Lightweight Windows 7 pre-Beta on Eee PC 1000H looks very promising
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Oct 31st 2008 4:08AM
posted Oct 31st 2008 4:08AM
Sure, Windows 7 will run just fine on a thick slab of screaming desktop, but what everyone's really wondering is how it'll perform on laptops, or better yet, down-market netbooks. The very same stage that put Linux into the grubby hands of the Wal-mart consumer and forced Microsoft to extend the life of XP just to stay in the game. It's all pre-beta stuff for now mind you, but Laptop loaded up its early Windows 7 build onto an Eee PC 1000H (10-inch, 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB RAM) with decent results. For the most part, it ran "pretty well" with Laptop managing to get the netbook's features working from the XP drivers supplied by ASUS. And just as Microsoft demonstrated, the relatively lightweight Microsoft OS required just 485MB of RAM when Windows 7 was fully loaded, sans applications of course. Hot. There were some problems with graphics performance as demonstrated by jumpy, 720p video playback and video conferencing over Skype. Still, pre-beta is exactly that, pre-beta. Drop a gold-release Windows 7 OS onto an Eee PC convertible touchscreen and Microsoft and ASUS might be on to something come mid 2009.[Thanks, Avram P.]
Wow, that's very hot indeed.
Very interesting that they're able to use XP drivers for it. Are there any changes in the drivermodel for 7?
The driver models are all Vista's, or at least based off of Vista's. For instance, WDDM 1.1. Though, you'll still be able to use a WDDM 1.0 (Vista) and possibly an XDDM (XP) video driver.
I just read an article, on another tech blog, that mentions that this light-weight Windowa 7 pre-beta cannot be worn as a hat.
its a good thing i still have my fro cap then
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikelewis/2287255886/
That wallpaper: WANT!
Microsoft and Apple may have their differences, but they usually churn up some wonderful desktop pics.
I remember when the whole OS fit into less than a MB of RAM. How old does that make me?
ShadowMaker: Not as old as me then, because I remember when the OS used less than 4KB! So how old does that make me?
@ShadowMaker
...about 20.
os never fit into ram. it was a chicken and egg questions.when the ram gets bigger the os gets bigger. it is like the US economy, the bigger the GDP the bigger the deficit.
@jd
Beg to differ. You could actually fit Mac OS 7-9 on RAM and boot from it ;-)
http://osxdaily.com/2007/03/23/create-a-ram-disk-in-mac-os-x/
See post and comments there.
Here's a gallery of all the wallpapers of Windows 7. There's some pretty nice ones there
http://geekpi.com/images/win7/wallpapers/win7/
485MB?!? That's supposed to be a small amount of memory used? Don't most of these things have 512MB to play with? How much does that leave for running anything? 27MB? How's that enough for anything.
I think the standard for netbooks these days is 1GB.
"just" 485Mb of RAM used...rules out the 701 without swapping the RAM then.
There's a couple out there at 512Mb of RAM but most are 1Gb due to the XP license limit so who knows, they might come with 2Gb if the 7 license doesn't have that kind of limit.
Guarantee you that when Windows 7 launches the minimum RAM you'll find on a netbook will be 2GB, if not 4GB.
If you're still running on 1/2 GB RAM you have no friends.
Yes 485MB is a small amount of memory used this day in age. 1GB of ram will only set you back $13 retail
I was so suprised by 500MB being called "lightweight" that I checked my Mac OS 10.5.5 and it's using about 505MB. Is Leopard considered a compact or resource-friendly OS?
HA HA HA!
Of course not. There's nothing special about the Windows 7 RAM footprint, nothing whatsoever. Just bad reporting.
Larry Larry Larry.. (notice the spaces) I thought all Apple fanatics claimed Mac OS X was so much better in every aspect, right now (again notice the beta stage) Windows 7 equals Mac OS X Leopard's RAM usage.
"Yes 485MB is a small amount of memory used this day in age. 1GB of ram will only set you back $13 retail"
That's not the point. The point is that 1GB of memory, despite the fact that you find it anywhere, it's a f***ing huge amount of memory. It's wasted space, filled up by sloppy to plainly dumb programming by Microsoft's "engineers" (not that Apple's are much better, mind you). The point is that we could have ridiculously cheap machines that could do everything much, much faster; instead we have super-fast machines that crawl and give "decent results" even if they have that kind of memory and can carry out more than one billion and a half operations a second: do you have a vague idea of what that means? I guess not, after all processors are so cheap these days.
