Windows 7 Build 695x revealed at WinHEC 2008 China


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no, it is a complete pc backup, it contains the correct folder structure and catalogue. complete pc backup uses vhd files to store the data.

Ambroos, you do know that the ISO was made using the vhd right?

The original leak was a vhd file. Someone loaded it and made the ISO thank you.

I've played with the older version for a few days before I reformatted and the thing I notice is there is no need for a third party codec to play xvid, divx, and mp4 files; hope they keep that in the final built. Also I notice that ISO file show up as a file type which could mean we can burn without third party applications.

What's the build date for 6956 btw? That should give us a clue about where the builds could be come that beta date.

My guess is probably for a nice build number of 6970.

The extra bits following the build number is always

6xxx.winmain.YYMMDD-HHMM

You got me there.

Owned. :p

Honestly I don't think anyone has legit access to 695x yet on Connect or wherever at the moment, and those who do shouldn't be leaking screenshots to begin with. There's a reason why Paul Thurrott's most recent 695x shots have the build numbers wiped out.

Wow, totally works great. I've been playing with it for a while now and it's still ooh so good.

I copied the data out the VHD to a external HD, then i removed the drive from my laptop - using an external thing and then copied the data from one to the other using a Ubuntu live CD to copy data to the other. Then booted up, used the repair disc and then it booted (removed 6801 totally after formatting the C drive and putting 6956 there now).

Still totally sweet!

I've played with the older version for a few days before I reformatted and the thing I notice is there is no need for a third party codec to play xvid, divx, and mp4 files; hope they keep that in the final built. Also I notice that ISO file show up as a file type which could mean we can burn without third party applications.

Yes, both those features they announced during the WinHEC keynote ;)

The new Windows boot screen looks very slick but Microsoft needs to drop the lame "Ultimate" moniker.

This is the ultimate version, there's nothing to drop from it. They develop the main version with all of the features and then split it into different versions when it gets closer to ship.

Hmm. This build seems to be working better than 6801 as everyone says.

Anyone else having issues with battery icon (notebook obviously) not updating "remaning time" unless you click on it? That wasn't an issue in 6801 but the other good thing is that i'm noticing that 6956 will normally tell me i have 6Hrs+ remaining version Vista would only give me an estimate of 4-5hrs. Granted i haven't fully run down the battery just yet but i'm testing that now. That's how i came to notice the battery bug anyways.

(This is from the VHD install - not the ISO. I might do that later anyways)

Are you sure you're seeing a bug?

When you first unplug, the battery icon won't show an estimated remaining time. That's because immediately after unplugging the estimate is likely to be way off. So it waits a minute or two to collect enough data to show a reasonable estimate.

does anyone else have a problem where after a few hours of use, explorer will stop working?

it mostly happens if i browse my windows home server and cancel a folder refresh when its building thumbnails of videos. after that, browsing to another folder doesnt work (just a progress bar in the address box), loading my computer or any other folder results in a blank content area and blank address bar.

when this happens, it also affects things like action center.

if i kill explorer and reload it, i get an "The RPC server is unavailable".

before you bash me for moaning about a bug in a leaked version, i'm just interested in seeing if anyone else has the same problem :)

no, actually i haven been unplugged for a while now. I know i was talking about the stated battery life being 6hrs+ but i was unplugged for a while before i noticed it (30mins - which is why i was shocked it was still saying 6hrs+ normally it's closer to 4hrs by then (Y) ).

I started typing this message at 1:20pm EST and waiting till 1:30PM EST to submit it to see if it would change. I'm playing music in WMP as a way to use up some battery life. Either my battery life has gotten better or it's not updating till i click it and the popup comes showing a different time. Once i hover (after clicking) it shows the time that wsa shown in the popup.

(then again this is the VHD that was from someone else's system so maybe some issues are left over from that or something. If i had a clean install i'd be more worried. But it's still a beta as well :) )

Hey Brandon I must say, thanks for being so open and listening to people's problems.. It really shows you care about the product. I must say I am loving 6956. I will definately buy 7 the day its released as I did with Vista.. Although I got flamed for it until SP1 :p

I like that Windows Classic was fixed up in 6956. The windows don't have fat borders anymore, and the Windows flag looks much better than it did in Vista.

However, is there a way to get rid of the ugly Fixedsys text on the power button? Changing the theme's font doesn't do it, leading me to believe it's some kind of hard-coded button.

WRONG!

Every measurement the Windows team conducts is the time until the desktop is responsive (user can click on the start button and open Notepad, Explorer, etc).

Really? Wow, lol, that is pretty cool.

Yup yup.. noticed that bug in 6801 too :) I haven't had it yet in 6956 but who says it's not there still :) I'm sure they fixed that though or will by RTM if some people are still affected. :)

Also, when installing to a virtual machine, the Aero cursors weren't selected by default, but they were when I did a native installation on my Dell notebook.

