Windows 7 RC available NOW!

[eagle5953]

I downloaded with Firefox and it just spat out a regular .iso. Are you sure it finished downloading?

I had one of each - the 32 bit ended in .iso when it completed, but the 64 bit had the other extension (.dlm). Go figure.

[ghosstt]

Just deleted the .dlm and it's picked up by virtual drive now.

[Harshboy]

I downloaded with Firefox and it just spat out a regular .iso. Are you sure it finished downloading?

I had one of each - the 32 bit ended in .iso when it completed, but the 64 bit had the other extension (.dlm). Go figure.

My 64-bit that I downloaded was a .iso file...

[grahf]

Looks like Ben Heckendorn was right! Windows 7 isn't much faster than Vista:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/164485/w ... marks.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I guess people that held out with XP will have no gripes, but it's kind of a slap in the face to Vista owners. They should have gotten this as SP2. I will say that Microsoft has done a pretty good job of marketing it as a big evolution, which turns out isn't true.

[bicostp]

Of course it's going to be slower than XP. XP is almost 10 years old! Computers are more than 10x faster now than they were back in 2000. Windows 95 was faster than XP but that didn't stop people from switching, did it?

I've got it running on an old Compaq (1.4 ghz P3 based Celeron, Radeon 9250 SE AGP), and it's fine. (It works better than the latest version of Ubuntu, anyway.) You shouldn't have any noticeable performance issues unless you measure your processor's speed in megahertz. (Or of it's made by VIA or Cyrix.)

[Kurt_]

So everyone with a legitimate vista key is screwed? This reminds me of good old Windows ME. It was released in beta with lots of bugs and crap, and they swiftly replaced it with XP or 2000 or something in a year or two.

The same thing's happening now. And microsoft is raking in so much dough.

[metalcookie]

is this operating system free and faster than xp? i really need a faster pc, and a new OS would do wonders for me

[bicostp]

No it won't be free. They're giving away the beta and release candidate to get user feedback on it. The beta expires in August, the RC next March. The final version will cost money.

So everyone with a legitimate vista key is screwed? This reminds me of good old Windows ME. It was released in beta with lots of bugs and crap, and they swiftly replaced it with XP or 2000 or something in a year or two.

Vista's going to be around 3 years old when the final release of 7 comes out. They initially intended for Vista to come out 3 or 4 years after XP but they had a lot fo development delays.

[grahf]

Of course it will be slower than XP. The point is it's not leaps and bounds faster than Vista like it was hyped to be. PC Test sites mostly say users won't be able to tell.

[Kurt_]

How big is the iso?

I'm not sure if mine's complete, It reads 3,194,168 KB in windows explorer.

[bicostp]

I downloaded the 32 bit version and it's 2.35 gigs (2,471,656 k).

Cross-check the MD5 hashes:

32 bit: 8867C13330F56A93944BCD46DCD73590

64 bit: 98341af35655137966e382c4feaa282d