Windows 7 M1 Release 2

[zhangm Supervisor]

what? you're not too l33t? I thought everyone was.... 12yr olds to 68yr olds online with mad l33t h4ck1ng skills.

Well... yeah.. not exactly but it seems everyone thinks they are these days.

"I know how to use google and follow step by step directions, WITH PICTURES!!! Yeah duh.... i'm l333t"

The "I'm competent enough to run as admin for extended periods of time" argument doesn't fly with me anymore. It used to, but then one day I was trojaned by a rogue ad on Neowin (was running Firefox at the time). I guess experience breeds complacence until you get bitten. What's the point of bypassing UAC temporarily? I can type my password in about a second, so where exactly does this save me any significant amount of time?

[Roger H. Veteran]

i agree with you... i run UAC but i guess most people just get annoyed (lazy i say). Surely it does come up a lot when setting up a new system but after that's all said and done, i think i might see UAC once a day if that. I can't actually remember when was the last time but i just assume it's about that (for me). Even non-techie girls said the samething (about UAC) but now it's a non-issue. Techie guys i know that swore Vista was junk ("UAC crap") and all that, now uses it on a nice system i built for him. He spent $2500 on the system and realizes XP can't even utilize it the way he'd like. So he was forced to Vista and then after using it for 1 week he said he was "75-85% satisfied with Vista, more so than XP. It's defnitely not what i was reading online"

[toadeater]

I hope this is like Windows 2000....fast and stable.

It looks to be Vista SP2 so far. With all the same "features" from Vista still there, I'm getting a bad feeling about this. They're working on UAC, Search, the sidebar... these are some of the things I was hoping would be made into optional components, so you don't have to install them by default.

Then there's the ever-growing Health Center thing. You know what these self-help features are like.

"There appears to be something wrong with your system, would you like to call an illiterate Indian to help you fix it?"

That will be the first thing I disable. I don't need that Health Center telling me to turn on Automatic updates and other annoyances that don't actually help anything.

I bet the next thing they work on is even more "improved" DRM, because, you know, DRM is what all the users want more of, it's what everyone has been asking for all this time.

I think this is what it's going to come down to, the Windows 7 Experience:

[Randolph]

LMFAOO

Did anyone read the comments? This fool posted a internal build and now f*cked it up for everyone.

#

This build looks a lot like a fbl_shell_dex or something along those lines, the the above comment does hold some water, good job man, lol

#

Anon on 2008-04-21, Monday at 1:42 am

Actually, this is a shell build. Why? The gadget box reverted back to the vista gadget box.

Yeah, this definitely isn’t a winmain. The parent poster is definitely violating trade secrets at this point.

#

Ryan on 2008-04-21, Monday at 2:03 am

You’re an idiot, you know that? Why the hell would you post from a non-winmain? Now Microsoft is going to spend roughly a month or so punishing the leaky lab (50 devs per lab? That’s going to slow dev time a lot. Thanks!).

Why couldn’t you just wait til M2 and post all the changes from M1 to M2? Instead you had to go screw the development process over by posting an internal build.

You really are a moron.

edit: Wow. Everyone is bashing this guy who leaked the screenshots / videos / etc. Apparently he is violating "Trade Secrets" also. I wonder what Microsofts response to this will be. And now there is apparently a team going around and finding who leaked the build. This isn't good. :no:

[tdrock]

yea.. now he removed the link, pics, and videos.

[Digitalx]

wow what trade secrets :s i have screen shots of leopard when it was being developed and looked like tiger this just looks like minorly improved vista atm it's sad people try to protect company they have no association with besides fanaticism's with and a thought of what law is... why save their sanity for what purpose :s... microsoft probably doesn't care like most people as it's pretty much barely improved vista.

[darkmanx21]

It looks to be Vista SP2 so far. With all the same "features" from Vista still there, I'm getting a bad feeling about this. They're working on UAC, Search, the sidebar... these are some of the things I was hoping would be made into optional components, so you don't have to install them by default.

