Microsoft announces availability of Windows 7 Beta and Windows Live
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 7th 2009 9:10PM
posted Jan 7th 2009 9:10PM
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yep
On January 9th, the Windows 7 Beta will be available for Windows enthusiasts to download via the Windows 7 page on Windows.com. The Windows 7 Beta is going to be available download-only (we’re not sending out physical media) and available for a limited time to the first 2.5 million people who download the beta.
The Windows 7 Beta will be available in English, German, Japanese, Arabic, and Hindi, and each language will be available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions (except Hindi which will only be available in 32-bit). Because the Windows 7 Beta will be offered download-only, it will be provided to you as an ISO image (an .iso file) that you download. After downloading either the 32-bit or 64-bit ISO image of the Windows 7 Beta, you will be required to burn the ISO image to a DVD to install Windows 7. So you want to be sure you have a DVD burner before spending the time downloading the ISO image.
To burn the ISO image of the Windows 7 Beta to DVD, if your PC comes with Nero or Roxio products – you should be able to burn the ISO image to DVD. If you don’t already have DVD burning software on your PC, you can also check out ImgBurn which is free and can be downloaded here.
The Windows 7 Beta only supports Windows Vista SP1 to Windows 7 upgrades. So if you intend to do an upgrade – be sure it is on a PC running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1. We are not yet announcing anything regarding finalized upgrade paths for Windows 7.
The Windows 7 Beta will be only available in one edition, which is roughly equivalent the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista.
Also, another important thing to keep in mind is that the Windows 7 Beta will expire on August 1st, 2009.
so will Microsoft refund me for the Vista that I just purchased or give me a newer version?????
hello i have window xp (HP computer) is this just for vista only or for all computers down loading. and is this a free down? and or how much will it cost us......
ehhm..is it just me or our consumer trends carried out while sleeping or under the influence ? Millions of consumers are still dealing with vista glitches...Millions! one of the glitches does not allow people to gain access the Internet. Without Internet, consumers cannot get the daily/weekly de-bug updates. So a Fortune 5 company, whose profits do nothing but rise is swindling a million costumers. Imagine going to a bakery to buy an unbaked loaf of bread. Or buying a car and soon realizing it is no assembled ? Or a computer program that is not fully finished....Vista! So It ok for Microsoft to dupe millions into buying un-finished non-functioning software now they want to drop it! And we're getting excited by it ?
@Rob
I have two questions:
1. What if I want to do a fresh install. Like after I burn the ISO to DVD, and then I clean out my harddrive so its like I have a new hard drive with no OS on it. Will it work?
2. Do you mean that the beta we install will automatically de-activate? If so, what will happen to our computer, will it automatically go back to our previously installed Windows Vista SP1?
Thanks!
Wow...its quiet in here.
yep.
SSSSShhhhhhhhhhhhh.........................We're trying to watch the keynote.
And hey you, down in front. Your blocking my view!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, since all the fanboys are quietly (and enviously) waiting for the Snowy Kitty to come online too...
Poor things...
Blah, not waiting until Friday and it's not up on MSDNAA, time to grab it off the bay.
Last time I checked we don't get betas in msdnaa... But I do hope that we'll get Ultimate this time instead of just business...
I'm getting it officially from Microsoft. I don't really trust rorrents.
Me too. I'm conflicted. I want to try it out badly, but would rather wait for an official download. But that's not till the 9th (I know that's only 2 days, but damn). Oh well, wait it is.
I have it from the torrents, works fine.
he said test drive, so does that mean we can download it (the .iso) on friday?
You don't trust torrents so to remedy your trust issues your downloading from Microsoft?
Yes sfn
I'm getting it from the official source, who may have any kinks worked out, not to mention this beta will last until August. The unnofficial stuff will expire 30 days after installation.
I believe most MS download pages have the file;s checksum listed.. ... Just compare the CRC/MD5 number to the new file and you'll know if it's been tampered with ..
