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Microsoft To Kill Windows 7 Beta Februrary 10th
mamaphoenix writes "Paul McDougall of InformationWeek reports Computer enthusiasts who want to get their hands on the trial version of Microsoft's next operating system have just two more weeks to do so.
The company says it will end availability of Windows 7 Beta on Feb. 10.
There are a couple of loopholes, however. Users who started to download the OS before that date will have until Feb. 12 to complete the process. Also, Microsoft will continue to distribute product keys beyond Feb. 12 to users who have previously downloaded Windows 7 Beta but have yet to obtain a key.
'We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs, so we are beginning to plan the end of general availability for Windows 7 Beta,' said Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft's in-house Windows blogger, in a post Friday.
Microsoft will post warnings on its Web site that the download program for Windows 7 is about to end starting Tuesday. A final version of Windows 7, Microsoft's follow-up to Windows Vista, is expected to be available in late 2009 or early 2010."
Unfortunately, that's what they said about Vista, too.
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I guess the free press was starting to wind down so they needed to do something big to get people talking again.
Februrary is not on my calendar :(
I went to a MDC and they are supposed to be mailing all of us copies of it. I went there as a Java developer, and was very pleasantly surprised with what I saw that they're doing with .NET (especially F#, which would never fly with any of the groups that I know doing Java EE type work).
Linux users and developers should wish them well. Hope that they do the very best that they can and make an outstanding product. If Linux ends up overtaking much of their marketshare by default because it's another Vista-style dud, then it'll only be a matter of time before Linux undeniably becomes the next Windows.
Headline is a bit sensationalist...
They are removing the ability to join the beta, not killing the OS. I am pretty sure the programmers did a fine job killing the OS already.
It's quite clever having this hugely open beta; they get masses of free testing, but under the guise of "Well it's beta...of course [prod_name] doesn't work!".
It's users that whine the loudest when software breaks; so letting every-day users test their hardware/software with W7 is as much about getting the Joe Sixpacks' to whine at their software vendors early on...rather than just Microsoft applying pressure alone.
Rather clever I think; it should make for a stable RTM all round.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Why have Beta when you can charge people for the first two or three test versions?
It will continue to work after February 10.
All I need is KDE 4.2 on a stable distro but not Windows incarnations. The good thing is that it will happen tomorrow.
There are enough Vista Beta testers already and they've paid billions for the privilege. Windows 7 is just Vista with a new label.... why make the beta available when sheeple can be milked for billions for a more polished junk?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Is it a good thing or a bad thing that this story has not been tagged "andnothingofvaluewaslost?" Or am I just impatient?
In Soviet Microsoft, Beta Developers Pay You!
(Win95, WinMe, Vista)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
(Futuristic Urban Accent)
Last Call for Windows Paradise
Haurry Aup ... Haurry Aup...
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Shouldn't the word "distribution" be somewhere in there?
Insert Sig Here
Microsoft will "kill" the beta in August 1, that is, this is the date of expiration / time bomb.
Microsoft will stop distributing the beta in February though, a date that was extended from the previous due to the high demand.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
an extension beyond feb 10 was announced by torrentors and pirates
'We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs
When can one have enough beta-testers? I mean, they're not doing this to satisfy their engineers, are they?
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
All they wanted was for critics to get a nice build of it to build interest and good PR. The artificial deadlines are just to speed up the critics and get them publishing their review. Getting the general public liking it was just a side effect.
So the torrent sites have a bunch open activation keys... downside is that they expire a bit earlier than the ones you get from MS... I think July instead of August.
Anyway, I screwed around with trying to get Windows 7 working through official channels, but lost the trail shortly after validating my Windows Live! account, so I ended up throwing on a torrent'd copy instead.
My old WinXP laptop that we use for Netflix streaming suddenly caught the VirtualMonde trojan, and I haven't had a lot of luck with various removal programs. So I actually had a reason to try out the Win7 Beta on a spare partition.
