into Vista this afternoon as a payment I wanted to make wouldn't complete it wouldn't let the Vista Secure page come up Plus I couldn't get my phone to work with the Bluetooth dongle I have so had to take photo's of the phone by going into Vista

saverio said:

Hi all, this is my first post on the forum, but i've been reading with interest for some time befoere jumping in!

I'm ready to do a clean install, so i'd like to ask,

So, how many people on here are running Windows 7 Beta as their main OS now?

Do you have Vista installed as a backup, or are you so confident in the new OS, that apart from a few teething problems which are communicated through feedback you feel that it's stable enough to run as a main OS?

hello saverio and welcome to the forums

Mr GRiM said:

Hi saverio and welcome to the Forums,

I am dual booting with Vista ussing seperate HDD's and using Windows 7 as my main operating system and to tell you the truth, the more you use Windows 7 the less you will whant to use Vista and the older it feels and if you are coming from XP I think you would just be amazed at all the great features and inovations, just make sure you have all your updated drivers ready and you should be good to go.

If you do run into any problems you know where to go, good luck

lol yep if have any problems please post them here...

Dzomlija said:

I agree with Mr. Grim on this one. Vista is looking old now compared to Windows 7.

I also first went the dual-boot route, just to check it out. I was so amazed with the changes (for the better) and the stability of a BETA, that a few days later I decided to wipe my entire system, and now I'm running only on Windows 7.

And the one conslusion I can draw is this: If this is the kind of stability Microsoft can offer us with a BETA product, then I think the final release is going to be something spectacular!

in time we will see if promises to be even better management of resources that vista has (which has been shown...)
i just hope that it keep going that way

smarteyeball said:

I still have Vista and Opensuse installed, but I've been using 7 as my main OS since installation.

And yes, Vista is already starting to feel decidely old hat XP feels archaic

Same here
i have to wait until JG preaches Gentoo...
(have OpenSUSE in a backup and Both ubuntu and OpenSUSE as a live cd)

Baatfam said:

I went with an upgrade from Vista 64 to Win7 64...so it's my only OS on my main PC...
So far it's working fine with all my video editing software.

It was a new build though, so I wasn't risking much. I still have my old machine with XP and my wife's Vista laptop for backup.

And I agree...I don't want to go back to XP or Vista...

im pretty sure most people that have been trying Windows 7 and dont have a programs that only run in xp or vista (or have games that have pb...)

arkhi said:

This is my Main OS, on my Main machine, on my hard drive. I backed up my HD in to a .vhd file before I upgraded so I can return when I'm done evaluating but some idiot deleted that back-up (my fault anyway since I just borrowed the external HDD..)

I'm basically forced to accept this as my main OS (I wanted to revert), and there's just too much here to simply reformat it. In the long run I learned to love it, and indeed right now I do. I've used Easus free partition manager to move my files so I can create another partition. And from there I installed Vista in any case I need it. I'm happy with just Windows 7 though, it has bugs but it's bearable. If it's too much, I can always dual boot on the vista partition :P

yes it has its bugs but for the most part its really stable (well it is based on the Server 2008 kernel which is one of the most stable kernels made from MS)

damoh said:

I single boot with seven. Vista got wiped

yep on my test machine vista was done for...

MikelMolto said:

Hi All

There were some major steps in Windows.
Win 3.1 was a good one WIN98 kept me long time happy then XP and I always was saying that I don’t need more then XP. I never tried Vista.
And now I found Windows 7 (in mistake). I was planning to install my XP new, because it became slow. I had all backups and I just gave it a try with Windows 7. Never went back and don’t like to go back.
I am afraid about August that I cannot buy Windows 7 here in Brazil and must go back to XP.
Please Microsoft (if you can hear me in this Forum):
-Don’t make it more slow
-Work hard and don’t let me run again XP

Thanks and Regards Mikel

i think this is what MS is trying to do....
they want to show performance and it shows that they still have some even in outdated hardware (no offense to those that have i have a P4 and havent had the money to update my rig to anything like a Core2Duo

killercat said:

Hi,
my first install was a dual-boot with XP pro. I didn'n expect to keep 7, so I simply chose a free 10GB partition to try it.
As it turned out, 7 worked great. (where my notebook + Vista RC1 = hell on earth )

So I decided to give the official beta build a more comfy home^^
Single booting now. I'm Using the XP disk as ext. USB-storage.
Basically, since it's a XP install with the USB modifications, I could run it from there, but I never bothered to try it; there was simply no need for it (so far).

oh i remember the days of the vista beta and longhorn milestone now that was buggy!
but they set the framework and base for the next operating system which was Server 2008 and you saw the reception with that OS (there are people who are turning it into their personal OS of choice.... i should i was one of them [since i got it for free...]

saverio said:

WOW !