Wake up, people. Those who prefer the blue pill go ahead and low-rank me.
P.S. For those who think I'm talking BS: see what a well-coded OS could do about 10 years ago, with 64MB of RAM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VDYdaXApNk (at about 2:10, for the impatient ones)
youre making old ass matrix references.....who's the crazy person now??
@giuliop
Yes, that was awesome for 10 YEARS AGO. Technology advances. Try putting a modern TCP/IP stack or a modern Kernel on a 10 year old machine. The fact is that it wouldn't even run because machines back then were 16bit. Modern machines are 32 or 64 bit, which means every single pointer allocated takes over double the space, which alone takes up a ton more RAM. Machines now take up more RAM because they do more than machines 10 years ago. If you want a small footprint, go back to Windows 3.1 or the original Mac OS. RAM is cheap, 500MB of RAM usage for a modern OS is great.
What is The Old Ass Matrix?
I don't get what all this bitching is about. To put things in perspective cellphones are already over 256MB RAM and are about to hit 512MB. I would expect a netbook to pull alot more weight than a phone, so 1GB/2GB RAM shouldn't be surprizing.
(Low rank me before you read)
Gah! You all suck! (except the OP)
I'm running a very feature rich Linux (with Compiz, no less) on a 5 year old computer with 256MB of RAM. Despite having much more features and bling bling, it even runs faster than XP...
Lightweight my arse, micro$ofts code is trash, like it has almost always been....
@JMMGoalster
What a load of bullshit.
LOL, 16-bit machines, 10 years ago? Are you living still in 1999? See, I knew you had something to do with the Old Ass Matrix.
No, 10 years ago machines were already 32-bit. Windows 95 (in, uh, 1995) was a 32-bit operating system, as BeOS, in 1998, was too.
And no, memory and space usage doesn't inherently double in the transition; you made that up.
So, let me get your "reasoning" straight: we have machines that are, what, 10 ten times faster than 10 years ago? Yet, in your opinion, a "modern" TCP/IP stack (which, BTW, does not differ from a 10-year old stack in the least) and a "modern" kernel should run slower. So the "modern" kernel is, let's say, 12 times slower than the old one. And that's because technology is advancing. Right.
You like the Old Ass Matrix, you live in it. Cheers.
Also remember by the time windows 7 comes out it, RAM will be even cheaper then it is now. So having 2gb or 4gb in a netbook wont cost what it does today.
Windows 7 = Vista Pro! 2GB will be minimum and probably 4GB to be more practical.
@pizzahurt
did you even READ the Engadet article?
These days the coolest blog commenters don't even read the article, they simply head to the comments section to preach verbatim they heard from their fellow Joe the Plumber
@ game24
My four year old Tablet PC which is lower spec than this netbook runs Vista just fine. And this is my daily use and drawning laptop.
@roach
Dude, you work in slow-motion...
Wait. why are you trying to run a 720p vid on a 1.6 Ghz CPU with no real GPU acceleration?
Works fine on the XP version. It's a good benchmark.
Basically it's slightly less heavy than Vista and, according to the article,Vista runs on an eee pc just fine as well. I don't know what constitutes as "just fine" but 7 also takes less RAM than Vista. Unfortunately 7 is not capable of running 720P which XP can.
I guess it's a step in the right direction. I'd like to see all netbooks use a dual core atom though. Current gen is just too weak. Skype video is a good test, at a minimum you should be able to have 2 way video.
@Nihility - "Unfortunately 7 is not capable of running 720P which XP can" ... um, sorry?? Is 7 released and have you tried this? It *probably* didn't do crappy 720 because of the crappy XP drivers running in compat mode.
1) I'm obviously talking about the pre-beta "a step in the right direction. However that my not have been completely transparant.
2) "It *probably* didn't do crappy 720 because of the crappy XP drivers running in compat mode"
The graphics on it doesn't decode the actual video, just the CPU does that. So that's probably not the reason and considering how vista doesn't run 720P as well you're just being silly.
3) Still a valid benchmark and atom is uber lame.
>The graphics on it doesn't decode the actual video, just the CPU does that.
