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."

Comments

Oops

[bwintx]

We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs...

Unfortunately, that's what they said about Vista, too.

Re:Oops

[CrackedButter]

Microsoft can never have enough beta testers as history has proven.

Re:Oops

[dotancohen]

Unfortunately, that's what they said about Vista, too.

No, what's unfortunate is not that Microsoft feels this way, but that KDE feels this way. Microsoft has a beta product that people are generally happy with (Windows 7). KDE has a released product that many people hate (KDE 4.x). I don't need to say that KDE is open source, and that things were reversed just one year ago, and all the other obvious trolls. I do however want to remind us that KDE doesn't really need users at all. I have been using KDE for years and I've stuck with the 3.x branch while the 4.x branch is developing, but more and more often I feel pushed away. If it is simple usability reports that they are not interested in or other little things that add up in the KDE community. I think that they are really forgetting what is KDE.

I repeat that I am a KDE user, but as KDE 3.x is being made obsolete I am looking for a new place to go. it's a shame because I love Kate, Konqueror, and Kontact especially. KDE 4.2 betas are beautiful and work like they should (Aaron Siego is a genius, what he has done with Plasma). But the developer community is scaring me away.

Re:Oops

[CajunArson]

Try out the latest KDE 4.2 RC1 builds on any major distro of your choice. I'm running Kubuntu which has historically had many people complaining about breaking KDE, and even in Kubuntu 4.2 is a REALLY nice environment to work in. Major issues people have complained about are gone (you can hide or shrink the size of the taskbar, there is a quicklanuch applet that brings quicklaunch back to the taskbar, and if you hate the new KDE launch menu system there is a popular alternative called Lancelot you can use instead). Finally, if you don't like the new system for dealing with desktop icons (I personally think the new system is brilliant since I can represent multiple folders on my desktop at once) you can turn your entire desktop into a folder view with file icons anywhere. There are some VERY cool features in 4.2 as well, like plasmoids that actually work correctly, a compositing system that is better than compiz IMHO (less bling, more actual functionality), and most of the apps you love in KDE 3 are ported over at this point, but you can still run KDE3 apps in the KDE4 environment just in case they aren't.
    I though KDE 4.1 was barely useable, but at this point, 4.2 is my preferred desktop over KDE 3.5 or Gnome or the (surprisingly slow) XFCE. I will say that the 4.0 release was handled poorly. The KDE developers did try to say that 4.0 was intended for developers to hack on, but unfortunately the big 4.0 number seemed to attract distros that should not have released 4.0 as a replacement for 3.5. The KDE developers did have a good reason though, because 4.0 was a signal to KDE application developers that it was time to get on the ball and start porting things to the new infrastructure. KDE does not have a huge developer base, and resources can't be wasted on trying to develop for 3.5 and 4.X series simultaneously. 4.0 was the milestone where the underlying infrastructure was ready for developers to begin making the improvements that are now becoming visible in 4.2 and will only get better in future releases.
   

Re:Oops

[Dystopian Rebel]

Look, it's hard work building botnets. After all these years Linux *still* can't get it right.

Re:Oops

[vyrus128]

Wow. Has "KDE doesn't need users" been a Slashdot story yet? I know it's out of date, but really, that deserves some exposure...

Re:Oops

[nlawalker]

I'd submit mine for Linux but I can't figure out who to send it to.

Re:Oops

[Jeff Hornby]

I think you're confusing Microsoft with Google.

Re:Oops

[Tanktalus]

First off, I'm not sure that you can take one blog post as representative of a community's position anymore than you can take a single response on slashdot to represent the community's position. For example, in this blog post, while I see what he's getting at, I think he's missing a bigger sociological issue: for many developers, it's the users that drive their contributions. If no one is using it, they may not contribute (as it may be working well enough for them). It's only when a user comes in and says, "hey, you know what? It'd be awesome if your product does X" that they may realise that, hey, it would be awesome. Maybe not for the blogger you linked to, but not only am I unconvinced that this is representative, but all we need to do is find a couple of developers who think the other way (as in my example) to show that KDE, like most OS projects, really does need users.

As for your "simple usability report" - I'd like to point out that KDE said there that they have UI guidelines that explicitly reject this layout. It's nice that they actually do have written usability requirements on their applications and that they enforce it. Now, we can all disagree as to whether the guidelines are appropriate or not, but it's a sign of a good organisation that they get these things down in writing so that their developers can concentrate on functionality rather than eye-candy. If the guidelines said that the toolbars were allowed next to the menubar, it would be just as good from the developer perspective - rather than debating whether to allow it or not, wasting a bunch of time on their own dev lists, they just know whether to allow it or not, and the problem is solved. Basically, what this means is that rather than having a conversation with individual developers, you need to have the conversation with the over-all KDE UI owners. This actually is good for you, too: if you convince them of its usefulness, you won't need to convince the owners of kmail, kate, konqueror, kontact, knode, ktorrent, etc. Most likely, they'll just make a change to kdelibs, and all of these will get the functionality for free. If you fail to convince them, you know better than to waste your time (or theirs) trying to convince individual devs.

