Windows 7 beta ISO leaked to internet, world
By Laura June 
posted Dec 29th 2008 3:01PM
posted Dec 29th 2008 3:01PM
In case you hadn't heard: delicious, beautiful, mind-bending Windows 7 -- apparently slated for a beta release in January -- has leaked and is now available. That is, if you're willing to, you know, break the law and download the ISO that's floating around on BitTorrent trackers all over the place. The good news here is that the leak is apparently a quite stable, newer beta version (build 7000) than previously spied (6801). We wouldn't know, of course (we try to walk the straight and narrow), but let us know if you've got your hands on it... how's it treating you?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
I'm fairly impressed by this, it uses a lot less resources than vista, which is already a win in my book. I think I'll be switching back to the normal taskbar though.
i just got the beta installed.. i really like the new task bar. i have been actually waiting for something like this.. since never read the works in the taskbar for each application that i switch to then this is perfect for me.
sorry
works=words
Can anybody give word on if this uses less resources than XP?
for those who dont want to download, there are a few more pics at this site*
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/12/26/windows-7-beta-1-build-7000-leaks
thats not my site, dont flame me please!
(Nothing to see here. Just collecting posters' IP addresses. Move along, please.)
why does it show version 6.1 (Build 7000)???
also...if i install this, then will i be able to easily switch back to vista??
(it was a nightmare returning from vista beta to xp)
Well, I'm using build 6936 because I'm using a 64bit processor, and it works wonderfully! Incredibly stable, but the only thing that doesn't work is Google Chrome : (, so I have to use Firefox for a while. Otherwise, the only problem is the annoying "This copy of Windows is not genuine" that strangely only appears below the watermark if I leave my computer on for more than four or five hours. It's much better than Vista!
I got it installed on a virtual machine and it seems to be really good. I really like the new versions of paint and the other standard apps.
Yeah, I'm using the small icons and the option to combine when the taskbar is full. The new functionality is all still there, but it looks more like the familiar taskbar. I like how the buttons glow based on the icon color.
VISTA = FAIL!!!
Tell me about it jonchwong!!!
I am running Windows 7 Beta 1 on my 2004 HP dv4000 w/ a 1.4ghz celeron, 1.25gb ram, and 40 gb hard drive!!!!!
You could never dream about running Vista on this notebook, but Windows 7 works good.
So far pleased after about a full day of running it!
Vista a win? I'm glad we can count on your review being unbiased...
Anyone know if this will run on a HP dv2000 laptop?
Can't mess with my desktop at the moment.
I'm surprised you guys aren't testing these builds or aren't even curious.
I'd imagine if Snow Kitty had similar open development process you guys would be updating us on the latest bowel movement of its lead engineer.
I'm sure Microsoft is very pissed off that they have an army of thousands of unpaid beta-testers to find flaws in their products before they are released. Oh, the horror!
Which leads me to believe that these leaks are intentional.
Totally intentional...
Yea, because those guys did such a great job with Vista
The problem never was getting feedback, it's implementing the changes people suggest. They basically discard most of the feedback, unless one particular issue gets enough media attention to potentially hurt sales.
Beta testers get paid? Microsoft Connect is free to join and you don't get paid to test products... am I missing something? And most of this stuff is forwarded to OEM's in advance I'm sure so they can get their products working smoothly on launch.
Anyhoos, this not only helps MS with finding bugs, but it also hurts them. From an article I read sometime ago, you'll have bunch of people who will send feedback that is totally irrelevant, user error, or ignorant. They have to go through each feedback (as they're trying to work out any bugs) so it ends up killing alot of productivity. So when JoeSchmoe gets his hands on it and not a possible proper beta tester (which is anyone who has a bit of experience with a computer), you'll have a negative effect from a leaked beta.
@BlissX
I find it highly unlikely "JoeSchmo" is going to spend the time and effort to find a feedback form, besides the fact that it would in very simple to exclude non-official beta testers by making them log-in to provide feedback.
@ loosely_coupled
The Send Feedback is integrated in the TitleBar of nearly every window in Build 7000. There's a simple registry fix that'll disable it.
And why would MS make official beta members jump through a hurdle to submit feedback? The point is to make the experience easy and beneficial.
Heh... Nice Betta.
I see what you did there...
Bravo, good sir.
But why is it... breathing?