Then there's the ever-growing Health Center thing. You know what these self-help features are like.

"There appears to be something wrong with your system, would you like to call an illiterate Indian to help you fix it?"

That will be the first thing I disable. I don't need that Health Center telling me to turn on Automatic updates and other annoyances that don't actually help anything.

I bet the next thing they work on is even more "improved" DRM, because, you know, DRM is what all the users want more of, it's what everyone has been asking for all this time.

I think this is what it's going to come down to, the Windows 7 Experience:

I think the part I highlighted from your statement is unfair. I can agree it is frustrating talking to someone whose English is sub-par, but to call someone illiterate is a bold statement. I have to say that my worst moments for Tech Support are from..well, Americans. People have complained about "Customer Service" way before stuff was getting out-sourced bro..

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

Windows 7 will have all of the features that Vista should have had in the first place.

[EduardValencia]

Why are people moaning about Windows 7 ,perhaps this version of windows isn't in alpha stages,just stop the critic fanatism it makes me sick!

Windows 7 still has a long way to go,not only in refinement,just that many features from here to 2010 will be added,so just stop moaning,this isn't the real thing we will see as the final product,remember!

Move along kids

[magik]

wow what trade secrets :s i have screen shots of leopard when it was being developed and looked like tiger this just looks like minorly improved vista atm it's sad people try to protect company they have no association with besides fanaticism's with and a thought of what law is... why save their sanity for what purpose :s... microsoft probably doesn't care like most people as it's pretty much barely improved vista.

Wrong.

Microsoft definitely does care. They care enough to enforce an NDA and certain rules regarding what information can be leaked for the exact reason of what I bolded in your post. You don't know whether or not Windows 7 will be "barely" improved over Vista because you don't have the final version in your hand. You are only going off what has been leaked, which is unfair to Microsoft and why Microsoft does care about leaks. If people are already judging the final product before it is even finalized, then they are already fighting an up-hill battle before the product even launches. That is bad for any company.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

Why are people moaning about Windows 7 ,perhaps this version of windows isn't in alpha stages,just stop the critic fanatism it makes me sick!

Windows 7 still has a long way to go,not only in refinement,just that many features from here to 2010 will be added,so just stop moaning,this isn't the real thing we will see as the final product,remember!

Move along kids

Maybe because Windows 7 should have been Vista. Yes Windows 7 is a long way from being released. I Beta tested better builds that MS released as the final version of Vista. Vista does not nor did it ever live up to the hype. I suspect that Window 7 will be more of the same if MS rushes it to release due to lagging Vista sales.

[NightmarE D]

microsoft probably doesn't care like most people as it's pretty much barely improved vista.

You know this from screenshots alone?

It's far from being done. Nobody is in any position to say how bad or "barely improved" it is right now.

[George P Global Moderator]

Vista hate spilling over into Windows 7 already? Jeez guys, how about we all wait till Beta 1 or RC1 before we pass judgment on this?

Sure it still looks like Vista, but so what? Look aren't everything, people have to understand that lots of work is being done under the hood. It's been said over and over again, but many still think some UI change is what counts.

Vista itself has good core changes, yes these mess with compatibility but so what? The same people who are moaning about Vista compatibility are the same ones who turn around and say MS should drop legacy support. I mean seriously what the hell do you want in the end?

[Zimmedon]

If anyone's wondering, the images are still there on there. Just the article was pulled. See: Google's cache of the article.

Edited April 23, 2008 by Donovann

[Julius Caro]

The problem is not these things leaking, the problem is those morons who think they know anything about software development and expect the early alpha to be totally different from the previous version. XP was windows 2000 first, then they added some blue and ugly gui elements, then towards the end they added Luna as we know it.

