Windows 7 build 7000 (Beta 1) QnA!

[kraken]

2 minutes and ill be installing it!

[espaciosalter20]

ummm......maybe i'll wait until somebody do know....

[rseiler]

Technical betas give you the chance to actually make an impact on the product in a big way, trust me, I know.

Or maybe more like a little way in this case due to the extreme lateness of the first "beta" released to technical testers. Let's face it, this is a "Beta 1" in name only. It's feature-complete and only in bug mop-up mode now. That's a far cry from the usual early betas where testers, to at least some extent, can shape features or at least nudge MS in certain directions. This might as well be called RC0 or 1.

Question for anyone: On an upgrade install (x86), how much free space must there be on the Windows partition? For Vista, as I recall, it was roughly 7GB. This is not to be confused with recommended partition size (which would be 20GB+), but the amount of free space the upgrade actually needs to do its thing.

[dcoaster]

Question about the sticky notes... I remember seeing a while ago that the sticky notes had a corkboard to organize the notes and I can't find it in 6956. All that happens when I open the Sticky Notes application is creating a new note. Hardly any new options either such as font or text size. Did they cut that stuff out? I'm really bummed they got rid of the notes gadgets. You could customize them pretty well... Also, it's annoying that an application has to be running in order to display the notes instead of just running them with the gadgets. I find it really annoying and a pretty bad implementation. Am I just missing some large component of the application or is this really it? Anything changed in 7000?

Question for anyone: On an upgrade install (x86), how much free space must there be on the Windows partition? For Vista, as I recall, it was roughly 7GB. This is not to be confused with recommended partition size (which would be 20GB+), but the amount of free space the upgrade actually needs to do its thing.

If you're talking about Windows 7, I installed mine on a 10GB partition and had roughly 3GB of free space left over.

[ale0crysis]

wtf :laugh:

[Calum Veteran]

Or maybe more like a little way in this case due to the extreme lateness of the first "beta" released to technical testers. Let's face it, this is a "Beta 1" in name only. It's feature-complete and only in bug mop-up mode now. That's a far cry from the usual early betas where testers, to at least some extent, can shape features or at least nudge MS in certain directions. This might as well be called RC0 or 1.

No.

Disregarding anything which may have happened in the beta releases of previous Windows development builds, a beta tester's job is to find and report bugs, not have a say in features.

Why generalise? Why say this shouldn't be classed as a beta, but classed as a release candidate instead? Why assume that even though Windows 7 is more than likely feature complete, the beta is late arriving?

The beta is actually right on time (if not early) comparing it to the schedule Microsoft set out. There are bound to be many bugs which beta testers will help find and report; therefore it can be classed as a beta.

The beta has been released with plenty of time to finalise this operating system and make it more efficient and robust than it has ever been.

Edited December 27, 2008 by cJr.

[rseiler]

Why generalise? Why say this shouldn't be classed as a beta, but classed as a release candidate instead? Why assume that even though Windows 7 is more than likely feature complete, the beta is late arriving?

The beta is actually right on time with the schedule Microsoft wanted. There are bound to be many bugs which beta testers will help find and report; therefore it can be classed as a beta.

The beta has been released with plenty of time to finalise this operating system and make it more efficient and robust than it has ever been.

It depends on the beta whether a tester's job is merely to report bugs. In most that I've seen from MS, mainly Windows and Office, we've definitely had an influence beyond reporting bugs. Don't forget, one form of "bug report" is the Suggestion. And if you're starting a beta program inside 6 months of RTM, which is quite likely what's happening here, those suggestions automatically go to the release three years down the line.

And I wasn't generalizing at all: this is not your father's Beta 1. I've yet to find any characterization of it that even hints that it's anything like a normal Beta 1. Heck, even its predecessor wasn't a Beta 1. To combat the perception problem created by the epic lateness of Vista, MS has cleverly created the public impression that Win7 is ahead of schedule, and part of that is holding the very first "beta" until people could actually mistake it for an RC or even RTM (I admit the latter is stretching it a bit).

The last thing they would ever do in the post-Vista era is to release a Beta 1 that's very buggy, missing half its features, etc. You know, like they did for Vista. Or was it still Longhorn then. You get the idea. Perception very often becomes reality.

In any other beta they would have released Beta 1 about six months ago or earlier. Does anyone recall what build was floating around in, say, July? ?That's your Beta 1.

The fact that there are bugs left is meaningless, since there are always bugs left -- even in RTM.

[Mr. Dee]

No.