Anyone also notice that most of the Aero window colors have ben renamed? "Default" has become "Sky," for example.

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    • Weekend PC Game Deals: Steam Summer Sale 2026 Edition by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Weekend PC Game Deals is where the hottest gaming deals from all over the internet are gathered into one place every week for your consumption. So kick back, relax, and hold on to your wallets. The Epic Games Store's freebie offer brought two more games to keep this week too. What you can grab this time are copies of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Complete Edition and Voidwrought. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 is an enhanced version of the classic title that comes with enhancements like widescreen and 1080p resolution support. Its two expansion packs are included here too. Meanwhile, Voidwrought is a 2D action-platformer with tight platforming and high-speed combat against cosmic horrors. The double giveaway is slated to last until July 2. On the same day, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream and River City Girls 2 will take the same freebie spot. The Humble Store introduced a couple of new game bundles earlier this week. The Going Rogue collection begins with Rogue Legacy, UnderMine, and None Shall Intrude in the starting tier for $5. If you pay the $10 it's asking to complete the bundle, you also get copies of Brutal Orchestra, Moros Protocol, Nightmare Reaper, Home Behind 2, and Lynked: Banner of the Spark. If it's fighting games you're looking for, the new Arc System Works Evo bundle is carrying plenty. The three tiers of this bundle that go up to $20 carry games like Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code, GUILTY GEAR Xrd REV 2, KILL la KILL - IF, Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, Blazblue CentralFiction, and more. Big Deals One of the biggest sale events of the year, the Steam Summer Sale, has just kicked off, and that means almost every PC game available is now featuring discounts. We have plenty of games for you to look over in our special hand-picked big deals list for the weekend below: Baldur's Gate 3 – $44.99 on Steam Anno 117: Pax Romana – $41.99 on Steam S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl – $41.99 on Steam Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – $41.99 on Steam NINJA GAIDEN 4 – $41.99 on Steam Dying Light: The Beast – $39.59 on Steam Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT – $35.99 on Steam Battlefield 6 – $34.99 on Steam Cities: Skylines II – $34.99 on Steam The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – $34.99 on Steam The Outer Worlds 2 – $34.99 on Steam Borderlands 4 – $34.99 on Steam Sid Meier's Civilization VII – $34.99 on Steam Mafia: The Old Country – $34.99 on Steam Split Fiction – $32.49 on Steam Assassin’s Creed Shadows – $31.49 on Steam HELLDIVERS 2 – $29.99 on Steam Diablo IV – $29.99 on Steam ARC Raiders – $29.99 on Steam Forza Horizon 5 – $29.99 on Steam Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition – $29.99 on Steam No Rest for the Wicked – $27.99 on Steam Metaphor: ReFantazio – $27.99 on Steam Ready or Not – $24.99 on Steam Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – $23.99 on Steam No Man's Sky – $23.99 on Steam Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered – $23.99 on Steam DOOM: The Dark Ages – $23.09 on Steam Mewgenics – $22.49 on Steam Persona 3 Reload – $20.99 on Steam Hades II – $20.99 on Steam Two Point Museum – $20.09 on Steam Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord – $19.99 on Steam God of War – $19.99 on Steam Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader – $19.99 on Steam Returnal – $19.79 on Steam Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 – $17.99 on Steam Cyberpunk 2077 – $17.99 on Steam Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – $17.99 on Steam Star Wars Outlaws – $17.49 on Steam REPLACED – $15.99 on Steam Days Gone – $15.99 on Steam Age of Mythology: Retold – $14.99 on Steam Crusader Kings III – $14.99 on Steam Red Dead Redemption 2 – $14.99 on Steam Half-Life: Alyx – $14.99 on Steam Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced – $14.99 on Steam EA SPORTS FC 26 – $13.99 on Steam The Crew Motorfest – $13.99 on Steam Sea of Thieves: 2026 Edition – $13.99 on Steam Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition – $13.99 on Steam Dead Cells – $12.49 on Steam Schedule I – $11.99 on Steam BioShock: The Collection – $11.99 on Steam Fable Anniversary – $11.54 on Steam Hearts of Iron IV – $9.99 on Steam Kerbal Space Program – $9.99 on Steam Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands – $9.99 on Steam The Riftbreaker – $8.99 on Steam Stardew Valley – $8.99 on Steam Total War: WARHAMMER III – $8.99 on Steam Sons Of The Forest – $8.99 on Steam Assassin's Creed Origins – $8.99 on Steam Risk of Rain 2 – $8.24 on Steam Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 – $7.49 on Steam Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® II – $6.99 on Steam CONTROL Ultimate Edition – $5.99 on Steam Dead Space – $5.99 on Steam The Quarry – $5.99 on Steam RV There Yet? – $5.59 on Steam Euro Truck Simulator 2 – $4.99 on Steam Terraria – $4.99 on Steam PEAK – $4.95 on Steam Detroit: Become Human – $3.99 on Steam Far Cry 3 – $3.99 on Steam A Plague Tale: Innocence – $3.99 on Steam The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – $3.99 on Steam Assetto Corsa Competizione – $3.99 on Steam PAYDAY 2 – $2.99 on Steam Wreckfest – $2.99 on Steam Rain World – $2.49 on Steam Watch_Dogs 2 – $2.49 on Steam Planet Zoo – $2.24 on Steam Bendy and the Dark Revival – $1.99 on Steam CARRION – $1.99 on Steam The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth – $1.49 on Steam Plague Inc: Evolved – $1.49 on Steam Don't Starve Together – $1.49 on Steam Metro 2033 Redux – $0.99 on Steam Hotline Miami – $0.99 on Steam RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Complete Edition – $0 on Epic Store Voidwrought – $0 on Epic Store DRM-free Specials The GOG store is in the middle of its own summer sale. 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    • Yup, that's a doozy right there 😄
