New Windows 7 Free Trial until June 2010 - Replacing vista

mistrey

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

Your chance to try out the replacement for Windows Vista. I did a search and couldn't find it on here sorry if it's a duplicate post.

mrsyorkie

Oh great, I finally upgrade to Vista and now they're replacing it!!!!

mathsstudent

You wont be sorry they have! 7 is LOADS better.

mistrey

mrsyorkie wrote: »

Oh great, I finally upgrade to Vista and now they're replacing it!!!!

It's not out until the end of next year I think, this is a preview! Sorry to say I think Vista is rubbish compared to XP!! Not managed to download Windows 7 myself as it is a work laptop and they wont let me!! My Dad has and says it's great.

mrsyorkie

Well yeah, I think Vista is rubbish as well. It keeps crashing. Also, I got an update to IE 8, but now every time I go to my hotmail the whole thing crashes. I had to install Firefox just to view my emails. Anyone have any ideas on how I can go back to IE 7? I looked on the microsoft website but couldn't find anything.

LeeSouthEast

Installed it a few days ago. So far, it's considerably better than Vista. Still intend to use XP on the whole though. It "just works".

Lum

mrsyorkie wrote: »

Anyone have any ideas on how I can go back to IE 7?

System Restore is probably your best bet.

Also it's worth noting with this Windows 7 thing, that this isn't strictly a "free trial", it's a "Release Candidate", which is to say that Microsoft think it works properly but they don't really know for certain so you get to test it for them for free rather than them paying staff to test it in house. There may still be bugs out there (one of the earlier versions had a bug where Windows Media Player would destroy all your MP3 files) that could use you problems.

It lasts until March and then it goes into a mode where it'll shut down every 2 hours before it finally stops working in June. However even if you then go and buy the full version of Windows 7 you will not be able to do an upgrade install, you'll need to wipe your C: drive and reinstall your OS from scratch. The final version of Win7 will be able to upgrade from XP or Vista but not from any of the betas or RCs

Basically, if you're not comfortable with the risk of there being problems with no immediate fix available and are not comfortable with doing a format and reinstall of your OS at some point in the future then you should stick to XP or Vista until the final version is out, and then consider upgrading. Also if this is your only computer and you need it for anything important you might want to give this a miss too.

Personally I'll be waiting for Windows 7 Service Pack 1

jenniewb

Lum wrote: »

System Restore is probably your best bet.

Also it's worth noting with this Windows 7 thing, that this isn't strictly a "free trial", it's a "Release Candidate", which is to say that Microsoft think it works properly but they don't really know for certain so you get to test it for them for free rather than them paying staff to test it in house. There may still be bugs out there (one of the earlier versions had a bug where Windows Media Player would destroy all your MP3 files) that could use you problems.

It lasts until March and then it goes into a mode where it'll shut down every 2 hours before it finally stops working in June. However even if you then go and buy the full version of Windows 7 you will not be able to do an upgrade install, you'll need to wipe your C: drive and reinstall your OS from scratch. The final version of Win7 will be able to upgrade from XP or Vista but not from any of the betas or RCs

Basically, if you're not comfortable with the risk of there being problems with no immediate fix available and are not comfortable with doing a format and reinstall of your OS at some point in the future then you should stick to XP or Vista until the final version is out, and then consider upgrading. Also if this is your only computer and you need it for anything important you might want to give this a miss too.

Personally I'll be waiting for Windows 7 Service Pack 1

Thanks- thats really helpful stuff- I think I'll wait too, I have had as much as I can take with windows issues and no help and I have a well known package! The difference is though, if its a site I am trying to use, quite often there is technical advice on those sites which can help- such as with Napster or (when its up and running) the bbc-iplayer site. Doubt there would be any technical support from these sites if I switch to Windows 7.

Lum

As it's not an official release yet, if you find a product that doesn't work on it then they can't reasonably be expected to fix the problem right away. Any company with any sense will also have the Windows 7 RC (and the betas that came out previously) running on a few PCs to test their product under Windows 7 in the hope of having it working by release day.

One only has to look at the amount of stuff that still doesn't work in Vista to see how real companies actually respond though. There is plenty of stuff that will never work on Vista and the developers have no intention of fixing it. This is one of the main reasons why Vista has been a massive failure in the business market, far too many companies are running applications that are no longer supported, or that they'd have to pay massive fees to upgrade to the latest version when the old one works perfectly fine.

One big advantage that Win7 offers over Vista for this specific issue is that the Professional (ie. Business) and "Ultimate" editions also include a virtual PC running a copy of Windows XP, so for those problematic programs you can actually run them under XP and have them display on your Win7 box. The release candidate also includes this, however the home versions will not have this, you'll have to buy Professional or Ultimate edition to get that feature. I'm also not sure how easy to use it will be since it's intended marked is corporate system administrators.

bonnie102

mrsyorkie wrote: »

Well yeah, I think Vista is rubbish as well. It keeps crashing. Also, I got an update to IE 8, but now every time I go to my hotmail the whole thing crashes. I had to install Firefox just to view my emails. Anyone have any ideas on how I can go back to IE 7? I looked on the microsoft website but couldn't find anything.

I needed to go back to an older version of other applications too. Have you tried
http://www.oldversion.com/Internet-Explorer.html
It's a really excellent way of using older versions of loads of things.
:beer:

asperger

i will have to have a look as i have vista