I downloaded IE8 beta and to tell the truth - besides its ability to resume sessions - I'm not impressed.
I get page errors when I go to engadget on it and on top of that, the text box is buggy and the scroll bar jumps around. I also notice its even SLOWER than the already slow IE7.
I'm running Vista Premium on my DV6835nr and thus far, no problems so I'm not gonna take the chance screwing myself up with 7
composition fallacy
I had those problems with speed too. I later did a clean install and used IE7, and it was actually faster than IE8. Then I upgraded it, but I didn't lose speed this time. It renders a lot of websites better than Firefox and opera, but it's still slower. Since IE is a part of Windows rather than a standalone browser, my guess is that a slow IE probably means that your system is infected or damaged like mine was.
I tried IE8 and got crash errors whenever it tried to resume a session.
Google chrome is by far way faster and better than IE7 or IE8
@wrapper lightsaber.
Not being a Google fan I'm an Opera Guy myself.
Would you suggest not bothering with Beta and just staying with Vista. Truthfully I do not fully understand what the difference is?
Who the hell uses IE?
Get Firefox.
I'd be all over this but the betas get deactivated and I'm not going to reinstall 500GB worth of music production apps again in 6 months or so. If the beta is so awesome just release the full version already eh?
I'm in the same boat regarding music production apps - but am dying to give it a go. Especially since I skipped on Vista.
You could run it from an external HDD, just to give it a shot. I already got the beta, and I'm going to try it out tomorrow.
I installed the 32 bit beta 7000 that leaked last week and I liked it, so I know I'm going to upgrade from XP (it's gotta happen eventually), but I just have too many things to install and not enough time on my hands.
Thats what partitions are for. Keep windows on one partition and the 500gbs of stuff on another.
lol wow insta fail. Why not just learn to manage the hard drive better? What if the copy of windows you have has a fatal error from which it cannot recover? What happens to all of your 500gb of data then? I'd give harddrive partitions a try my friend. It is a good practice to partition the hard drive so that windows is installed on one partition (C:/) and data on another partition (D:/). That way if one day windows fails, you can do a clean install of windows, say from a recovery disk, and NO data is lost. That said, you can also make a partition to TRY windows 7. This way, no data is lost, on August 2009 you can delete partition with windows 7 and go back to the regular windows you have on another partition. This is known as a multi-boot configuration.
ps. Windows Vista lets you manage hard drive configurations from within the OS, so no special software needed. Start, right click on "Computer" then select "Manage". On the panel, select "Disk Management". You should now see what the current hard drive configuration is. Right click on a partition, and you should see some options. Shrink Volume is to make a current partition smaller, (takes away free space) and extend volume makes partition bigger (by using unallocated space made by shrinking). Unallocated space can also be made into a volume. Google for more help.
You don't know much about beta software do you. You release betas because the folks who make the software aren't going to own every single f-ing computer ever made. They need consumers' feedback to let them know what hardware is incompatible and to let them identify potential problems with stability. For instance, I installed an application with a known compatibility issue (in this case, Daemon Tools lite). When it installed, the Windows 7 beta diagnostic app told me there was a known incompatibility. I installed it anyway. Guess what, my computer blue-screened and restarted 4 times before it cleared out the lingering startup commands (the application's installer failed, so it kept wanting to reinstall). I actually found a small hack on the internet to deactivate a different system component that conflicted with the Daemon Tools application. There was another application like Daemon Tools that I installed, called VirtualCloneDrive. It installed, used a verrrry similar hardware virtualization system-modification, yet it ran into no problems, and it caused no crashes.
Also, there are video games, some of which have code written to detect what operating system you are running. So when you either install them or try to run a copy of the game that you had on your Windows XP partition (in my case, I tried to run The Witcher), then you can report that data to Microsoft so that they have an accumulation of bugs to analyze.