Betta fish can breath air which is why you see them in pet stores in small 1 cup containers with no circulation.
They also often carry air bubbles down from the surface and release them.
My Betta actually looks just like that one :3
That's got to be one poor betta. All those open computing platforms...
Looks beautiful so far.
I'm waiting for the official beta just cuz I try to follow the rules when it comes to major things like that. I like Vista and Windows 7 looks to be perfection so I can't wait.
uh oh, you actually LIKE vista? keep your voice down...dont let the fanboys hear. its just bait for them...
i mean, im all for vista too, but theres a time and a place for promoting it
I actually like vista also! I firmly believe its only flaw is it hogs a lot of resources. But i think those resources don't go unwasted because a lot of it is cache so programs can load faster which in my opinion they do compared to xp. Vista is also way more stable haven't had one problem with vista where as xp has problems all the time.
Yeah. My laptop with Vista loads programs fast, and I rarely have problems. Only on startup. So I just put it in hibernate mode when I'm not using it. On the other hand, my desktop with XP... Loads sooooo slow. I have tried virtually everything I can think of without increasing the RAM, and that bitch is still slow. I hate it. I want to hook it up with Windows Media Center for streaming movies to my 360... But it's slowness kills me.
I hated Vista until I got my XPS studio. 6GB or RAM and an i7 makes Vistax64 very snappy.
It is a resource hog, but if you've got the juice to run it, it is good stuff.
I never really saw it as hogging resources. When it came out, 2-4gb of RAM may not have been standard but today it's a $25 upgrade so it's not a big deal. It uses the RAM well and scales to the modern hardware. XP seemed like a hog on my old Win98 box with 192mb of RAM but when I built a new machine it was a great upgrade. Similarly, although Vista beta ran OK on my old single core Athlon/1gb RAM box, I didn't replace XP until I built my dual 3.6/4gb machine. XP is great for my girlfriend's older lappy and Ubuntu is great for old computers that are only used as web browsers and media playback machines.
I'm running a rather athstetically pleasing version of Arch Linux here a bit harder to setup but about a billion tim es more customisable and faster just consider that my laptop only has 64mb ram and a 300mhz processor and is running a fully uptodate linux distro without problems
google LXDE if you wanna see screen shots of the desktop environment im using it is very nice and fully configurable as far as that goes I have TWO panels! one for the taskbar and menu and one I put all my program shortcuts on (nobody likes covering up a nice wallpaper with icons do they?)
Vista isn't a resource hog at all in my opinion; I got it running smoothly on my laptop, and it only has 768 MB of RAM.
The problem with Vista and every operating system that Microsoft releases is that the newer version is always way too different than the older version. My mom tried to use Vista on my laptop ( she has XP on her home PC ) and she refused to use it because it looked too different.
Microsoft would have been better off improving XP on a yearly basis instead of releasing a new OS every 5 years. I'm getting really tired of it.
Huh I have had the EXACT opposite experience. so far every machine in our household that has come with vista has been insanely slow for its processor/ram specs.
Even after disabling or uninstalling ALL the "crap" that comes preinstalled on these machines it still runs slowly.
so far every machine I have wiped and installed XP on has works many many times better. Faster cleaner less hiccups.
I think its just bloated. sure I guess if you but them both on quad core processors it would be fine but we all can not afford that.
I don't fundamentally dislike vista. I just hate how slow it is. I also hate the build in DRM. for that reason alone I will not use it.
I'm assuming that if I use this beta, I can buy a copy of Windows 7 later on and validate my install? This would seem to go great with my future Core i7 build...
I'd say no, the beta you download now are completely different from the retail version. You would definitely have to re-install Windows 7 with the actual retail release once it comes out.
Its not the same as using a retail copy on a bittorrent site and then MS forces you to buy/upgrade to a valid license.
Also, most betas are not upgradable to the next version. Even going from beta 1 to beta 2 will likely require a complete rewrite. The same holds true when going from a beta to retail. Most EULA's say the beta will last only to a specific date, which is usually 6-8 months from release. Release 6801 has this written into it.
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification, guys!
You can upgrade between any Windows 7 build (even between the same one) as if it's a Vista to Windows 7 upgrade. People all along that had the 6*** builds could upgrade to 7000..just as I did.
These betas seem upgradeable. Comments left on a torrent on Demonoid state that people faced no problem upgrading from the previous beta build to this one. Apparently, MS is doing its job all proper, right from the betas this time.