Disregarding anything which may have happened in the beta releases of previous Windows development builds, a beta tester's job is to find and report bugs, not have a say in features.

Two words for you 'Feature Focus'.

[Eldoen]

Oh dang I missed the soap box item on English.

First English is my First language. Being an American and our less than stellar school system is also my only Language.

Now given that Context. English SUCKS as a Language and stating simple contextual Items. It is the Only language that you need to know the spelling rules of at least 5 other languages to have a chance at hoping to spell correctly in most cases.

It is also a bastardized language. (which unfortunately most living languages in use today are migrating to)

Now that said it is an adaptable language. Since there is no rhyme or reason for the Vowels and the sound they make we can take most any word and romanize it. of course when that happens it usually is in one of the romantic languages so words like sushi, or other non latin alphabet based languages will take an ee sound and use an i.

Not to mention that depending on where you are in the world English in English speaking countries sound completely different. some one listening to a Bostonian will realize that if an R doesn't have a vowel following it, the R is silent same as in England. or in parts of canada about is pronounced aboot; and for some reason in the south washer has an r in the middle of it.

Oh and btw, you never know the background of the person typing. you don't know what their first native language is. you never know if the person behind the keyboard was in a car accident and had to relearn English from scratch at a later date. These boards are to have fun to step away from the real world and YES be able to talk to People outside of the US or England for that matter.

BTW for those that are complaining. I bet you didn't realize that your Alphabet started as Runes and originally had 33 characters. and at one time it was actually a phonetic language, and had a set of rules for the most part that wasn't full of exceptions.

stepping off of the soap box.

El

[Calum Veteran]

It depends on the beta whether a tester's job is merely to report bugs. In most that I've seen from MS, mainly Windows and Office, we've definitely had an influence beyond reporting bugs. Don't forget, one form of "bug report" is the Suggestion. And if you're starting a beta program inside 6 months of RTM, which is quite likely what's happening here, those suggestions automatically go to the release three years down the line.

And I wasn't generalizing at all: this is not your father's Beta 1. I've yet to find any characterization of it that even hints that it's anything like a normal Beta 1. Heck, even its predecessor wasn't a Beta 1. To combat the perception problem created by the epic lateness of Vista, MS has cleverly created the public impression that Win7 is ahead of schedule, and part of that is holding the very first "beta" until people could actually mistake it for an RC or even RTM (I admit the latter is stretching it a bit).

The last thing they would ever do in the post-Vista era is to release a Beta 1 that's very buggy, missing half its features, etc. You know, like they did for Vista. Or was it still Longhorn then. You get the idea. Perception very often becomes reality.

In any other beta they would have released Beta 1 about six months ago or earlier. Does anyone recall what build was floating around in, say, July? ?That's your Beta 1.

The fact that there are bugs left is meaningless, since there are always bugs left -- even in RTM.

If you didn't understand my first post, I was on about a beta tester's job in relation to Windows 7 (which is why I disregarded any previous Windows version or any other type of software)

The fact that you keep referring to it as 'Beta 1', as if there will definitely be more betas, shows that you know nothing about Windows 7's development. Microsoft said they aim to only have one public beta, one public release candidate and then the final RTM build. I'm not saying there won't be a second beta, but that is not the plan; therefore this beta should be classed asthe> Windows 7 beta... not 'beta 1'...

Bearing all that in mind, how can you say 'Beta 1' should have been released 6 months ago? Microsoft said they plan to release Windows 7 in either summer 2009 or early 2010. I don't know about you, or anyone else, but in my opinion 6 months to a year is enough for time for one beta build and one release candidate build to both be fully carried out.

I disagree with your statement"The last thing they would ever do in the post-Vista era is to release a Beta 1 that's very buggy">. Microsoft will want all of the bugs fixed and in order to fix many of the bugs, there has to be external beta testers involved. Any testing done 'in-house' is referred to as alpha testing anyway, but even if you take your theory that 'the real beta 1 was ready 6 months ago and Microsoft have been fixing many of the bugs in-house, meaning the public beta will not be very buggy at all' then you are wrong. It would be impossible for Microsoft to find the majority of bugs because any testing done by 'in-house' testers can be unintentionally biased and also 'in-house' testers will not cover every possible use case scenario. The many users of the many computers out there in the world use an operating system differently, therefore the only way you can really get rid of the majority of the bugs is to release a beta for external testers - in this case the Microsoft Windows 7 beta which will be officially released to the public in January.

Two words for you 'Feature Focus'.