You've never been a programmer, I am willing to bet. I was at one point a killer programmer for the TI-83+SE. In that tiny calculator's operating environment alone, there are plenty of bugs to run into. Think about the trillions of lines of code the master/head programmer has to keep up with at Microsoft. He has to trust his grunt workers to properly create portions of code, then he has to mix them into a working collection of programs.
You know that you sometimes make mistakes at work because you're either tired or distracted. The same thing happens in Microsoft's workplace. Yeah, I know, it's scary: they're humans too.
Watch the movie "Grandma's Boy". There is at least one person like the main character working at Microsoft.
by the way, I hate Apple...but I don't love Microsoft either. Linux is what I advertise. Microsoft is beginning to become more like an honest company. They've run into enough litigation, and Bill Gates is getting older (meaning he's softening up the way humans do when they get older--it's a psychologically-based requirement of humans).
2 questions: can anyone get the Beta from microsoft for free? (non illegally) and will it work ok in Boot Camp?
Thanks
1) yes on the ninth anyone can download it for free
2) thats up to Apple, but seeing how the drivers worked in Vista, then yes
Well, probably not legally.
It should work fine in bootcamp, because it'll just pick it up as an NT build.
@cj actually it will be completely legal. Did u even read the article?
Download is always legal, the upload or share is illegal. because it's against the EULA.
What is the tentative release date of the retail copy?
Love those "I'm a PC" stickers they've got over the logos of the laptops on the Windows 7 page. I guess that's one way of hiding a company logo.
I am downloading Win7 from msdn now. I already had a copy from pbay.
pbay?
so is the public beta going to work past 30 days?? like are we all gonna get keys for this?
With reg hacks u can get 120 days, unsure about key releases though.
OMG it's true! I'm downlading the x64 build off of TechNet now!
This beta lasts until August 1st, 2009.
It's in the EULA.
one quick question can i install it and have a dual boot with vista ?? So far something like EasyBCD is needed for dual booting. Does it have to be installed over Vista ? anyone here with dual booting and how he/she made it to share some of his knowledge ? :)
Yeah if you install on a new partition, your boot menu will let you choose between windows7 and vista automatically.
Vista and 7 have a boot loader. if you have 2 partitions on your hard drive that you boot Vista from you can install 7 on the second partition and whenever you start up itll ask you which OS you want. (like if you have a recover partition that your pc came with you can format it and use that...or just make a new partition.)
Thanks Guy and Anthony :)
So the leaked torrent is the same beta that was announced tonight right? Also, does the leaked torrent also last more than 30 days? How long does it last?
And I also want to dual-boot. How big should my partition be?
10 gb +
What if we already got it off bittorrent?
I checked out the Windows Team blog and noticed the following (potential) red flags for me personally downloading the Windows 7 build on Friday that I thought I'd share with the class:
"The Windows 7 Beta is going to be available download-only (we’re not sending out physical media) and available for a limited time to the first 2.5 million people who download the beta."
and... the big bombshell:
"The Windows 7 Beta only supports Windows Vista SP1 to Windows 7 upgrades. So if you intend to do an upgrade – be sure it is on a PC running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1."
I'm not as interested anymore.
Good lord, don't upgrade anything for this. Install it on a new (throwaway) partition.
Bob, I would advise to never do a BETA operating system upgrade. Always do a fresh install on another hard drive or partition.
You can right click Computer in Vista and click on Manage to bring up the Computer Management console and you can go to Storage and create a new partition. Would recommend minimum of 10Gb.
I just installed Windows 7 beta last night on my second hard drive for a dual boot with my stable Vista SP1 OS and it is working awesome. Fast startup and fast install.
Always good to have a stable OS somewhere for all your day to day stuff as betas always have some problems.
Can't wait to download on Friday. Had an earlier beta that worked great, but I assume keys will be given with this one so we can actually run it until August :)
Just checked Technet and it's there. Also interesting that they have a bug fix in there to download that fixes some corruption issues when playing MP3s. They even have a warning in the info there to make sure to backup all of your MP3 files and not play any of them until you install the patch. So I don't recommend anyone to play their music with a copy downloaded from a torrent site if you don't have the patch.