As somebody already said it appears you can update these betas which may be a change with 7. However with Vista and XP you couldn't upgrade from Beta to RC, but I think you could update from RC1 to RC2 at least with Vista. I went though RC1 and RC2 of both and Beta2 of Vista.
Yes, you'll have an upgrade path from Pre-Beta--->Beta--->RC--->RTM. Although I can't imagine one wouldn't want a clean install. Have your libraries set another partition.
I installed a couple days ago and it seems pretty good to me. I don't have time to do a full setup with all my apps but everything I tried worked fine and all Vista drivers installed just fine as well. I still can't see any overwhelming reason to upgrade from XP but I'm planning to anyways just to make the jump to x64(not brave enough for XP 64). I like the whole idea of trying to trim everything down an let it run more efficiently. Bloat and slowdown with age are my biggest two gripes with Windows in general..
I like vista a lot (even more now that i built a computer that can run it fast) and i really want to try this beta, but i
dont want to see it till its fiished!
I still have build 6801 installed (But with the new taskbar and Aero Peek.) and I'm really liking it. I'll definitely get Windows 7 the day it comes ou. (Or maybe earlier, if history repeats itself.)
Is it just on my screen or does the image look kind of 3D? Like the bubbles are on a different layer as well as the fish?! Quite awesome!
Just you and your lazy eye.
Hey look, a transparent menu bar, er, I mean start bar. That's original.
The taskbar has been transparent since Vista was released, a certain other OS copied that feature into their menu bar.
Vista has that too when windows aren't maximized, if you haven't noticed. So, if anything, 10.5 Leopard copied Vista.
Vista Retail Date: 30 January 2007
Leopard Retail Date: 26 October 2007
Oh wait, I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro. Maybe I should just be an idiot and assume Apple came up with everything first.
Your comment is starting to look like that taskbar. =)
Meh. I've been using transparent menu bars with Gnome in both Fedora and Ubuntu for years now. I'm not going to complain about other OSs having improved user interfaces because in the end, the better that users can work with their computers, the more amazing the things that happen.
Hate to nickpick in what is obviously a stupid argument, but OS X Tiger had a transparent taskbar...
umm who cares if apple copied a translucent menu bar? its like one line of code for them! theres many more things over the years which each company has copied off another company. some things matter and some dont. the menu bar doesnt
@NewsGuy Well, before that, there was transparency in the dock on mac OS's, it just wasn't "shiny".
Now they have even tried to cover up copying the mac's dock functionality saying that THEY improved on what they have already done.
As usual, Microsoft has FAILED because every time they try to copy mac, they try to give it a "microsoft" touch to it to make it "different"
such as the new dock.. I mean, start bar only having recent programs in there and programs you drag, instead of JUST the programs you drag - makes it very confusing for the average soccer mum.
80% of people polled in a recent survey say they are going to switch to mac. The downfall of Windows is happening right now!
@ChrisTheFeral Well, the good news is that 95.2% of statistics are made up on the spot, so I don't think we need to worry about that 80% switching to mac.
Paul, according to my sources, only 79.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
100% of this post wants to be ranked down
Actually, 100% of statistics made up are bullshit.
The dock is an application launcher.
The taskbar, even in its new form, is an application SWITCHER. The difference is pretty obvious if you use both. You **cannot** manage windows with the dock effectively, no matter how hard you want to.
Let's not discount his claims. It's quite possible that the poll was conducted among customers in the checkout line at the Apple store.
Hey, 100% of you guys need to stop arguing. This is a blog post, for heavens sake. Leave the arguing to trolls and Neowin.
it bricked my world
I Have to say it looks good But Why are the toolbar icons so big?
They can be made into smaller icons. They default at large right now.
.....
I setup a dual boot with my XP system using left over hard disk space as a partition and it was a breeze. Took bout 30 minutes to install and be on the internet. My laptop is a gateway and its over 2 years old, only driver missing was the sound card and windows found the vista driver on the gateway site, installed it and bam good to go without a computer restart no less (cause you know some drivers make you restart).
IE8 is not ready for primetime, but they said if it works for vista it should work for 7 and that seems to be the case so far. It runs so much smoother then my XP partition.
