Download Vista Pre-RC1 (build 5536)

radiospan

Saw this on neowin:

Microsoft has quietly released build 5536 for the first 100,000 people to download it from their Windows Vista site.

5536 was recently released to tech testers and is the best build that has ever been officially released.

Be quick and get 5536 before Microsoft closes the downloads at 100,000.

http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/prerc1/en/download.html

It's still up for download. User reviews say Vista has come on in leaps and bounds since Beta 2.

mp3guy

What do we do about a serial code?

Blazer

u can use the one u got with beta 2

radiospan

Yes I think this is only good for people who got a serial when Beta 2 was released.

But RC1 is being released in a week or two, so they'll be giving new codes then.

Think I'll make the move from XP then.

Peteee

I got this and its a *massive* improvement from Beta 2 (I've a spare serial key if anybody wants it )

Looks nice, Runs fast. Breadcrumb bar is very nice, makes navigating explorer a lot easier. UAC is vastly improved. Installs in about 30 mins (On a 4,200 rpm laptop HD)

612mb used (Out of 1280 MB, with opera and musikcube running & sidebar running)

Media center could be a bit faster with the thumbnails (And both Media player and media center could do a better job of finding album art, its really not that difficult!)

The control panel UI could be more consistent. Sometimes a dialog pops up (ala old versions of windows) and sometimes the applet runs in the control panel window.

The sidebar is a bit inconsistent too. It disappears when you hit show desktop, when (In my opinon) it should still be visible.

The new games are nice (Chess at last!)

All in all a nice upgrade to Win XP

Fr0g

Peteee wrote:

I got this and its a *massive* improvement from Beta 2 (I've a spare serial key if anybody wants it )

Petee I'll take that serial key if you still have it, PM me. Thanks

Stky10

Their download manager is driving me nuts.

First download failed on 60%, second attempt completed but the md5sum was wrong, I'm currently on the third attempt...

radiospan

Stky10 wrote:

Their download manager is driving me nuts.

First download failed on 60%, second attempt completed but the md5sum was wrong, I'm currently on the third attempt...

Just use the direct link in combination with Getright or something, might be easier.

jimi_t

Is this OS time limited, crippled or just plain buggy?

Stky10

plazzTT wrote:

Just use the direct link in combination with Getright or something, might be easier.

I'm on holidays from tomorrow, so if it fails this time round, I'll wait till RC1.

Anyone have this dual booting with XP?. Does it cause any problems to the XP installation?. I had Beta2 running in VMWare and it was unusable but I said I'd wait for them to make it better before I dual boot it.

arseagon

Can't remember the exact release of Vista I installed but lets just say it lasted 2 days before I reverted to XP. It's not what I would call "Tech Guy" friendly at all.

I travel around to customers offices and regularly have to change settings on the laptop to gain access to on site networks and the amount of things it prompts for just to change the IP address is infuriating. So unless they are going to come out with a version that's friendlier to the likes of me then it'll be a long long timee before i'll start using it.

Peteee

markdunne wrote:

Can't remember the exact release of Vista I installed but lets just say it lasted 2 days before I reverted to XP. It's not what I would call "Tech Guy" friendly at all.

I travel around to customers offices and regularly have to change settings on the laptop to gain access to on site networks and the amount of things it prompts for just to change the IP address is infuriating. So unless they are going to come out with a version that's friendlier to the likes of me then it'll be a long long timee before i'll start using it.

The UAC prompts have been toned down a lot.

And you can always disable it if you want. I think its a good feature for the computer illiterate among us, so they stop geting riddled with spyware

arseagon

Peteee wrote:

And you can always disable it if you want.

Aaah now that's what I wanted to hear! :rolleyes:

I think its a good feature for the computer illiterate among us, so they stop geting riddled with spyware

I do agree with this as long as people like myself are able to disable it.

Fr0g

jimi_t wrote:

Is this OS time limited, crippled or just plain buggy?

This release is valid until 31/05/2007, not crippled and so far seems quite stable although i've only been using for a couple of hours.

Petee the first key you gave me didn't work but the second one did. thanks.

Installation was a breeze ( (i recommend dual booting with your XP). It recognized most hardware and installed the drivers. After installation it automatically downloaded and installed the drivers for my soundcard.