I don't even know what you mean by 'Feature Focus'? I'm on about a beta tester's main job and a beta tester's job in relation to Windows 7 (not any other software or any previous Windows versions).

[Mr. Dee]

I don't even know what you mean by 'Feature Focus'? I'm on about a beta tester's main job and a beta tester's job in relation to Windows 7 (not any other software or any previous Windows versions).

You don't know? Then don't assume what a beta testers job is then in relation to testing Windows, because its a whole lot more than you think.

[Calum Veteran]

You don't know? Then don't assume what a beta testers job is then in relation to testing Windows, because its a whole lot more than you think.

Not when it comes to adding more features to Windows 7, because Windows 7 will be feature complete. Features will change due to beta tester's feedback, but no new features are planned to be added.

That is what I have tried to communicate with you and rseiler and that is the truth (because Microsoft have said so).

[Eldoen]

If you didn't understand my first post, I was on about a beta tester's job in relation to Windows 7 (which is why I disregarded any previous Windows version or any other type of software)

The fact that you keep referring to it as 'Beta 1', as if there will definitely be more betas, shows that you know nothing about Windows 7's development. Microsoft said they aim to only have one public beta, one public release candidate and then the final RTM build. I'm not saying there won't be a second beta, but that is not the plan; therefore this beta should be classed as the Windows 7 beta... not 'beta 1'...

Bearing all that in mind, how can you say 'Beta 1' should have been released 6 months ago? Microsoft said they plan to release Windows 7 in either summer 2009 or early 2010. I don't know about you, or anyone else, but in my opinion 6 months to a year is enough for time for one beta build and one release candidate build to both be fully carried out.

I disagree with your statement "The last thing they would ever do in the post-Vista era is to release a Beta 1 that's very buggy". Microsoft will want all of the bugs fixed and in order to fix many of the bugs, there has to be external beta testers involved. Any testing done 'in-house' is referred to as alpha testing anyway, but even if you take your theory that 'the real beta 1 was ready 6 months ago and Microsoft have been fixing many of the bugs in-house, meaning the public beta will not be very buggy at all' then you are wrong. It would be impossible for Microsoft to find the majority of bugs because any testing done by 'in-house' testers can be unintentionally biased and also 'in-house' testers will not cover every possible use case scenario. The many users of the many computers out there in the world use an operating system differently, therefore the only way you can really get rid of the majority of the bugs is to release a beta for external testers - in this case the Microsoft Windows 7 beta which will be officially released to the public in January.

I don't even know what you mean by 'Feature Focus'? I'm on about a beta tester's main job and a beta tester's job in relation to Windows 7 (not any other software or any previous Windows versions).

A Feature Focus is features that one of the Window's teams want to have tested and explicit feedback on. There typically is competition from within the teams to get one of those done during the different cycles.

I do agree Sinofsky himself said there will be a beta a RC and then RTM for windows 7 at PDC, and he did say it will be feature complete at Beta meaning NO NEW FEATURES after beta.

My personal feeling will follow this pattern. beta in Jan. RC in March RTM in June

El

[Calum Veteran]

A Feature Focus is features that one of the Window's teams want to have tested and explicit feedback on. There typically is competition from within the teams to get one of those done during the different cycles.

Thank you for the information, Eldoen :)

So, a Feature Focus isn't adding new features from scratch?

Then, Mr. Dee, I do not understand your point? You have no argument.

[rseiler]

No offense, cJr., but I give up on our minithread. When that many fundamental points are missed, there's nowhere that I can go with it without it spinning out of control and consuming the thread. Eldoen is right: English does suck, and apparently sometimes it fails us.

[Calum Veteran]

No offense, cJr., but I give up on our minithread. When that many fundamental points are missed, there's nowhere that I can go with it without it spinning out of control and consuming the thread. Eldoen is right: English does suck, and apparently sometimes it fails us.

OK :) I still stand by what I said, though, as it is not just what Microsoft have stated, it is common sense. A beta tester's job may vary slightly with each application they test, but because a Windows 7 beta tester's job is only finding bugs, reporting bugs and sending feedback on what they do and do not like, I don't see how you can slam their release schedule and say this beta is more like a release candidate build.

Back on topic...

[DrOmango]

I just installed windows 7............... WOW THIS IS NICE! So many fricken features and options :cry: HOW CAN I GET CLASSIC MENU BACK?

and my disk performance rating is 2.0....... which needs to be tweaked. installing sata controller right now..