Personally, having submitted many bugs to KDE, especially since I'm running the 4.2 snapshots as if it were production, I'm not finding the issues you have. My biggest issue is really turn-around time on serious bugs... I'm sure if I found the right developer in the project and handed him/her sufficient cash, that'd change. Or if I found the issue myself and submitted a patch, it might change.

Re:Oops

[geobeck]

Nah, Google just labels its beta products accurately.

Re:Oops

[dotancohen]

Thanks, Tanktalus. You will see that a lot of KDE devs responded to Harris's post with "we _do_ need users!" posts of their own. And Aaron Seigo's refusal to remove the "cashew" turned out to be the right move after all. However, I feel that there are roadblocks _everywhere_ in KDE now, especially in the usability department. The HIG is being broken all the time, in fact, the HIG specifically forbids MDI but Dolphin, Konqueror, Kopete, and many other applications have tabbed interfaces. The person responsible for the HIG takes no outside suggestions and when people have asked how they can help contribute to the HIG, she either does not respond or she insists that users cannot be involved in the development of the HIG. She says that it is a "conflict of interest".

I also have filed hundreds of bugs for KDE in the past few years, and only lately have I felt that my input is not appreciated nor wanted. Of course there are exceptions, such as Aaron from Plasma, Peter from Dolphin, and the entire Digikam team. But Kontact is near abandonment, when the Bug Team tried to organize a Kontact Bug Day they were not interested. There are outstanding issues in moving events in Korganizer from years past, and they just keep adding up to the point where I am afraid to move appointments now. Kmail has certainly improved, though.

Little by little I am bleeding off KDE. I have moved from Knowit to Basket, found Basket terrible, and have settled on the terrific Zim. Digikam is being replaced by F-Spot next month. Thunderbird has already replaced Kmail, and to be honest I always used Opera or Firefox instead of Konqueror for browsing. With the exception of the KDE desktop, I still use Kate (VIM could easily replace it) and Kontact (which due to abandonment from the devs may need to be replaced anyway). So instead of the unified desktop that KDE was supposed to be, I am right back with a hodge-podge of unrelated applications and frankly, Window 7 is starting to look rather good. I have no problem paying for the software if it does what I need, and vendor lock in is not an issue in Windows any more than in KDE. I don't _want_ to leave the secure environment that is Linux, but I want a complete package that does what I need. KDE seems to have no interest in providing that anymore.

Re:Oops

[darkmeridian]

Microsoft always gets lots of beta testers for its software. I mean, every pre-SP1 operating system has been great beta programs.

Re:Oops

[furby076]

No, Google just never removes the beta logo and falls back on that. How long did it take gmail to fall out of beta?

Re:Oops

[EyelessFade]

Is it out?

Re:Oops

[Risen888]

KDE has a released product that many people hate (KDE 4.x).

Give it a rest. KDE has released a product that many people absolutely love, but as is typical in the free software echo chamber, the haters get way more airtime. Feel free to hang out in the late 90s as long as you want (really, it's cool, I've got a closet full of red flannels too), but the rest of us are moving on.

Re:Oops

[Enderandrew]

KDE 4 lets you use KDE 3 and older QT apps just fine. You can use GTK apps just fine.

I suspect you were using the horribly broken Kubuntu packages. The Kubuntu guys didn't know to package KDE properly and made a mess of things.

And frankly, if the brand new, still being developed KDE 4 wasn't good enough for you, why not stick with KDE 3, or try Gnome?

I don't get going to Windows for most people. Then again, I do actually prefer Windows to Gnome. That's just me.

I also recommend you check out KDE 4.2 on openSUSE in a VM.

Re:Oops

[dontmakemethink]

How does a question get modded informative?

Re:Oops

[Hurricane78]

So you call the people using the Google servers "not enough"? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The good thing about Linux is,its diversity, which makes it very hard for virus developers, to find a generic "solution". Unfortunately, this is a bit true for all Linux development. (Except that you have real access to the system when you're doing normal software.)

Month

[mvanvoorden]

Februrary is not on my calendar :(

bad headline

[socsoc]

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.

