Windows 7 RC Build 7100 Installation/Testing

by **imnuts** » Fri May 01, 2009 4:23 pm

Figured I'd start this since no one else has thus far. I installed the 32-bit version last night on an old laptop that used to be my girlfriends. It's a Dell Inspiron 9200 with a 1.8GHz Pentium M and 512MB of RAM and an ATI 9700 mobile graphics chip. Installation took about half an hour, probably about the same as the beta build. I am very impressed though over the beta build. I didn't have the glass/transparent windows before, but this build does after the graphics driver was installed via windows update. Speed is on par with XP for the machine and I'm quite surprised at how quickly it's running given the fairly low specs of the system. I only really installed it on the laptop as I'm going away and want to use it for remote desktop to my main machine while away. Currently, the x64 build is installing on my main system and should hopefully be done in about 20 minutes. I think that if MS continues on the path that this seems to be on, they're going to have a winner as this feels more like what Vista should have been as it's fast and so far, stable. I also like the new desktop themes, and despite the Cartoon theme's odd looks, I like it thus far.

by **yeshuas** » Fri May 01, 2009 4:42 pm

I too installed Win 7 X86 on a Dell laptop, with lower specs than yours in some areas.

I have it running on a Dell D520 Latitude w/1.73 MHz Celeron M and onboard Intel GMA 950 w/256 MB Ram, mine does a little better on Ram as I have 1.5 GB.

Like you, I am impressed with the speed and performance on the laptop since it is low end by todays standards.

by **BILLMCC66** » Fri May 01, 2009 4:58 pm

You are making us non techs drool :drool:

because we have to wait a week for our turn.

I also have a 5 year old laptop (not sure of the specs) maybe i can try it on that.

by **yeshuas** » Fri May 01, 2009 5:02 pm

BILLMCC66 wrote:You are making us non techs drool because we have to wait a week for our turn.

I also have a 5 year old laptop (not sure of the specs) maybe i can try it on that.

Buying a subscription from TechNet was the best money I have ever spent, the price is about what you would spend for one OS purchase.

by **shreader** » Sun May 03, 2009 3:32 am

This was a Vista SP1 to Windows 7 x86 Upgrade install.

I started w/ a clean install of Vista x86 (no key) w/ 4 applications installed. I began the install booting from within Vista w/ the Win7 DVD.
From hitting the next button to arriving at the 7 desktop took 45 minutes on this old clunker.

Compatibility Report

First Desktops: Aero gone & low resolution: 1024x768

2 updates & back in action.

This was definitely a good user experience.

Syetem specs:
ASUS: K8V Deluxe
Athlon 64 3000+ 2 GHz w/ 512K L2
2 X 512 Corsair PC 3200
GeForce FX5900 /128 MB

by **shreader** » Sun May 03, 2009 1:55 pm

Yesterday I tried out Homegroup that is built into & auto setup in Windows 7 for networking between Win7 PC's.

It worked really good once I entered the HG PW found in Control Panel.
I added a 616 MB folder w/ photographs to the Pictures folder & it became accessible to the other HG members.

Moving files from Test rig 2 to Test rig 1, just drag & drop the folder on Tr 1 desktop.

by **Grav!ty** » Sun May 03, 2009 3:03 pm

My installation was quick and easy, on a clean third SATA disk attached to the system in my signature. Setup pulled my existing four OS's into the BCD without any issues and I only had to rename the Windows 7 entry and reset my XP install as the default with VistaBootPRO.

I had a bit of problem with drivers for my GPU (GeForce 7900GS 512MB) and couldn't set the resolution and refresh rate properly till I downloaded and installed the latest GeForce Beta drivers from nVidia - 185.81_geforce_win7_32bit_english_beta.exe

I'm very impressed with the stability and general user feel of the OS.

Here's a screenshot of my desktop...nice to see some South African landscapes there and this one was particularly appealing to me as I've spent many nights at the top of that mountain range near the peak on the right (The Sentinel). That part of the Drakensberg (Dragons Mountain in direct translation) is known as The Amphitheatre

by **imnuts** » Sun May 03, 2009 3:12 pm

I got it installed on my main system Friday and the x64 build is really nice as well. I've only had one issue so far and that was this morning transparency was turned off somehow overnight and I couldn't find a way to re-enable it. Tried logging off/on and restarting but still didn't work. I ended up having to change my theme to one of the pre-packaged themes to get it back, and then had to re-customize my theme. This time I saved it though so that if it happens again, I can revert back to it hopefully. The system was noticeably faster though when transparency was disabled, not that it wasn't already pretty quick.

by **augie** » Sun May 03, 2009 4:03 pm

I just installed X64 and Graham is right about the driver, has anyone tried to OC their GPU yet? RivaTuner tells me that the driver is not supported. I'm going to try nVidia's Precision next but I'm not too excited by that prospect but maybe it'll work.

by **augie** » Sun May 03, 2009 7:09 pm

augie wrote:I just installed X64 and Graham is right about the driver, has anyone tried to OC their GPU yet? RivaTuner tells me that the driver is not supported. I'm going to try nVidia's Precision next but I'm not too excited by that prospect but maybe it'll work.

OK, installed the Vista 185.81 beta driver instead and 'poof', the magic dragon appeared and RT is doing it's job! :()