I would be interested in knowing what everyones Windows User Experience Rating is mine is 2.6 (seems quite low for Pentium 4 3GHz HT, 1 Gb of ram and nVidia FX 5500 256mb graphics card). It's really pounding my cpu and using over 400 mb ram with no programs loaded. If this is what the final release will be like I can't see many people being able to upgrade.

rogue-entity

Every Beta version will have debuggin enabled, this will slow down the OS considerably but if a programme crashes, or the system crashes, there will be more data sent back to MS, which they will use to correct the bugs and provide a more stable system come the next major release. The RC-1 will be the last beta but most of the work will have been done, it will most represent the final product although if the debug code is still in the OS at that point, it will be slower then the final release. The final release should be faster and less bloated.

My laptop had a performance rating of 3 in Beta 2, its a Dell Inspiron 6000 - Pentium M 760 2.0GHz, 1GB DDR2-533 RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD and 128MB ATI X300 PCIe.

But my PC was only 2 - Athlon 64 3000+ S754, 1GB DDR-400 RAM, 250GB 7200rpm HD, 256MB GeForce FX 5500 AGP.

I haven't tried any new releases, I just didn't like Vista at all.

SantaHoe

Bah, looks like I'm too late... why only 100k if they're not issuing new keys with this one anyway?

juliuspret

SantaHoe wrote:

Bah, looks like I'm too late... why only 100k if they're not issuing new keys with this one anyway?

Because the final release of this version (this was a pre-beta) will be online in a couple of weeks and they probable only wanted to test a couple of things out.

The keys people got in the first official beta have worked fine for me on other non-public releases so is see them working fine until they change the serial/anti-piracy features for the Vista final release.
This probable wont be incorporated into a beta as MS dont want hackers cracking it ever before Vista is released unlike what happened to XP.

Capt'n Midnight

rogue-entity wrote:

Every Beta version will have debuggin enabled, this will slow down the OS considerably ... The final release should be faster and less bloated.

Windows 95 Beta was faster than the released version because they added in a delay loop to slow it down to work on older corporate PC's. And many people will consider it Beta until after the first service pack. Maybe we'll be pleasently supprised.

Ginger

Has anyone managed to get 5536 working in VPC? I dont want to go messing around with Vista again on my production machine..

It managed a 4.5 on mine when i initially installed the Beta 2 (see sig)

radiospan

RC1 (build 5600) is out now from connect.microsoft.com

rogue-entity

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Windows 95 Beta was faster than the released version because they added in a delay loop to slow it down to work on older corporate PC's. And many people will consider it Beta until after the first service pack. Maybe we'll be pleasently supprised.

They actually wanted to slow Windows down, how nice, maybe they could remove this loop from XP and Vists

Anyway, if RC-1 will run on BootCamp, I will install it on my mac:
2.16GHz ICD, 1G RAM, 100Gig HDD and 256MB Radeon X1600.

Other then that, I wont be going near it, my ageing PC cant handle Visa:
P3 @500MHz, 384 RAM, 20G HDD (nearly full) and 32Meg ATI Rage128.

I keep meaning to get a better rig, but I am not much of a gamer, never was although I am thinking of getting a Dell Dimension 9200 which should run it no problem, and the final release should be nice to look at.. when I win the lotto

Ginger

For the RC1 download use this

http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc1/en/download.htm

You will need a key from the Beta 2 CCP otherwise you will have to wait till RC1 CCP is open to the public

Ginger

rogue-entity wrote:

They actually wanted to slow Windows down, how nice, maybe they could remove this loop from XP and Vists

Anyway, if RC-1 will run on BootCamp, I will install it on my mac:
2.16GHz ICD, 1G RAM, 100Gig HDD and 256MB Radeon X1600.

Other then that, I wont be going near it, my ageing PC cant handle Visa:
P3 @500MHz, 384 RAM, 20G HDD (nearly full) and 32Meg ATI Rage128.

I keep meaning to get a better rig, but I am not much of a gamer, never was although I am thinking of getting a Dell Dimension 9200 which should run it no problem, and the final release should be nice to look at.. when I win the lotto

Check out either www.dell.ie/outlet or http://stores.ebay.ie/Dell-Outlet ... the ebay ones sells slightly scratched ones so they are a bargain really