From the info there:
To protect your MP3 files
1. Before you install this Beta release, back up all MP3 files that might be accessed by the computer, including those on removable media or network shares.
2. Install the Beta release of Windows 7; download and install the Update to Windows 7 Beta (KB961367) located on this page.
Yup, it's on MSDN now for those with a subscription!
Also, why is there an update for mp3s or something? If I install the beta I got from a torrent, can I get the update?
how big is the 64-bit iso?
Sure, my two-and-a-half year old laptop with 1.7GHz Pentium M, 1.25GB DDR2 RAM, and Intel GMA 915 integrated graphics isn't all that great, but I'm curious to see how well Windows 7 runs on it, so I'll probably give this a download. Besides, my XP is about due for a reinstall anyway (haven't reinstalled it since I got the machine), so I've already got all my stuff backed up in preparation.
Here's hoping that W7 runs as smoothly as has been implied.
I'm running it on one with the same specs (1GB RAM), except it has an X700 (128MB).
It works BEAUTIFULLY. Except, Aero won't work on your graphics chip, so you'll be stuck with Aero Basic, or Classic.
3,230.10 MB for x64 DVD ISO
2,497.48 MB for x86 DVD ISO
I don't have a technet of msdn subscription, but i'd really like to check out the beta. Does anyone know at what time on 9 january the beta will be publically released? (I'm in Belgium, so i'd need GMT or a locale on that time or something). Or do you guys think 2.5mil keys will be more than enough for everyone to go around?
Cheerz
Is the beta the same as the 7000 build?
Jep, build 7000 is béta 1.
Cheerz
thanks
For anyone who is running this on a laptop, I have a question. When you click on the battery icon Do you get a message saying: "Your battery is bad and may cause your computer to shut down quickly."? I am dual booting windows 7 and windows vista, and I don't get the error message in Vista. Is this a bug?
Microsoft's biggest enemy is Microsoft. Windows needs to be better than Windows.
Ballmer needs to...well you get the idea. I wish they finally get it right and listen to
the consumer and not the lawyers or the marketeers or Ballmer. I have totally skipped
Vista, I really don't like it at all. XP is the only solution so far that sort of works right.
I remember the Me horrific days, my PC would have to be rebooted 6-7 times a day.
All while the Sun Workstation ran without a hitch for 6 months. When you add all the
security issues, it is exasperating. MS needs to start out from scratch and BUILD
the security into it from the ground up.
Seems there is a few bugs with windows 7 and laptops atm.
Mine seems to be running hotter both cpu and gpu after I installed windows 7 on my hp Dv8000t.
Anyone else experiencing the same thing?
Same crap - different wrap.
Read the benchmarks.
Different opinions.
Read the reviews.
I may give this a go on my netbook.
And now we have to buy a "new" version of Windows because Vista was a bust, wonderful, I wonder how much this is going to cost us
Windows 7 is great and all ... but what's with all the Windows Mobile signs as the picture for this story? Is there any news on that front? Because that would just make my week to finally get a new version of WinMo sometime in 2009.
windows 7 had better be good, vista is really frustrating.am not anxious about the looks, but rather security, and performance....and of course compatibility with other applications and hardware........Good luck
Can't wait!
Does anybody know if Windows 7 well over ride the Vista Boot Loader (I assume it well)
My System already dual boots Vista and XP, I had ubunto on a another drive that I deleted (now going to be used for Windows 7)
I'm not sure if I need to restore the Vista bootloader
I wonder if the BSOD is cooler in Windows 7 than the one I get in Vista ... every few hours.
I used Vista in home & work for more than 2 years, never seen BSOD in my home laptop or work PC , the only time i saw BSOD (not on my PC or laptop) it was Hardware issue (faulty Bluetooth driver) & bed HDD cluster
Ahmed, even though it is extremely likely that this is just FUD, lets give Mandrew the benefit of the doubt.
