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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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Februrary is not on my calendar :(
Why have Beta when you can charge people for the first two or three test versions?
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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!
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.
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?