Microsoft to let consumers test Windows 7 on Friday

Thanks.

 

Hey guys,

I am running the 32 bit Win 7 beta in MS Virtual PC.
I have a connection to the internet and here is my question.
Do I need to install an antivirus program? All the av programs that MS suggests are all paid for av's.
Are you guys paying to install one of these av programs?
Also, are there any other security programs compatible with Win 7?

Thanks

Sorry, just saw post 27 where they got Avast to work. I'll try that too.

 

Hello wideglide36;

I'm running Windows 7 with Avast Home Edition; no problems downloading/installing/updating/scanning.
Here's a link.

http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

 

Here I'm running AVG free, and Windows Vista and 7 both come with Windows Defender.

 

The only significant problem that I have come across is with the installation of SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition. At the end of the installation I briefly got the BSOD and an auto Restart. SAS would not open so I uninstalled it.

I was going to try installing Sandboxie but I found out on the Sandboxie Forum that it does not work with the current version of Sandboxie. There are plans for a compatible future version of Sandboxie.

So far I have installed the following with no detected issues:

Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.75 Free
OpenOffice 3.x with JRE
Updated JRE to current version
Adobe Flash
Adobe Shockwave
Foxit Reader
Mozilla Firefox 3.x
Mozilla Thunderbird 2.x
a-squared Free 4.0
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 8.0 for Windows Workstation (For Windows 7)
SpywareBlaster 4.1
McAfee SiteAdvisor Free
Belarc Advisor
Realtek High Definition Audio Driver (The only Motherboard Driver that I could install. The other drivers refused to install because they could not recognize the operating system. However, Windows 7 seems to have provided good drivers/support for other motherboard components.)

I will try installing other software soon.

 

I've also been able to install the following applications:

Microsoft Offce 2007 Ultimate
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended
Adobe Reader 9
Adobe Flash 10
iTunes 8.0.2
Eclipse IDE for Java
Java Development Kit 6
Avira AntiVir Premium
Shadow Protect Desktop 3.3
CCleaner
O&O Defrag Professional 11
Zoom Player Professional
Combined Community Codec Pack
mIRC

I was also able to install all the drivers for my laptop (HP Pavilion).

The only minor quirk I have encountered thus far was with Adobe Reader's updater. It would crash whenever Adobe Updater tries to update itself. I solved it by running the executable with elevated privileges (seems like the new UAC runs a bit differently, though I'm not 100% positive).

 

Some drivers do install fine when you select "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" and then click "have disk".

 

wtsinnc, Thanks for the link.
I downloaded it and all is working, I think.

I will probably try some of the other programs you guys have mentioned.

What is everyone using for a firewall?

Thanks again.

 

I apparently did something wrong when setting up Win7 with MS Virtual Pc.

I can access Win 7 and surf the internet but everything is incredibly slow.

Web pages are extremely slow using IE and even clicking on control panel or any other feature in Windows is very slow.

Everything is way too slow!

I set this up with a Dell PC. I allotted 512mb of ram when setting up Win 7 with virtual pc. Maybe that's part of the problem. Not enough ram?

Host PC has 1Gb of ram.

Would hard drive space be associated with slowness?

Any ideas as to why it's so slow. Very frustrating.

 

It's not ideal to run a virtual system on a machine with only 1 GB of RAM. Also, Windows 7 requires a minimum of 1 GB RAM, so that is probably why it is very slow.

 

I am using the Windows Firewall. Seems to be sufficient for me.

 

Hi again, wideglide36;

According to the Windows 7 documentation and download page, you will need a minimum of 1 GB of memory.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

I doubt that HD space (or lack of it) would be causing the problem unless you're pushing it to the limit; MS states 16 GB or better.
Here's an article about running it in Virtual PC 2007.
http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=9547

I hope this helps.

 

In Windows 7 I created a new library, named it Downloads, and I added all the available download folders of all networked Windows 7 computers to it. Now when I open the Download library I see all the files available, and it doesn't matter where the files are stored.
Homegroup networking seems pretty neat in Windows 7.
With the concept of libraries it's also easy to assign different (meaning not default) folders for documents.

 

Thanks guys,

I think I'll just give Win7 a rest until I get a newer machine or add more memory.
I thought I could get by with 512 mb because I found a website with great instructions on installing Win7 on a virtual pc. The instructions indicated 512 mb would be sufficient. Guess not.

Anyways, I learned how to use MS Virtual PC so I guess it wasn't a total loss.
Thanks.

 

Hello everyone,
ok i imaged vista and installed windows 7 64Bit on my machine.

compatible software and drivers:
realtek RTL8187 wireless card driver (used windows vista driver)
Kaspersky 8 workstation beta for windows 7
marvel yukon ethernet drivers (i dont have the installer only zip file with all the extracted drivers) (used windows vista driver by browsing using device manager)
opera
CCleaner
windows live messenger
media monkey
media monkey aac plugin (to play aac files without needing to have quicktime installed) (costs money)
EasyBCD
usbsafelyremove
winrar
quicktime (installed to check it worked then uninstalled to test out the media monkey aac plugin)
firefox
Java
silverlight
Impulse
flash player plugin (works for both opera and firefox)
Karens replicator
Image for windows

programs that dont work:
PDf exchange viewer (crashes when you press the open button before you browse to a pdf file)
Admuncher (it starts the am-install.exe process and the am-install-extracted.exe but gets stuck)
flash player wont install for internet explorer 8.

drivers that dont work yet
Creative X-FI drivers (doesnt support operating system) (will look for win7 beta drivers on creative site later)
intel infinst_autol doesnt install. same problem cannot determine the OS. link to windows 7 beta intel chipset drivers would be useful if avaliable. i use P35 chipset.
programs i havent tested yet:
openoffice
superantispyware pro
skype
will test any remaining programs tomorrow.

so like 3 programs dont work and the rest do. i am very impressed.

windows 7 is definatly lighter and faster than vista.
it closes off services when they are not needed.
so if i add a desktop gadget it starts the gadgets process. but as soon as i delete all the gadgets from desktop the gadget process stops and closes.

vista in use=around 63 processes
windows 7 in use around 44-50

 

I've heard John Dvorak rant on this for years. He has said they should get rid of the whole services thing or at least make it a "as needed" process. Services are such a resource hog! In trying to lighten up W7 it sounds like Microsoft agreed.

 

I was able to install Flash Player 10 for Internet Explorer 8. Also, I agree that Windows 7 is indeed lighter and faster than Windows Vista.

 

Step-By-Step on How To Download, Install and Activate Windows 7 Beta Without Messing Currently Installed OS and Dual-Boot.

 

The (recommended) way it should be evaluated is in a VM.

 

For most people i agree.
since i have full backups i installed it properly.
it ment i could easily compare it and found out it really is alot faster than vista.

 

This: http://www.pcworld.com/article/156978/the_pc_world_challenge_72_hours_of_windows_7.html from PCWorld ... with many comments!

 

First, I want to thank those who've taken the time to list drivers and software applications that work in Windows 7.
It's nice to have that knowledge base to build from.

-Having said that-

I can't say I've read every post in this thread so if any of these questions have already been answered, I apologize.
-Has anyone tried the free Zone Alarm and PC Tools firewalls with W7 ?
-Has anyone successfully installed Avira Premium AV or Avira Internet Security in Windows 7 ?
-Finally, has anyone attempted to clone W7 using the free Acronis-based Maxblast or Discwizard ?

Many thanks in advance !