I've never actually touched Vista, so I don't have firsthand experience with all of the annoyances that everyone complained about. So far I sorta like the Win7 Beta (the default background is actually a Betta fish, which is cute). Even on my older laptop (Dell Inspiron 8500) it would let me install the old WinXP drivers from the Dell site, and it only failed to recognize a few pieces of hardware out of the box (the NVidia card and the wifi modem).
I'm still trying to figure out how to make the taskbar smaller... I have all the icons down to 32x32 except for the "Start" menu icon which is still stuck at 64x64
The main problem is that the system freezes completely when I try to play a movie or open a picture. I suspect it's twiddling with the video card wrong, but I have yet to find the old menu to disable overlays in Windows Media Player. So I have failed to get it to serve its original purpose as a Netflix viewer, and we still have to boot back to the infected WinXP for that. I can keep the VirtualMonde popup ads under control if I run Spybot S&D for an hour or two after each reboot before opening up a browser. But haven't found any tool that can remove VirtualMonde completely, and it seems to have disabled Windows Update and the firewall.
Anyway, I'll probably toy around with it for a little while longer, and then install ubuntu again and see if I can get Netflix streaming working under that using wine or maybe WinXP under VirtualBox (so I can reset it from a snapshot when viruses hit).
Thought the /. crowd would enjoy this anecdote :P To be fair, this is the first virus I've found on my Windows box in several years, and probably the longest I've gone without having to reinstall to make it usable (I used to reinstall Windows every 6 months or so, and this image is between 1-2 years old).
In contrast, I've reinstalled my main Debian box 2-3 times over the past decade as I upgraded hardware and RAID configurations. But I've still held on to my original home directory and certain /etc files (some of my dotfiles date back to 1999) and of course with dpkg/aptitude it doesn't take forever to rebuild+reinstall the rest of the application environment around it like it does on Windows.
We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs...
Indeed, a Microsoft engineer was recently overheard singing:
Every engineer has certain needs
Talkin' 'bout them dirty deeds
To these needs I must concede
Livin' by my lowly creed
[paraphrased from Red Hot Chili Peppers]
You McDougalls might know a lot about the Windows 7 beta program, but you have a lot to learn about women!
In economics, it's generally known that reduced supply creates more demand, simply by the fact that we are "wired" to believe that rare equals valuable. It's also generally known that you can artifically create scarcity, to boost demand. That's the theory behind all the "just this week" or "sale ends on 31st" or even "only as long as supply lasts" sales labels.
Just saying, you know.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Given that Microsoft has had a massive PR success with Windows 7 beta, why not just let anyone and everyone download it?
A bigger BETA test is better for Microsoft. More people using the Windows 7 beta means that more more bugs will be reported, it will lead to more positive press about the product and that will probably translate to more sales.
So I'll ask the question: Why kill downloads of the beta?
What purpose does it serve other than disenfranchising people who are hearing about Windows 7 through their geek friends?
It's supposed to be "fucking kill"
this is beyond old...
well, i know i'll not be popular for saying this. i don't mind vista. somethings are better than xp, some are worse. i don't have much choice in operating systems do to my gaming addiction. i've gotten 10 different 7 keys. just for the jollies, i threw in a harddrive and loaded it up. it installed on my modern system in about 25 minutes (i didn't watch it) finding all necessary drivers. a couple had to be updated to versions i preferred. it boots faster than vista (mine isn't that slow to begin with), from off to fully started in about 50 secs. i don't care if your's boots slower or faster, i'm happy with 50 secs. 7 seems (to me) to nothing than a repackaged vista, i'm guessing in a hope to get people over the fear/hatred of vista.
My other sig is a knife wound.
Microsoft gave out free copies of Vista Ultimate to those who submitted bugs in the Vista beta testing program. So submit a bug, even if it's something small, and there's a possibility of getting a free copy of Win7.
Is MS being run by 1980s MBA grads?
This is NOT the way to use a public beta to market your product and does NOT help create user 'buy in'.
I wouldn't be surprised if they thought removing the download would make it more desirable.
Idiots.
My brain shutdown at that point in the sentence in a state of orgiastic ecstasy.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
http://xkcd.com/528/ ...better than Vista.
