Windows Vista Beta available for DL.

[Sterling_Aug]

http://www.msblog.org/?p=746

Get it while it is HOT!!!

Also available at Microsoft.com

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

[AllGamer]

it has been available Officially for quite sometimes as far as i know.

:t

[Sterling_Aug]

No it wasn't. Now it is available to the IT professional general public as the Customer Preview Program.

It was only available if you had a Technet or MSDN subscription which I did not have. You will also be able to get the RC1 version later on this year (maybe?).

[Steve R Jones]

Get Ready for Windows Vista (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx)
Getting ready for Windows Vista, available in early 2007, means choosing the edition that's right for you and ensuring that you have the right PC to enjoy the experiences you want.

Windows Vista Beta 2 Customer Preview Program
Windows Vista Beta 2 is now available for you to install, test, and enjoy. Here's the information you need to try it now.

Evaluate Your Current PC
Run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor beta to help get your PC ready for Windows Vista.

System Requirements
We recommend that you consult the Windows Vista Capable and Premium Ready PC specifications for system requirement guidance on running the core experiences and advanced features of Windows Vista.

Get Windows Vista Beta 2
Windows Vista Beta 2 is available as a download or on DVD. It's time for clarity—try it now!

Windows Vista Beta 2 Resource Center
Once you have installed Windows Vista Beta 2, be sure to visit the Resource Center to download the Windows Vista Product Guide, find anti-virus software for Beta 2, and discover more information that will help you get up and running quickly.

[CrazyCrusher]

Yup Im downloading it now, Oh im excited, in a strange yet scared way if you know what I mean, funny thing is I had a customer call our techsupport center today having connection and web page viewing problems I asked him what Version of windows he was using etc etc, ah and to my surprise he was using windows Vista beta 2 poor guy, I had to tell him I am unable to provide you with support for that product at this time, even though I could have winged it, corporate Police eh and of course its not fully tested for security holes. I wonder if it’s going to be hard to set up for a dual boot, it should be pretty much the same eh? Or ill be using my spare HDD for this one.

[Sterling_Aug]

I don't know yet. I haven't been able to get my dual Opteron 64bit system to install it yet. I am having problems with the dual boot and my SATA drive due to lack of drivers yet.

[porsch1909]

Mine is downloading just now :)

Only 8 hours left! :rolleyes:

[dajogejr]

Luckily....I have a nice fast 6MB service at home. I've dl'd 64 bit literaly 4 times now...and as soon as it gets to the end...of course it says disconnected.

If I try to resume, it starts back over...talk about aggravating.
I have a 64 bit at work I'd love to test it out on and screw around with for now...

32 bit was no problem...

[Sterling_Aug]

The Vista 64 bit OS will not install due to virtually no drivers are included because they are not digitally signed yet.

I downloaded the 32 bit version of Vista nad installed it on my dual Opteron 64 bit system and after a bit of experimenting, I got it all working on my wireless network and I got my SATA drive working.

[CrazyCrusher]

Ahh Im freaking out I DL 3 times now still that same error, its driving me crazy, anyone know a fix for it?

[Shoreguy]

"The Vista 64 bit OS will not install due to virtually no drivers are included because they are not digitally signed yet."

Sterling, check out
http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/c/5/9c5b2167-8017-4bae-9fde-d599bac8184a/64bitDriverSigning.doc

...page 14

[Sterling_Aug]

Okay. I have officially decided to wait at least 6 months before trying Vista again.

The 64bit version requires way too much work to get the digital signatures for the device drivers to work.

The 32 bit version seems incredibly slow on my dual Opteron 250 system with 2 GB RAM. The 8 Mbit onboard graphics page instead of scrolling. I do not have an AGP slot for this system and I am not about to purchase a PCI-X video card for $500+ either.

[Shoreguy]

There's times when I disagree....then part-and-parcel agree with that. Nvidia's drivers are working fine, Office 2007 (beta) is running fine, but without Creative Labs providing a installable and working version of their beta driver for X-Fi and Vista 2, I'm not able to load any games to test out that 'area'. Many of the other programs I've installed have worked flawlessly, and rarely have I gotten a true BSOD that I couldn't trace back to an exact cause. Burning DVD's, watching(not hearing) movies has been fine, so long as I remember 2 things:
1. It's beta
2. It's unoptimized
I'm happy thus far with what I'm exploring and testing, but I too am not even sure that I'll buy it on its first release. I'll probably wait 6 months or so, until the initial salvo of 'updates' have wrung things out further. I'm not posting much here on the subject, as this is beta and my bug reports, feedback, etc., are taking enough of my exploration time just getting back to various software / hardware vendors.

You can easily get past the 'digital signature' part on VB2 though. I'm not at the box though, or I'd give you the two quick things you need to do in order to overcome that hurdle.