Untrue. Most graphics hardware these days will do some measure of hardware acceleration for you.
Maybe we should wait until something more developed than a pre-beta version of an entire operating system exists before we start assuming that performance won't improve....
if 7 goes the way of vista, it could get worse as it is finalized.
hopefully no useless features will end up in a netbook version, because they certainly will on a desktop version. like multi touch support. how many people need that?
It may just be because I am stubborn when it comes to upgrading(if I can do everything I need already, why upgrade to a beefier OS?) and quite the minimalist...
But...that still sounds like far too much RAM usage and need for me. Maybe I'm spoiled by Linux and XP's relatively low RAM need...but what exactly is all that ram getting used by? and to do what?
You should try out Windows 95, it only needs 8MB of ram
I still have 95 installed on my old computer. (although sometimes I play with Linux on it)
Which is pretty much only used nowadays to play SimTower and be nostalgic.
Have you tried Windows 98? It only requires 24MB of ram
24mbs?
Who do you think I am, some kind of Richard Branson type character?
Ahem...what's the point of running 720p video on a 600Px high screen ? (other than a rather inaccurate benchmark).
What exactly does Windows 7 bring new to the OS game that would convince a non-Linux user to switch from XP on a netbook ? for a Linux savvy the advantage of Linux distros is that they can be remastered to fit a specific user and netbook's needs. Imho Microsoft simply can't touch that...
and yes, 485MB RAM is *not* lightweight, no matter how cheap RAM gets ! Personally i use XP as my main OS but Linux alternatives for old workstations or new netbooks far outclass MS. Puppy Linux for example comes loaded with everything u'll ever need on a netbook, all in 90Mb ! And on an old machine startup times for the OS as well any application that has equivalent version on Windows (such as Pidgin, Opera, Firefox, Abiword) is at least half !
Netbooks won't pass the 2GB Ram barrier any time soon simply because some manufacturers are interested in keeping things cheap. Besides, as far as i know current processors employed on netbooks are x86 only, so no RAM over 3.5 or whatever the limit is...
Sure, things will change by the time Windows 7 is out, but i doubt that much...
Having watched the Linux scene for many years and having a number of builds on various machines since I work in IT, you will never escape the fact that Linux is too rough around the edges for normal users other than enthusiasts. As can be noted by the number of returns for the Linux Netbook models.
Having become very used to and happy Vista, and still having a number of XP builds lying about, I really don't want to go back to XP. In fact I always run XP under MS VPC on Vista if I need to.
Vista on a Netbook is too slow at the moment, so I would be very happy to be able to run Windows 7 and so would many users.
The MIE shell on Ubuntu for the HP Mini 1000 looks interesting, and if done well might convert a few more people to Linux, but generally I think much of the Linux implementations have a long way to go due to the open source nature.
Linux on a netbook needs a major company like Google behind it to give it a better user experience.
Also, Poulsbo, which is something I would like to have in my netbook, only supports 1Gb, I hope that changes soon or a nice poulsbo alternative pops up.
I have Vista on my MSI Wind, which has pretty much the same stuff inside (Atom 1.6 GHz, 1GB of RAM...), and it works wonderfully. Reviews showed that it goes even faster than XP on most benchmarks, and I noticed my computer boots faster on Vista than my friend's Core 2 Duo Toshiba Laptop. It's no surprise Windows 7, having a lighter kernel than Vista, works.
Plus, if it runs slow at the time, it's probably because it's a debug build, with symbols activated.
Damn, I'm very tempted to install this on my 901 now. Only thing is I JUST installed Ubuntu-eee (and fell in love). Hmm... maybe I can put an SDHC card to good use.
Do you have access to the pre-beta build???
It's all over the net as of yesterday.
Engadget, for the millionth time .. I have been running Windows Vista just fine on a 1000H for MONTHS now.
It just works great .. even without tweaking. It runs as fast as XP. Even Aero work (albeit with a slight performance jab as the chipset in this thing sucks balls).
I may be a certified professional for Windows Vista but it just runs great out of the box for me.