I downloaded it 2.5 million times, and can confirm that downloading windows 7 works fine. Is there anything else that needs testing?
For the curious, the beta actually expires in August of this year.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
this is beyond old...
Old and inexplicable. I keep seeing these random posts in any *nix discussion. Is there some background for this odd troll?
I suspect things would be much more civil and less annoying around here if the Anonymous Coward posting was entirely removed.
So if I have Vista, and I upgrade to Windows 7 Beta...what happens at the end of beta testing? Does my computer still run Windows 7 (presumably I am now forced to either reformat or purchase Windows 7 or does it downgrade to Vista or does it just lock up or do I basically get Windows 7 for free?)?
When installing windows 7, does the software uninstall any defunct Vista components? If it doesn't, can I reformat my computer and use the the Windows 7 install (once I burn it to DVD) as a fresh install? I would like to try Windows 7 on my laptop but just have some questions.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
No problem, you can get Windows 7 beta from a mirror.
https://thepiratebay.org/search/Windows%207/0/99/300
And a senator proposed a bill to extend Windows 7 beta's distribution like the digitial television/TV requirements. [grin]
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Where's the -1 Gibberish mod? Admins: check the IP on that post and send this guy an ambulance.
I completely agree about the attitude of KDE developers, who have basically abandoned their KDE 3 users, as I mentioned in a previous posting. Like you, I am seriously considering moving away from KDE, although since I have a ton of dcop-based scripting calls, it's not going to be just a matter of getting used to a new "Look & Feel". I'll probably try for as long as I can to stick with the latest available KDE3 setup from Ubuntu (v8.04 not-Long-Term-Support) while GNOME advances, and then make the jump when I have to.
Unfortunately, the KDE dev community seems to have regressed into the type of attitude prevalent when the Internet was still in its infancy and the main users were the developers themselves. A pity ... just as Qt, and by extension KDE, was starting to become known outside the OSS circles.
For those who want to point out that KDE4 is "really good" or that I should "really try the latest version because there have been many many improvements recently", you may have missed the point. The point, the SECONDARY point, is not how much KDE 4.2 is better than KDE 4.1, but how it is not as functional as KDE 3.5. And that's just the secondary point. The primary point is that we have to migrate at all when KDE 3.5 is what we're using.
I'm not dissing the devs for making KDE4, and in fact I actually appreciate very much that there continue to be improvements. I'm upset about them pulling support from under KDE3. I'm upset about them not caring about people continuing to use KDE3 until KDE4 is just as functional. (Not "looks prettier" or "is better in the following respects", but "at least as functional" --you can start by putting in all the Kioslaves, please.) Just as KDE 2 went to KDE 3, someday KDE 4 will be nice and beautiful. We shall see, on that day, whether I have already switched to GNOME.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Out of all the things that Microsoft should kill, Windows 7 Beta is nowhere near the top of the list.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I grabbed the beta on Sunday and installed in a virtual box last night. It seems to work well enough. Not liking IE, I wanted to download firefox from ftp.mozilla.org. No dice. Same for www.mozilla.org. I then downloaded Opera, no problems. Tried mozilla.org with Opera, again, unavailable. Then tried the ip address of ftp.mozilla.org and was able to connect and download and install firefox. It works fine, excpet as you might have guessed.. can't connect to mozilla.org. All other websites connect no problems.
I've searched around for other reports of this and found none, but its clearly happening to me. My regular desktop session has no problem with any of the mozilla.org sites.
> They are removing the ability to join the beta, not killing the OS.
Dammit! I knew it was too good to be true...
I just recently built a new PC. I was initially going to stick with just XP, but after hearing that Vista wasn't quite so shit anymore, and that my hardware had some issues with XP, I briefly considered Vista. A friend suggested Windows 7 and I thought what the hell, let's go for it.
:D /casesex! Err, ahem. I used Vista drivers for most things with the exception of the sound card, which uses some drivers tweaked to work on Win7. I'm using the 64 bit version with a mix of 64bit and 32bit applications installed.
;).