Re:bad headline

[jellomizer]

Having a Beta, I would say it is better then Vista. It actually looks and feels more Linux a Linux KDE system. I can't really judge how much faster it is as I am only running it on a Virtual Machine, although it runs much better then Vista.

I would really suggest that as many people who hates windows to beta test Windows 7. And report the bugs or issues to Microsoft.

As 3 results will come out.
1. Delay the program for a decade again creating more hatred towards Microsoft for not having a good version. Thus creating more interests in Linux and Macs.

2. They will fix the problems and actually make it a really good OS. Thus we have a good OS to use that is PHB Friendly. As well enough to scare the Linux and Mac community a bit to get more innovation out of them, as both sides have been slacking off for a few years.

3. They will ignore our anwsers and nothing will happen in this case you can say I've told you so.

Desktop Readiness

[Toreo asesino]

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.

The world is their test site

[gelfling]

Why have Beta when you can charge people for the first two or three test versions?

Re:The world is their test site

[Zwergin]

Why have Beta when you can charge people for the first two or three test versions?

True. Oh wait... they already did that with Windows Vista, didn't they? I believe this is just a "refined" version of Vista with some more bells ,whistles and yet another new skin/look. ~Zwergin

Re:I'm looking forward to my copy.

[jonaskoelker]

If Linux ends up overtaking [...] then it'll only be a matter of time before Linux undeniably becomes the next Windows.

Really? Why would that be?

Also, in which sense would Linux become the next Windows? Which salient properties of Windows would Linux acquire?

I think much of "what Linux is" is determined by two factors: POSIX standards and unix flavor, plus which distribution you use.

I don't think anyone would stray too far from the general POSIX-ness of Linux; what would be the point?

The distributions are more free to vary along other axes; mostly about how many and which choices they make for you.

[For example: I've heard that on Ubuntu, firefox talks to NetworkManager to find out whether the computer it's running on is on-line. Gee, that's nice except I don't use NetworkManager because it doesn't do automagic bonding.]

Since the distributions are free to be very different as long as they interoperate well, I don't think you can say that Linux will become anything specific; any particular distribution might, but the users will always be able to choose another distribution.

Unless of course your scenario is that most distributions die and one particular distributions gains most of the market share.

Good thing or bad thing

[taliesinangelus]

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that this story has not been tagged "andnothingofvaluewaslost?" Or am I just impatient?

Re:Betas

[TaoPhoenix]

In Soviet Microsoft, Beta Developers Pay You!
(Win95, WinMe, Vista)

Wow that's a misleading headline

[shoptroll]

Shouldn't the word "distribution" be somewhere in there?

Horrible headline

[Jugalator]

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.

Re:Horrible headline

[The MAZZTer]

My beta says July 1st (run winver).

feb 10

[rubycodez]

an extension beyond feb 10 was announced by torrentors and pirates

Torrent versions should still work through July

[rwa2]

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.

artificial scarcity

[Tom]

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.

Why?

[Ckwop]

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?

Re:Why?

[DragonTHC]

Microsoft is going to leverage that PR success by creating the illusion that windows 7 is a scarce resource and thus raising the price for it. This, of course, will result in a massive retail failure for the company. If MS just charged $80 for the full OS which can be deployed any number of ways, they could once again own the remainder of the market share.

Re:What?

[warsql]

I wouldn't want to manage 1,000,000,000 beta testers reports. After the 1,000th report of feature x breaking, the point is taken.

What happens when beta ends?

[furby076]

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.

Re:What happens when beta ends?

[tlhIngan]

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.

At the end, it dies. Either upgrade to the latest beta at the time, or the released version.

It's called a "beta" with the anticipation that it has a good chance of screwing up and deleting everything if you hit the wrong combination of keys. Thus, the first instruction in the install is "back up your data", made all the more poignant by the MP3 bug (fixed in an update).

A fresh install is definitely a good idea, with perhaps a different hard drive as well. And it's a full install, so you don't need to upgrade, but the caveat is, when it dies, your computer will just boot to a screen that says "This copy has expired". Now, if you dual-booted, just boot back into Vista, and it should automatically see your Windows 7 drive so you can recover any precious data you may have accidentally left on it.

That might actually bite Microsoft in the ass when it comes time and millions of machines are suddenly locked out. Then again, the Vista recovery CD has a file recovery program that'll mount NTFS and let people copy data off it to a USB hard drive.

Anecdotal Win7 experience

[duckInferno]

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.

My system's quite chunky -- Core 2 Quad, DS3R mobo, 4 gigs ram, GTX 295, X-Fi titanium, velociraptor -- and a Lian Li case :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.

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.