Vista Beta 2 Functionality

CrazySka

Im thinking of downloading and installing this but can someone whose using it tell me what is the functionality of Beta2,

Can i use it as a standalone OS or should i use it as a dual boot with XP?

If i use it as a standalone, will all my programs, games etc work with it(and be integrated in the install), or would i have to start again?

How bad are the bugs in it?

What specs are people running this comfortably on?

Cheers for any help.

god's toy

Hi,

I downloaded it last week and so far it’s going really well I have to say. J So much better than the last time with XP’s beta but I suppose now that we all use XP code it’s less hassle to move a lot of stuff over to the new OS and some things work ‘out of the box’. Almost everything so far I have loaded has worked just fine, that’s games, recreational and office stuff.

I'm using IE7 and Firefox on this testing rig and IE7 wont log in to some sites and Firefox is the same on others so I'm not too sure whats going on there.

You can download a testing/compatibility program that will help identify any program not compatible with the Vista’s beta code and I recommend people do this before you test it. Also if you’re going to load it on to your ‘working’ PC back-up EVERYTHING first! Warning: it will not work with Symantec/Norton products so if your thinking of using those with it your in for a surprise however you can get free use of ‘Trend Micro-PC cillan firewall + antivirus’ for a few months wile they work on a patch to fix things.

The download is a little hefty, the 32bit is 3.5GB and the 64 bit, is 4.5GB.
I went for the 32bit as most of my hardware is two years old now and overdue for an upgrade. As far as I know download(s) are only up for a short time so if your thinking of getting it, I’d say get a copy now before it’s gone from there servers, even just to have. You get a product key at the time of singing up this covers your copy and the next release they bring out up to June of next year.

Drivers are so/so at this early stage in the young beta’s life; it found almost everything first go and loaded the correct driver for each device no problems (missed the sound card and a DVD hardware card but I found drivers quickly on the net for them)

I think it knocks the socks off XP in terms what it can do and the 3D/Aero look rocks! But it’s a little hungry for RAM and processing power so at this moment in time it’s gobbling up 1.09GB (yes that’s GB’s) of RAM with just a few windows open and the normal stuff running in the background… if your Computer is a little short on RAM or does not have 3 GHz P4 (or similar powered AMD) or is using anything less then a 128 MB GFX card I would give it a miss until they sort this issue out, if they do….

Overall all I am very happy with it, so much so I’m thinking of keeping it on until I can get my hands a copy of the OS in the shops or where ever I find it.(if the PC does not go up in a puff of smoke first!)

hope that helps ya in some way.

kaizersoze

Good post god's toy and good info. They seem to be on the way to sorting out the Symantec/Norton incompatability issues. This update was released last week through the automatic updates.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920143

CrazySka

Nice one god's toy, cheers for the info.

Ponster

god's toy, any idea how much HD space Vista needs? I have a old 6gb drive that I was gonna use to test it out but if the DVD is 3.5Gb then I may be pushing it a little.

kaizersoze

Ponster wrote:

god's toy, any idea how much HD space Vista needs? I have a old 6gb drive that I was gonna use to test it out but if the DVD is 3.5Gb then I may be pushing it a little.

Microsoft recommend:
An 800 MHz processor
512 MB of RAM
A 20 GB hard drive with 15 GB of free space
That's for what they call the core version of Vista. The available beta version is the Ultimate Edition so the specs would be higher. Try it and see. If it works, it works.

Ponster

Damn.....15Gb for Vista !!!

mr_disc

worse again is the vista premium version ( for when released ) :

1 GHz processor,
1GB memory
128MB Grpahics memory
and 15 Gb free space again.
:eek:

Am I the only one who hates Vista? I can't stand the thing. It's very sluggish for me on an Inspiron 6000 laptop with 128MB dedicated graphics memory and a gig of RAM.

Plus, I find the interface atrocious, they seem to want to scrap the menu bars and replace them with buttons - IE7's buttons are scattered all over the place. Plus the prompt before doing any admin stuff. I don't mind that in OS X, at least you have to enter your password rather than click a button.

I could end up with an Intel Mac when XP dies out...

kaizersoze

Karsini wrote:

Am I the only one who hates Vista?