My system's quite chunky -- Core 2 Quad, DS3R mobo, 4 gigs ram, GTX 295, X-Fi titanium, velociraptor -- and a Lian Li case
I've had the odd hiccup -- the sound card messed up and I had to reinstall drivers for eg, though I think that was my fault when I was installing them the first time -- but zero crashes thus far. All applications and games run liquid smooth with no hitches (interestingly, WoW has an issue with movement in major cities, but I'm putting that down to drivers) but I'm too afraid to try crysis
The OS itself is beautiful to work with. The task bar is a definite improvement. The network set itself up upon installation, though I needed to manually set up my shares of course. It's a fast PC, so this is probably not a surprise, but everything is incredibly quick. From post-to-start-button takes 35 seconds. After a cold boot, Firefox opens less than a second after the taskbar click. I've had some issues with WMP playing mp3's, I use WMC and WinAmp so it's not an issue for me. I'm a virgin to Aero so I don't know if it's changed at all for Win7 but the prettiness is nice and doesn't interfere with anything -- it gives the impression of a quick and polished OS.
Idle resources are a bit on the high side -- the basic processes uses 1gb of my RAM for eg. I've been informed that Win7 utilises extra ram/cpu when it's not in use and frees it up when things start getting scarce. I can't really comment on that as nothing I have gets me close to 4gb of ram use, but its idle use is consistent with this. I've also heard anecdotal evidence of Win7 running fine on 256mb of RAM and being usable on 128mb. Regardless, 4gb of memory is rather standard these days (being purchasable for $90 NZ) and with this amount, even the A-list games run liquid smooth and don't get anywhere near chewing up all four gigs, despite the OS's use (perhaps it cuts down on mem when the games start requesting resources).
That familiar Office-style set of tiny formatting bars is gone for most windows apps, as are the File/Edit/View/etc menus at the top. Replacing them is a single large thick bar that vertically groups similar functions together, a vast improvement in my humble opinion, and this change is consistent across all stock windows apps I've messed with thus far. There's a new app called Snip that can be used to select any part of the visible screen, and then copy it, scribble on it, or save it as popular formats (gif, jpg, png), kind of like an express combination of print screen and mspaint -- previously the realm of 3rd party apps. My mac pro has a similar widget but it just doesn't stand up to this.
The whole OS is very quick and stable, which is quite incredible when you consider not only is a MS product, it's also a beta product, and not due for release for another year. That's my experience though -- I've heard of a lot of people getting constant crashes and hardware incompatibilities. I haven't bought a MS product since windows 95 OEM but this may just change my stance... a consideration I never thought I'd ever make.
I also invite the wrath of macbois by saying this, but I own and use a Mac Pro next to my PC on a regular basis and so far I much prefer win7 to leopard. don't hurt me!
Note that I haven't used Vista, and as such the above anecdotal experience is a direct comparison between XP and Win7.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
After installing Win7 I briefly considered just using the latest IE beta, before my flatmate used smelling salts on me. I procured firefox using IE just fine. Sounds like it's just you.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Humph! Obviously not Ninnle users.
I keep hoping MORE people will make Ninnle posts! It sure beats the whole IN SOVIET RUSSIA you get to kiss Natalie Portman's hot goatse grits and PROFIT! It adds to the atmosphere of this otherwise boring place.
Does that mean the Developers! Developers! Developers! are done?
And when is Google's turn?
the always underestimated effect of Brooks' Law.
At this point in time, the amount of effort invested in developing the Microsoft Windows kernel[1] and the Linux kernel dwarf OS/360. I would very much like to see parallel works for both of those projects.
When I was first reading about Microsoft Vista I was wondering when they were going to start going up against Brooks' Law. There comes a point with every piece of group-developed software that you just need to rewrite the bloody thing from scratch. That point seems to come a lot sooner with proprietary software[2].
Speaking only from my personal experience, when you work on a piece of software out of passion, out of making something work to do *everything* you want it to do, you tend to continue until it does so. If you're only being paid to work on it, when the pay ends, you stop and move on to something else. Unless anyone else speaks up about prior art, I'm going to call that "Steve's Law".
[1] I admit that's a wild guess on my part, but considering how much more powerful modern equipment is, it has to be correct.