Plus, with windows xp it was different, as most of the work was already done in windows 2000

[Brandon Live Veteran]

The problem is not these things leaking,

That is a problem, though. Just look at what happened with Longhorn. Leaks can have some pretty sizeable negative impact, at least for Microsoft. Some users develop inaccurate or unfair expectations. The competition gets an unfair look into what we're doing, which is especially problematic this early in development. I'm certain that knowing the direction Microsoft was going to take with Longhorn but eventually didn't was considered valuable insight for certain competitors. And just look at how many Longhorn / Vista features got copied before it even shipped (Spotlight being an obvious example).

[.tony]

It's a work in progress, just as much as Whistler (XP) and Longhorn were.

What we get should hopefully be good if all goes well, and they don't run into problems.

Don't judge it harshly, help, and request features to be added.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

The problem is not these things leaking, the problem is those morons who think they know anything about software development and expect the early alpha to be totally different from the previous version. XP was windows 2000 first, then they added some blue and ugly gui elements, then towards the end they added Luna as we know it.

Plus, with windows xp it was different, as most of the work was already done in windows 2000

How can you possibly call Watercolor ugly?

[1Frothy]

umm yeah, in the beta testers newsgroup. If you aren't part of it then you aren't supposed to know about it to give feedback :)

There's a beta started already?

I didn't think that Windows 7 is at the beta stage of development?

[AltecXP]

There's a beta started already?

I didn't think that Windows 7 is at the beta stage of development?

its not., wont be for least a yr.

[Menge]

That is a problem, though. Just look at what happened with Longhorn. Leaks can have some pretty sizeable negative impact, at least for Microsoft. Some users develop inaccurate or unfair expectations. The competition gets an unfair look into what we're doing, which is especially problematic this early in development. I'm certain that knowing the direction Microsoft was going to take with Longhorn but eventually didn't was considered valuable insight for certain competitors. And just look at how many Longhorn / Vista features got copied before it even shipped (Spotlight being an obvious example).

while i agree that leaks can cause a certain negative impact on user's expectations, i don't think it's significant in terms of the mainstream market mainly due to the fact that very few people get to actually see the leaks... only more knowledgeable users get themselves interested (and these DO get high expectations, as you said). but the vanilla end-user never even knows it happened most of the time.

about the argument on the competition... i highly doubt that it's really that unfair to Microsoft. specially because the competition gets to look at what Microsoft has already started and has something underway while the competition would be getting the first glimpse of it at that moment. not to mention that Microsoft would (at least i think it would've) have thought it through and planned the feature's implementation while the competition would only have a faint idea of how it would work.

but sure it must suck to see internal secret ideas and products out there for the world to see when they aren't even ready yet. that i say was wrong from the posters.

but please don't get started on the whole "they stole search from us" thing cause it was the natural evolution of things. it's not about copying. not specially when Microsoft publicly announced the whole "search is the new thing" idea back in 2003. it wasn't even a leak. they simply announced it. and well... they were right! "search" is the new "organize" in computers :p

[Brandon Live Veteran]

while i agree that leaks can cause a certain negative impact on user's expectations, i don't think it's significant in terms of the mainstream market mainly due to the fact that very few people get to actually see the leaks... only more knowledgeable users get themselves interested (and these DO get high expectations, as you said). but the vanilla end-user never even knows it happened most of the time.

The press finds out, though. Maybe customers don't see it directly, but lots of people read about the Vista "delays" and "cuts" even though neither of those things were publicly acknowledged by Microsoft. You can't "delay" something you never had a timeline for, and you can't get backlash if you "cut" something that you never told anyone you were going to do.

[Quillz]

Maybe because Windows 7 should have been Vista. Yes Windows 7 is a long way from being released. I Beta tested better builds that MS released as the final version of Vista. Vista does not nor did it ever live up to the hype. I suspect that Window 7 will be more of the same if MS rushes it to release due to lagging Vista sales.

Except Vista isn't having lagging sales.