[Denholm]

Thank you for the information, Eldoen :)

So, a Feature Focus isn't adding new features from scratch?

Then, Mr. Dee, I do not understand your point? You have no argument.

Actually Mr. Dee is correct. A beta tester does a lot more than just test software.

We are called upon to make suggestions / improvements in Windows.

Stop pretending to be an authority on something you don't grasp or know cJr.

[Calum Veteran]

Actually Mr. Dee is correct. A beta tester does a lot more than just test software.

We are called upon to make suggestions / improvements in Windows.

Stop pretending to be an authority on something you don't grasp or know cJr.

I didn't say you weren't! All I said was that in the Windows 7 beta, beta testers and Microsoft developers will not be initialising features to be implemented from scratch throughout the beta process. rseiler did not seem to grasp the concept of a Windows 7 beta build being feature complete so I explained it to him. The Windows 7 beta, to be released in January, will be feature complete and it should still be classed as a beta build and it is far from a release candidate.

As this wasn't even a debate about the job of a beta tester, I do not know why you or Mr. Dee have got involved? I clearly know what a beta tester's job is and in many cases, including Windows 7, it is not to initialise features for the development team to implement!

I said before that suggestions and improvements to the operating system will be made by beta testers, in the form of feedback, so why are you trying to argue something which I have already said myself?

[Eldoen]

Thank you for the information, Eldoen :)

So, a Feature Focus isn't adding new features from scratch?

Then, Mr. Dee, I do not understand your point? You have no argument.

yes a Feature Focus not about adding features. But that doesn't mean that a Feature in the product cannot be changed.

Beta is not in complete lockdown. when we get to RC then even feature changes will be out the door because they will start working to escrow.

And there are several features that I believe or would classify as bugs at this point. Maintenance being one of those.

So Beta being Feature complete means that the features that are in the package are the ones that are going to be worked until RC there is still some wiggle room in those features.

Complete new features are out the door (with caveats meaning that if they were close for beta and enough of impact on the over all culture of windows and they are stable they may make it into the product) That said given sinofsky's history with the Office team I don't expect that to happen with Windows 7.

So IOW features are fair game for improvements or additions as long as they fit within the Features already in the package.

Suggestions that don't fit in that area are probably going to get a won't fix in this beta cycle and saved for later review.

El

[Calum Veteran]

I just installed windows 7............... WOW THIS IS NICE! So many fricken features and options :cry: HOW CAN I GET CLASSIC MENU BACK?

I am pretty sure the classic 'start' menu has been taken out for good (which I think is a brilliant thing as Windows does need to evolve and it has been evolving slowly by giving uses the option to have both in Windows XP and Windows Vista).

If you do not like this change, send feedback to Microsoft when the official public beta starts :)

yes a Feature Focus not about adding features. But that doesn't mean that a Feature in the product cannot be changed.

Beta is not in complete lockdown. when we get to RC then even feature changes will be out the door because they will start working to escrow.

And there are several features that I believe or would classify as bugs at this point. Maintenance being one of those.

So Beta being Feature complete means that the features that are in the package are the ones that are going to be worked until RC there is still some wiggle room in those features.

Complete new features are out the door (with caveats meaning that if they were close for beta and enough of impact on the over all culture of windows and they are stable they may make it into the product) That said given sinofsky's history with the Office team I don't expect that to happen with Windows 7.

So IOW features are fair game for improvements or additions as long as they fit within the Features already in the package.

Suggestions that don't fit in that area are probably going to get a won't fix in this beta cycle and saved for later review.

El

Thank you, but all what you said there is exactly what I have been saying all along :) I have said that no brand new features are planned be added to Windows 7. I never said features will not change or be improved during the beta and release candidate phases. That is obvious so I didn't think I'd have to state that explicitly (although you can probably gather that I knew that from my posts if you all read them carefully).

[Digitalx]

Features are frozen quite early on it's just their implementation/functions/stability that continue to be changed. Vista features were frozen in February 2006 in 5308. This also means nothing further will be added, but depending on development features can potentially be dropped though it's rare.

As for traditional jump list style taskbar function closest you can get is by disabling desktop composition. It won't however change the way the taskbar is presented unfortunately though as good as that would be.

[Calum Veteran]

Features are frozen quite early on it's just their implementation/functions/stability that continue to be changed.

Thank you :) That's exactly what I was trying to say when they challenged me on my knowledge of a beta tester's job in relation to Windows 7 :laugh:

[david]

Installing right now :)

[kraken]

I got it on!