[2] In my experience. And I'll be objective and say that XEmacs development was hampered the same way by being initially developed by Lucid.
A bit OT, but I would suggest you install the KDE apps you like, and then install ...
(Speaking only for myself, as one who greatly prefers KDE 3.5 to 4.x).
I like the way the Window Manager works. For all the years I worked in Japan, I was always able to configure KDE in a Japanese locale even though I have poor fluency in many of the characters used in technical language. KDE4[1] is difficult to configure in English.
XEmacs 21.5 is being distributed in current Linux distros too and that is rather a mistake, for the same reason.
To try to bring this on-topic, is that what Microsoft Windows XP lovers feel about Microsoft Vista?
[1] I've only used KDE4 in the context of a notebook running Fedora 9. I'm disappointed, but I do not use that machine often enough that I am interested in switching it to GNOME.
I installed the Windows 7 beta on a virtual machine to be able to test a remote access package I made for helping out Windows sufferers back in the homeland (the Netherlands) from up here in Sweden. The previous version of the package (which is based around VNC) has worked for years but alas, Vista and the VNC server do not mix. UltraVNC has a new version which does support Vista so I thought I'd give it a try...
The tests are done on a 1.2 GHz Thinkpad T23 with 768 MB (running a 2.6.29-rc2 kernel with Ubuntu Jaunty userspace), not exactly the fastest machine around even though it is my main workstation - developing on older hardware leads to better results on newer stuff... The VM was allocated 512 MB, double the amount of what the XP VM is allocated and three times of poor old W2K's allotment. XP and W2K just work in their VM's without problems.
Windows 7 does not. With all bells, whistles, fancy animations, superfluous services and other ballast turned off as far as possible it still crawls doing nothing and swaps when moving the pointer. This is with the VirtualBox guest tools for Vista installed so driver-wise it should be all-right.
Now you might say 'OK but you're using some really old hardware there with insufficient memory' and you'd be right - if you were comparing it to full-size notebooks. Compared to current generation netbooks my army of T23's suddenly does not look so old anymore... they are right on par with the Eee's, Aspire One's and similarly specced machines (but they have much better keyboards :-). Any talk of running Windows 7 on one of these machines should be taken with a pinch of salt as it clearly requires more beefy hardware and really, really wants to have more memory.
And what does 9 years of Windows development actually bring to the user of a Windows 2000 workstation? Apart from the eye candy there does not seem to be much there. This becomes even more visible when you are forced to turn off that eye candy to get the thing to run in the first place. Why does Windows 7 eat this machine alive on three times the memory given to Windows 2000 while not performing any tasks, while Windows 2000 is able to perform agreeably with 180 MB while running something worthwhile in userland? Memory is cheap, true. But it is only cheap for the current generation of machines. The T23 uses PC133 SODIMM up to a maximum of 1 GB. Maxing out such a machine with current prices would be insane, you'd be able to buy a netbook for the price of just the upgrade. 'So buy a netbook then' you say? I could, of course. But that still does not answer the question of what it is that actually requires so much more memory and processor capacity in Windows 7. As a comparison I could point to my mail/web/fileserver. It runs on a Virgin Webplayer with 128MB of PC100 memory. This puny machine runs Debian testing/unstable with a 2.6.27 kernel. It can run the latest iteration of the Linux kernel with the latest iteration of one of the more popular distributions. No eyecandy of course but still... If 200 MHz of Geode GX1 (which is more or less comparable to a 166 MHz Pentium 1) and 127 MB of memory (1 MB is taken by the framebuffer) is sufficient to run the latest Linux kernel with the latest Debian userland AND perform useful work then surely 1.2 GHz of PIII-m with 512 MB of PC133 should be sufficient to do nothing at all?
--frank[at]unternet.org
The name says it all, it's a View for things to come, that is, paid public beta for Windows.
GeoKone.NET
So my Win 7 install will still run until August 1st. No problem. I'd already decided Win 7 is just more MS crippleware. "Homegroups"? Get the silver stake and hammer ready.
Only boring people are ever bored.