Ok, so i watched a few more of the larger E3 pressers and have had my brain filled with gaming based goodness - and badness - coming in the next 12-18 months. Here’s how i reacted to the rest of the conferencess i watched in the format of the Fail Scale.
I’ve also added elements from the Microsoft Conference, even re-evaluating some with a little bit more of a mature outlook.
I must admit; i think getting my Windows 7 beta machine ready for a rebuild has been one of the more stressful experiences of my computing life.
I’m not sure if it’s my server, an issue with the beta version of the software, or just the gods of karmic retribution casting a negative eye on me but i’ve been plagued with issues. Mainly in copying files over the network and from place to place on the machine, i couldn’t get through a batch of files over a few gig without explorer deciding it didn’t want to play. Not crashing you understand, just out right stopping, with a progress bar of meaningless need just plodding along the top of my screen but never reaching the end.
Of course the fun began in true steed once explorer actually crashed, rendering my machine useless. Yes it bounced back nice and quick but it become useless.
Trying to use anything but the shut down button would result in an error message of epic proportions, a simple full stop which was helpful, i must admit.
I guess i’m complaining over nothing, since the only issues i’ve really had with W7 Beta have been trying to get rid of it, something i guess doesn’t really matter in the design scale of things!
Anyway, time to install the Release Candidate (finally! slight delay and all) in x64 type win.
So, the next stage in Windows 7’s lifecycle starts today with the legal, publically available version of the Release Candidate coming to a download source near you. It’s now been… 115 days since i installed the beta at it’s release.
I’m quite excited to get the new version installed and see all the awesome changes to this already solid and really rather nice all together OS.
In 17 hours time, it’s time to get my reformat on!
As i write this post on my Laptop, Windows 7 is slowly making its way to being my OS of choice of the Desktop machine.
The first thing i noticed is that i’d forgotten my machine has a stupid way of handling boot devices but that’s by the by.
Initial boot was slow it sat on it’s all new BSOC (Blue Screen of Conception, lol) for a long time, long enough for me to reboot once thinking it had died anyway as there were no activity lights but it was the same case after a restart and so it took 7 a short while (10 minutes) to to give me the setup window (shown).
Bareing in mind this process is allot more transparent in XP before Windows had a GUI from the off, so the lack of visible progress made this seem quite a long phase of inactivity.
Once at that stage things have been ok, the only other noticable change is that on a fresh install in a new partition, 7 makes a system partition of 200meg, why? No idea.
Things are chugging along nicely now and it would seem the physical installation is almost complete after only 10 - 15 minutes and a single automated restart. One rather interesting moment is that at around 75% setup killed my main monitor and popped up on the other one, continued to 100% and has stayed on monitor two.
It’s time to create some logins.
Same old same old although minus an Administrative account setup and it would seem 7 now forces password hints, something i’ve never seen the point of in a day-to-day use system. Oh well.
Key goes in, seems M$ now stick everything in UTC (R.I.P GMT), network type selection (for use with HomeGroup and other permissions) and the HomeGroup setup itself. Not bothering with this as i don’t have another Windows 7 PC! Yet, anyway.
DeskTop. Ta Da!
Not bad at all, including my own impatient reboot and wandering off during setup; it’s taken all of 45 minutes to get to the desktop, if i had more patientence and the attention span more than that of a gnat i dare say setup would be done easily within 30 minutes.
Now to actually use the thing. More soon.
The lovely people at Microsoft have today released an official beta version of Windows 7 - hoorah!
Although it’s been available for weeks on the various torrent sites around the interweb i have waited untill an official release so i may get a true beta experience; which will undoubtedly be the same anyway.
It’s the thought that counts.
Currently the download is at ~500meg and coming down my internet tube* at an impressive 434kbps, well done Be Unlimited! So hopefully soon - and by soon i mean when i back up my machine and all of it’s magical content - i shall install it and all will be well.
I’m actually looking forward to this.