    • It's a bundle of tools created by a variety of people, so things can go wrong sometimes. It's a great addition to Windows, and I use a lot of the tools on a daily basis. Also, it's still a 0.**** release so quick updates are to be expected 😉
    • Oh, I did. And it's even worse than I was hoping! Besides a lot of techno-babble jargon (yes I understand 100% of it but it's still all just techno-babble) there's 2 key points that make me super-weary about even considering testing this out. -- By default, after installation, a relay is automatically set up, so you do not need to care about that. * Non-chatmail apps use email servers as a long-term message archive while chatmail clients use email servers for ephemeral instant message relay. * Supporting the full variety of classic email setups would require considerable development and maintenance efforts, and complicate making chatmail-based messaging more resilient, reliable and fast. -- Basically, the end-user device is the 'server' (relay) so there is NO ARCHIVING whatsoever because every message is necessarily ephemeral. Great for techno-paranoia (and for illicit activities preferring no tracks to cover) but terrible for everybody else. It's also ironically contradictory to engineering principles of redundancies besides the transport layers due to the explicit absence of any persistent storage. Instead of 'classic email address' retaining multi-GB messaging archives on its server, now every device must retain 100% of those storage demands. (Email messages were originally meant to be short correspondences, not the multi-MB attachments boondoggle that now exists with unlimited spam engines flooding every potential recipient.) Any device swap or reset (or loss) makes the entire message history go bye-bye forever... lest there's an off-device auto-archival "relay" mechanism that's really a separate server that holds onto all transported messages (an email server) that utilizes 'chatmail email address' identities (like an email server) and its own persistent storage archive (like an email server). But... this solution is hoping to exist alongside real-world email address identities (based on the email server relay pathway) but simply render messages in chat thread format in an ephemeral manner (with contents being encrypted, and messages auto-expiring) ... In the end, it's a chat app/experience for the Web3/P2P-at-all-costs zealots. (I have accts on all sorts of federated web3 services so I understand the technical and non-technical alike.) For any practical users, however, it's just another service to download/install, register, cross-share id cards/qr codes, but know that there's no history/archive whatsoever (by design) so no account/message recovery whatsoever... update the device, install a bummed update patch, or dare upgrade your device... all history, poof, gone. Ya gotta start everything over again like they're a brand new person.
    • You've tried DuckDuckGo and Brave Search, now get serious with SearXNG by Paul Hill Over the last decade, it has become quite trendy to dump Google Search in favor of privacy-preserving alternatives such as DuckDuckGo, Startpage, and Brave Search. These search engines have done a very good job at highlighting dodgy practices by Google, such as adjusting search results based on what it thinks you’ll like (filter bubble) and stalking you around the web to advertise to you. While these search engines are good starting points when compared to non-private services like Google, there are still quite a few issues with them. For example, both DuckDuckGo and Brave Search require running non-free JavaScript in your web browser, which is comparable to running proprietary software on your computer, meaning you can be sure about what it’s actually doing in the background. Another issue is that these search engines are hosted on the respective companies’ servers, and you are using a service that you don’t control. Finally, DuckDuckGo, while offering privacy features, relies heavily on Microsoft’s infrastructure for its results and, in the past, has permitted Microsoft tracking scripts. If you are looking for a more private search solution than DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, and Startpage, then I recommend taking a look at SearXNG. It is a privacy-respecting metasearch engine that can be used via different public instances, which is useful for mobile users, or you can install it on your computer or server and run it locally with maximum control. Unlike Google, Bing, or Brave Search, which crawl the web and have their own search indexes, SearXNG is a metasearch engine, meaning it taps other search engines, stripping your identifying data, such as IP address, user agent, and cookies, in the process. 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