It's interesting to note that the same site wrote about using Vista on the same laptop: http://blog.laptopmag.com/eee-pc-1000h-runs-vista-home-premium-with-few-hiccups
Yet you imply that this is some special Windows 7 ability. Maybe the amount of RAM it uses. But there's way too much hyperbole and stridency when talking about these things. It would be great if a tech blog actually had a handle on the facts rather than repeating and reinforcing what are often mistaken impressions.
Is Windows 7 above customised for Netbooks or will it release in the same lightweight fashion for desktops as well?
I ask this in all honesty:
What's the clear and distinct advantage (for me) of running Windows 7 OS on a netbook?
I'm still waiting for the answer to that question regarding running Windows Vista on ANYTHING.
What's the advantage?
What's the benefit to the consumer?
Don't ask me; if it were still compatible with the latest software, I'd still be running Win98SE!
Even so, XP was a huge leap forward in terms of features and stability;
I guess Vista's deal was security and some "me, too!" OSX features--which was a good thing.
So now with 7 we get the security, the "me, too" OSX features, some genuine interface improvements, and a smaller footprint.
But really, I still like to boot to Win98SE, just for fun. Those were the days...
Greatly improved security against malware and viruses, instant search, shadow copies of files, improved wireless networking, built in DVD authoring, vastly improved audio stack (with discreet controls for separate programs), 'breadcrumbs' in explorer, just to name a few under-the-hood enhancements.
So, why don't they make the "lightweight" version the regular version? If it runs "decent" on a 1.6GHz Atom 1GB RAM Eee PC, it should SCREAM on a high end laptop or desktop, and give us lots more available memory for those of us who run "serious" applications like compilers.
The point is it's not a lightwieght 'version', it's just lighter wieght than vista, because so many people bitch and moan about that being a system hog.
To be fair, my vista setup uses over 1gb with only a few background apps running, so all those whingey people probably have a point.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't pre-beta and RC versions of Vista far more light-weight than the final build?
I'm excited about 7, too, but I wonder if the final build's footprint may explode in size after some late-stage modifications.
No....The betas and RC or Vista were painfully slow... and memory hogs... Idling at 450-600 depends on how long you had it on....
they also seemed to self destruct in about a month....RC1 was like a rock RC2 was crud... don't know why they went with it....SP1 is like RC1 again lol....
also with super fetch Vista uses more memory if you have more... so say when I had 1Gb it used 250-300mb idle... now on my new machine I built 4Gb... no bloatware on either systems.... I idle at 450....
so from betas the memory usage wend down at least 150mb....
That was my Vista Beta2 - RC2 experience.... the orig RTM about 2 weeks in was a hog as well.... they fixed most of those problems though.
What worries me... is the fact that Dell and other put so much freakin bloatware on the machines ....
Also the free Antivirus that comes with some ISP's are extremely memory hogs.... I have seen Xp idling at 350mb.... wipe out AV it goes back to 150....
my numbers all have avast on it....
no.
beta 2, was far more ram-eater...
I'm amazed Engadget posted a semi-Microsoft friendly article on their site.
"500MB of RAM usage for a modern OS is great."
Yep. And 20 grams of chocolate a day is even better.
This is 500MB of ram usage on a netbook without everything running. That is totaly insane and I don't care if RAM is cheap.
With XP64 loaded, a few windows of IE, and Outlook running my system is using 425MB of memory. There is not one thing that Vista or Windows 7 will do better, other than run DX 10. All of my programs run faster than they would if I installed Vista on my work machine. If I installed Vista I would have to upgrade my computer to get the same performance without gaining any new usability.
That is why Windows 7 and Vista fails. I would much rather buy a netbook with XP than Windows 7. There will be no features worth having to make up for the performance deficit.
Windows 7 could be a good OS if they reduced the memory footprint and made the OS run faster. Instead it will be dead in the water just like Vista. It will sell millions of copies because it will be preloaded on new computers but corporations will still keep XP running as long as possible.
They will keep it until Microsoft finally declares XP end of life and businesses will be forced to upgrade for fear of support and patches for a buggy OS. It's the Microsoft way.
They got Windows 7 to work on a 1.6GHz Eee PC, with 1 GB of RAM? Oh man, I like Windows 7 already!!
SO, choppy video playback isn't caused by Windows7, it is caused by SHODDY CODECs. Removing the default microsoft codecs was the only way to get ffdshow/coreavc to run in WMP12. Now that I've got it working, windows7 IS better than XP!!!