Yes. Ya freak.:p
I have to admit I love it even though it did take me a couple of days to get used to it. The popup warnings are a bit annoying alright but I'd say that will be sorted in later releases. You can still view the classic menus in IE7 if you want (File, Edit, etc if thats what you mean).
I'm running it on a P4 Pavilion zd7000 laptop with 768 meg of ram and it's running as good as XP. The Aero features don't work but everything else is fine. It's even better than XP on the desktop (AMD64 3700 and a gig of ram).
What processor is in the 6000? A Celeron by any chance?

god's toy

Have 2GB ram on the way as Vista is eating it all up at this moment in time.. if anyone is testing have a look for "audiodg.exe" it's looking like a memory leak (using 300MB at this moment)


Still like Vista, lol getting 2GB RAM just to keep the darn thing on the PC...

kaizersoze

kaizersoze wrote:

What processor is in the 6000? A Celeron by any chance?

Pentium M 760 2.0GHz

vibe666

if you don't want to go the full install route just yet then try vmware and create a virtual install of it.

I'm due for a re-install myself, so I've been evaluating several options, including some 'custom' XP installs, Linux and Vista, all through virtual PC's within VMWare. if your PC can take it, you can even have them all running at once and network them together, and give them full access to the outside world which is pretty cool too, and all without ever uninstalling your original OS.

oh, and the basic install of Vista (premium) at the moment seems to be around the 7.5gb mark, which is a tad hefty, but these things happen.

also, make sure you get it straight from MS rather than torrent sites, it's free for now and you will make sure you get the latest build (5384 at time of writing this) and the download will happily max out a 3mbps connection.

NOE: watch out for some of those 'vista transformation packs too, some of them are loaded with spyware, trojans and virii as I learnt to my peril the other day.

I spent more time trying to get rid of one of just one those things than I spent in total installing 3 custom xp installs, suse 10.1 and vista on vmware.

nobody to blame but myself tho, totally self inflicted, you'd have thought the red flags would have gone up as soon as i read the "shut down all antivirus and spyware apps etc. etc."

what i prize muppet i was.

Rosser

I get the prize for not reading the Vista warnings and now my Dell printer and Norton are out of action.
I think there's a Norton patch due any day now so I'm virus protection free until then, anyone able to help me on the Dell printer issue? I have reinstalled the driver but no luck...
Cheers

kaizersoze

Rosser wrote:

I get the prize for not reading the Vista warnings and now my Dell printer and Norton are out of action.
I think there's a Norton patch due any day now so I'm virus protection free until then, anyone able to help me on the Dell printer issue? I have reinstalled the driver but no luck...
Cheers

They've already released a Norton patch.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920143
You can use this one if the patch doesn't work.
http://www.my-etrust.com/SubscriptCenter/TrialLanding.aspx?verstr=35cf50e84818385224d80837bc43ad80&id=17569195&cid=1855&lang=en-US

DonkeyStyle \o/

Bleh, seems I missed the boat on this all together... downloaded the iso a few days ago... went to install it just now and had no product key... go to the MS site and they've closed the customer preview program... gah... cleaned out a spare 30 gig drive for nothing. :rolleyes:
Note to peeps: make sure you can get a cd key before you download
Meh, guess I'll see what Ubuntu is up to these days.

kaizersoze

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Bleh, seems I missed the boat on this all together... downloaded the iso a few days ago... went to install it just now and had no product key... go to the MS site and they've closed the customer preview program... gah... cleaned out a spare 30 gig drive for nothing. :rolleyes:
Note to peeps: make sure you can get a cd key before you download
Meh, guess I'll see what Ubuntu is up to these days.

PM sent.....;)

DonkeyStyle \o/

Aha, very informative thanks

Just finished tinkering with ubuntu there, very impressive distro... at times even easier to use than windows :eek:
Only had to use the terminal once to edit the boot loader.

Now to see what all the fuss is about with Vista...

zuma

WEll if you really want to look at a fancy GUI then get the Kororaa LiveCD and take in the XGL greatness!!!!

god's toy

kaizersoze wrote:

They've already released a Norton patch.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920143
You can use this one if the patch doesn't work.
http://www.my-etrust.com/SubscriptCenter/TrialLanding.aspx?verstr=35cf50e84818385224d80837bc43ad80&id=17569195&cid=1855&lang=en-US

Pity it wont work for the firewall-antivirus package and system works.

Oh well I find trend micro works just fine with Vista.