[Sterling_Aug]

Well I did not have this much work to get Win98 beta, not Win2000 beya working so I am going to wait.

I have WinXP64 working perfectly fine and fast on both systems, so I have no real reason to transition to Vista until it matures a bit more.

[1Chris]

My college had earlier versions 2 years a go. We played around with it and none liked it. Most surly it's better now.
Chris.

[stringplucker]

I was able to download my copy in about 2 hours. It took me about 1.5 hours to install and get up and running. I have to say the UI looks very pretty. I love the sidebar along with actual transparencies. The more I get used to the UI the more I like it. At first I was kind of frustrated and felt like the UI was hiding a lot from me. Once I finally figured a few things out I was amazed at how much info this OS actually gives to you. Has anyone looked at windows defender? It shows you pretty much every process which is running on your machine as well as information about each one. It even shows you network connections along with type and connection state information!! This just isn't something I am used to seeing without opening up a terminal, or running Linux.

Performance is interesting to say the least. Some things such as browsing files, which includes displaying thumbnails is pretty fast on my system. But running applications seems to take longer than normal. Most of the UI transitions are smooth but I get a few flickers or jitters every once in a while. I'm sure these will be ironed out before official release and they dont really detract from the user experience just yet.

[WBWatson]

I'll wait thank you until all the bugs are worked out and see what surprises get bundled into the final release. Then go in and disable all the extra crud and eye candy. But hey some folks like all that stuff....I don't...*smile*

[mireland]

we've been trying it at work..won't load corel wp 8(yes we still use it..stop laughing) and novel doesn't support it as of yet. It looks the same and yet it looks different and of course they've rearanged some stuff....it does look pretty though(kinda like a cross between the feel of a Mac and gui linux) :t

[porsch1909]

I gave up trying to download it....it kept crashing for some reason. Then I ran out of product keys apparently :confused:

I'll just wait for the real thing.

[stringplucker]

HAH, it has this built in performance rating scheme. It rates my computer a 1, the lowest rating. I have an athlon 64 running at 2.4 GZ a gig of ram and a geforce 4! I wonder what this vista will rate some old guy running his celeron 512 machine with integrated intel graphics, .01??

[MJCfromCT]

HAH, it has this built in performance rating scheme. It rates my computer a 1, the lowest rating. I have an athlon 64 running at 2.4 GZ a gig of ram and a geforce 4! I wonder what this vista will rate some old guy running his celeron 512 machine with integrated intel graphics, .01??

It won't give that poor old guy a rating, since it won't be able to install on his machine. Need a vid card to install Vista.

[stringplucker]

True, true. I still don't see why I get a one when all my stats are around a 3.

[Sterling_Aug]

I get a 1 as well with my dual Opteron 250 Processor system (dual 2.4 GHz) and 2 GByte DDR dual channel RAM. This is due to my onboard 8 MByte ATI video card with no AGP slot available (only 1 PCI and 5 PCI-X slots).

[mireland]

I get a 1 as well with my dual Opteron 250 Processor system (dual 2.4 GHz) and 2 GByte DDR dual channel RAM. This is due to my onboard 8 MByte ATI video card with no AGP slot available (only 1 PCI and 5 PCI-X slots).


I think that rating thing is kinda stupid..if the machine runs fine with it(providing you had a decent machine to begin with) then who cares? :t

[Ol'Tunzafun]

I can't even find 32 bit drivers for most devices. The only thing that has impressed me so far is the option to use just about any kind of media to load SCSI or RAID drivers at F6. The skin seems washed out and the whole experience is a lot like "washing your feet with your socks on", if you know what I mean. That's way too much protection for me. There must be a way to stop Windows from continually asking if it is OK to do what I just told it to do.

[bushmaster]

Windows from continually asking if it is OK to do what I just told it to do.


Ahh yes, the nag factor. Maybe they should just sell it to AOL.

[Sterling_Aug]

AOL already has in built in to their telephone sales reps.

[stringplucker]

Oh man, that is a little harsh...I actually kind of appreciate it. If you've ever used linux its kind of like needing to become root to do certain things. I definately agree, for a user who knows what [s]he is doing it will probably get old fast. But I think its ok for a user to be aware of what programs are doing because ultimately it gives us more control over what we let it do, as opposed to us being at a programs mercy.

[bushmaster]

Now your really don't think it's going to stop that average dufus user from installing comet cursor do you ? :confused:

[Sterling_Aug]

Or WebShots, or any of the other spyware garbage out there.

[CrazyCrusher]

IM sure it wont, just like Anti Virus programs don’t stop Idiots from getting Virus's, its a deterrent not a fix, it might not work but still it my make them a little more aware (I don’t think it would happen but still)

[stringplucker]

Of course it could be there simply to create the illusion of safety...