I really just like the taskbar icon changes, where you finally can pick and choose what icons you want to see, if always, only on notifications or never. The desktop slideshow is kinda cool now that its a lot simplier to use.
@Haha
Why are random words in your comment capitalized?
cause they removed the text next to them. There are options to add the text and make the buttons smaller, and 3 other combinations, but honestly this new method of grouping icons (which i hated so much on XP) is really nice. Just leave it as default and you'll love it.
I was worried about that at first too, but it seems that the icons can be made smaller in just 2 clicks, so they actually look normal. And the new taskbar setup ends up utilizing space a lot more efficiently overall IMO.
My friend downloaded Windows 7 over 2 weeks ago, and now its getting noticed? hmmm.....
I played around with it and it was very nice, its has the feel of OSX and VISTA combined.
I give it a 8/10 in my book!
its because this is build 7000 *rolls eyes*
6801 was pretty stable. 7000 looks pretty much the same but with bug fixes and tweaks. I've downloaded it but haven't got any DVDs but look forward to tomorrow. 6801 was a larger file than this (4GB), This is only 2.45GB last night so I'm guessing its heavily stripped.
Yeah.. did they axe windows mail?
This is old news, it was leaked like 2 days ago. It was cracked earlier today.
(:::) Here is your cookie :)
Where's the crack info. I agree though it was released a week ago but no one tried to download until two days ago.
Crack? who the hell goes to look for possibly virus infected cracks when beta 1 goes public in 10 days? with serial keys for all.
@beastage: your mother's got virus infected cracks.
@Boarder
You win the internets 2day my friend :D
Im downloading now, i used the 6801 pre beta with the new UI unlock and it was pretty sweet, stable and fast, how ever there is no app support for any one planning on using this don't use it as your main OS i couldn't even get skype to work... that has nothing to do with MS for those who are getting their bashing keyboards out, the apps/programs just need to updated to run properly on windows 7 which no developers are doing yet.
Apps seem to work fine for me, and I've used both 6801 and 7000..
I have 6956 installed on my HP Tablet and i love it! I like Vista but on my tablet it runs like a dog, win 7 cured it and it now has a new lease on life. Cant wait for the MSDN 7 beta! That will be my new OS.
I have played with the 6801 build on a VMWare virtual machine and it runs very well. I haven't really stressed it yet, but I want to know how it performs with gaming. Any one already try out a few games on it?
Well, i have actually tried Crysis Demo and it runs pretty well. Dxdiag says it has DirectX 11, though i don't know is it really 11 or just 10 with a new number. I've installed Nvidia Vista 32-bit drivers.
VMWare!
*high five*
I've had no problems with games so far. CoD5 and Prince of Persia work fine.
I've been using it all weekend Works great even better then 6801. Read all 4 GB of Ram. Works with all Vista drivers that I've tried. Software works good Except Deamon Tools. Alot Faster and Smoother then Vista. Smaller install foot print. Games work great. Search alot faster.
Does anyone have tips on a multi-boot of this with vista and/or xp32 or xp64?
It's very easy to multi-boot windows i am now tri-booting 3 windows (Vista SP1 32bit/ Vista SP1 64bit/7 Beta1 32bit) ,
As long as there is empty partition, just run windows installation (you can run it from different windows or boot the DVD), select the empty partition and let windows do it's magic.
Windows doesn't always do its magic. My boot menu is actually two separate parts right now and I had to finagle things a bit to do it. It starts with options for XP or Vista and then XP breaks down to 32 or 64 bit. I had to play with Xp and Vista to get that to work. I would have had OSX, but then I remembered I had a SATA drive.
I don't understand the excitment of all these beta's that get leaked.
if the final versions of their software doesn't work, who cares about the beta?
Oh and let's give props to microsoft on making an OS faster than vista...A hurdle cleared by XP 6 YEARS AGO.
You know, windows 2000 was faster than XP was, when it launched. The idea is PROGRESS. XP runs faster becaused it was designed to run decently on pentium 3's and 4's with hardly any ram. Nowadays processing power has increased tremendously and memory prices have gone down, it makes more sense to use our tech to it's potential than to make sure everything still runs nice on an ancient PIII.
I'm sure if you installed MS-DOS it would run faster than XP and use less resources, but is that really worth it?
@frankzappa
well said.
Only saw the x86 in the iso so that is what was installed.... Works really well.. install was much faster then vista and
And...?