Thanks everyone for the great welcome and response!

Well you gus and gals have made my mind up!

I've had a copy of vista Ultimate x64 ready to install, and downloaded all my device drivers for it, so hopefully it should all be good to go.

I've got the apps I use now with vista ready versions and where possible x64 versions.

I dont really have any games just lots of 3d modelling and cad software which are all certified vista ready and compatible, so that should be cool

I've been saving a nice 15K scsi drive for this so hopefully since Se7en has been stripped of some of it's flab, it should hopefully boot like a rocket!

Also I've been reading that it's got a feature that allows people with poor eyesight to still use large resolution monitors buy adjusting font sizes within all apps and windows - my partner has poor eyesight and at the moment we use a resolution manager to allow her user profile to load at 786 x 1024 instead of the monitor's native 1200 x 1600.
If this is the case, then it beats apples equivalent hands down

Anyway thanks for the votes of confidence, you've made my mind up for me!

yep same here

3ds Max is a wonder in 64bit (there is no noticeable overhead and i believe an actual performance gain...:))

saverio said:

On the iso download it says:

7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

does this mean I have build 7000?

the first 4 # mean the build number the second 6 means when it was compiled and built (date 12/12/08)
and well you should be able to read the rest...

michaelg said:

Hi all.

I am dual booting with winxp and windows 7, with the odd linux distro making a guest appearance.

The more time i spend with win7 the better i am appreciating it.
In fact i have got to the point where i find that i hardly bother to boot into xp anymore.

Which considering this o.s is just in beta is an indication of how good the final release will be.

we will see .....
there is still a way until june and august when they say that they will ship for the back to school season
but it does look good...:)

Chappy said:

Hi

Like allot here, I use Win7 as my main OS now but I keep Vista as my dual boot and I will until Win7 becomes an RTM.
Since W7 is still a Beta, a stable and useable one but a BETA after all, I'll keep Vista useable in case a Clean install of a newer W7 beta build goes bad or "burps" and decides to muck things up. I don't anticipate that happening from what I've experienced so far with W7, but we must remember this is still in Beta and anything can happen.
I find it a bit premature to be relying solely on a Beta OS as an Only OS, so until W7 is mature enough for RC1 (at least), I'll have Vista ready to boot into if needed.

thats what most people should do
as for me i already imaged my 7000 desktop into a image file (using waik)
and now have replace the regular installation with my custom install.wim in my usb HDD)
some if something happens i can just boot from usb and be able to go back almost instantly....

wierdo124 said:

I only have Windows 7 and Linux on my rig now. Got rid of Vista

lol you are not the only one...

napilopez said:

I am triple Booting Windows 7(x64), Vista(x86), and Ubuntu(32bit). It is set to boot up 7 by default.

I only have Vista because-

Wait, why do I have it there?

*goes and wipes his vista partition*

:P

any app that might not play nice with W7 ?

smarteyeball said:

Because the beta has a time limit....

what he said too

Chappy said:

And there's that issue too...
Oh well...we still have 7 months to Play without Pay!!

saverio said:

What happens when that time limit expires?

Do microsoft turn around and offer you continuity for a price or is it a case of suck it, it'll just stop working till official release date hen you will have to buy a full retail version?

That's the bit i'm dreading actually, the cost that MS will put on this, lets face it I have no problem with paying 100 or so for Mac OS X as it's only one level of OS, but knowing that Microsoft will start doing all those versions when they know that really all that was ever worth selling was home premium / enterprise / and ultimate was a big mistake.

They should imo get rid of home basic and business, and just have ultimate and enterprise - which would be ultimate without the media pc aspect but with all the security and server features still intact.

From what i've read it's this that caused so many problems with the original release of vista as people thought 'vista capable' meant being able to run ultimate no probs when their three year old budget laptops and desktop bc bundles.

there will be at least one public RC for sure before release so you can keep going and bug testing... (that is what you are doing correct?...)

smarteyeball said:

Since the RTM will be a later build, you *may* be able to purchase the RTM copy and upgrade your existing beta installation. This will be unlikely however as the beta will most likely (99%) expire before the RTM version is released.

However, a Release Candidate should be available before then and you *may* be able to upgade your beta to the RC and then upgrade the RC to the RTM version.

they will have to...
if i do remember correctly you could upgrade from vista beta to RC

twinkycowboy said:

I am downloading W7 now, but my biggest concern is drivers and other compatibility issues - so I am just going to ask lots of questions before installing it.

I am really glad this forum is here, and I think it will grow much bigger in the future.

yeah whenever you can post up a thread and so can see for sure...
you will have the best chance of compat with old hardware with the 32 build....

if you have recent hardware and have more than 2 (would recommend 3 or more...) gigs of ram and your are able to find 64 vista drivers you should be fine....