What kind of spec is your machine, Mandrew? What are you doing before it bluescreens? On modern hardware (and most legacy hardware) Vista is extremely stable. You shouldn't be having that experience, and you don't have to - maybe you've got an old component somewhere that can be replaced, or a poorly written driver that should be updated.
The tone of your post implies that you are not after help and intend to disseminate the idea that Vista suffers inherently from BSOD problems, which is unfair on people who want to be able to make informed decisions.
Your trolling or something isn't right with your computer.
1.Can i upgrade from a 32-bit Vista SP1 OEM to the 64bit Windows7 Beta or am i forced to stick with the 32 bit version?
2. Will the 64-bit version exclude the ability for some older 32-bit programs to run?
3. I have over 1TB of saved TV programs recorded via windows media center on a secondary hard drive. If install either of these new OSes on my boot hard drive, will i lose the ability to read data (recorded TV) on the secondary drive?
Never ... Never upgrade......... always fresh install ,
If I installed the windows 7 beta with no key, how long can I run it for? I've heard 30 days, until July 2009, and August 2009. Which one is it?
90 or 120 days if you use the slmgr.vbs /rearm every 30 day. just Google it.
but I am talking about if I want to run it legally without any cracks. How long will it last?
That isn't a crack. It's a Microsoft built in timer reset that allows for longer testing. Same command worked for Vista.
So that is the only way to get it to run until July 2009?
Is there any advantage to being a beta tester such as a discount on the full version when it comes out?
Anyone who has ever used a Mac knows that Microsoft Windows blows. The viruses, the blue screens, the 27 steps to accomplish one thing, etc, etc, etc.
As funny as the Apple commercials are, they are true. They wouldn't be able to get away with that if it weren't. And Microsft's response was laughable and made them look even worse.
Mac is now compatible with everything, runs faster and more smoothly than Windows, and is MUCH easier to use. Mac even gives you the option of having Windows on your computer along side Mac osx. They are completely stomping Microsoft in the competition to build the best computer.
Yes, I know you're just a troll, but here goes anyways.
Viruses: In a hacking competition last year, 3 OSes were put to the test, OSX, VIsta SP1, and Linux (don't remember the distro). Mac OSX was the first one to be accessed through a security vulnerability, followed by Vista much later in competition. Just because it has a smaller marketshare, and is a smaller target does not make it more secure. Especially without AV.
As for ease of use...have you ever tried to show hidden files on OSX? That, and various other power user type things, are damn near impossible on OSX, but are much easier on Windows.
Blue Screen vs Gray Screen, same concept, same frequency, different color.
Apple doesn't get away with a lot of what they say in Europe, and have been fined several times for misinformation.
Compatable with everything? Wha? I'm sorry, but really?
And last...building the best computer. You mean Apple makes a better computer than Microsoft? Maybe that's because Apple makes computers, and Microsoft doesn't! It's like saying Betty Crocker makes better cookies than Nalco Chemical. No crap.
Oh, and the best computer is one you make yourself.
Compatible with everything? Where is the HDMI port on my new Macbook? I can't seem to find it...
Ah! Ah! Ah! Best Window ever. Considering that all previous version SUCK big time.
It sur will be the best one they ever created but surly not the best operating systeme ever...
So, to anyone that downloaded it already: what's different to the build 7000 already going around?
(besides, obviously, that it's a more official download)
Gee, it would be nice when Win7 is actually released if they gave it free to all of us that got stuck with the crappy Vista when we bought new machines, huh? But I guess I'll just end up being BLEEPed with this freaking paperweight that no longer does anything but provide a molasses internet connection because I don't have the cash to buy a new OS.
Lmao...MS don't anything for Free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They what that $$$$$$ Vista was a big Joke to MS
The best was Xp.
Microsoft should provide a free copy of the equivalent Windows 7 O/S to everyone who made the mistake of purchasing Vista.
That would be a good place to start.