Microsoft scraps download limit for Win 7 beta

".....a seemingly more-of-the-same patch with no actual serious problems addressed."

From all the negative publicity that Vista continues to get, i have yet to see anyone make a clear "this is what is broke" statement about Vista.
Does it have high resource requirements - sure. Does it have annoyances - yes.
Have those issues been addressed in Windows 7? YES.
From the beta installation I've played with: The Acount Control annoyance has been tapered as it now has varying degrees of trust you can instill in your daily operations.
I can't really speak for overall system resources because the system I am testing it on is farily capable in the graphics and CPU departments - however it is only equipped with 1GB of system ram. To that end, i am intsalling it laptop and we'll see how that works.....

Vista may not be perfect, but it was sure a step in the right direction.....

There is a patch for the beta already, which fixes, amongst other things, Windows 7's apparent willingness to corrupt your MP3 files...

Have fun!

What's the point of removing the limit when the download servers are still full? By the time you download it Windows 7 retail will be on shop shelves.

I have to agree with Michael: have you even tried Windows 7?

As much as MS rubs my fur the wrong way from time to time, I have to kinda stick up for them on this one. With all the speed and reliability we get from their sites on "normal" days, when they get enough traffic to bring it to a crawl you know something is going on.

Yea, they took the site down. I was still able to get my copy of 7(64bit) via a direct link that was posted on on of the tech forums. Bit slow, but I got the beast. Went back later and got the activation key when the DL site was back up, I'd already had the beta installed updated and running at that point.

People need to remember how to slow down a bit. Now that MS has killed off the limit, there should be no rush.

Yup patch for the MP3 bit. Strange how they managed to include that "feature" LoL. Patch applied at the same time winUpdate installed the video drivers.

Hasn't eaten any of my files yet, Has only crashed once in the 2 days it's been up. (Suspect the beta video drivers as the cause) Every piece of software I've tossed at it (32 or 64bit) has run without issue as of yet.
Couple driver warnings due to "Not tested on your OS" but they loaded and are working.

As long as MS doesn't muck it up between now and release, I'll probably buy this one.

On another note: They can keep IE8. I am highly unimpressed with it.

LoCatus

well i hate to admit it, but having used the 32 bit version for a couple of days, im well impressed O_O took bout 15 mins for a clean install (incl format) i wont have the broken OS anywhere near my rigs, but this is a different ball game altogether AND its BETA to boot !!!!! service pack for vista ??? nope, i dont think so, even my audigy 2 drivers work with it outa the box !!!! wowzers, theres a novelty, creative drivers workin :O) downloadin 64 bit as i speak, comin down at over 600 KB/s and its resumable too, gonna give the 64 bit flavour a go, btw im on a jetway mobo with nvidia ch/set (sorry charlie lol) AMD X2 5000+ black o/clocked to 3 Ghz, 4 gig ddr2, ati 3870, sorry fellow vole haters, but thats how it is so far :O)

I installed the 64-bit flavor onto a test box sporting an Athlon X2 3800+, 1GB DDR2 533, 250GB Segate 7200.9, and a Foxconn 740G based motherboard. Now I'm a staunch Linux supporter and try to use Open sauce whenever possible, as I despise the Microsoft licensing "tactics" and dodgy reputation when it comes to treating their customers fairly. With that said, I was impressed with the level of performance that I got from Windows 7 on the hardware above. It was loads more responsive, and felt more like having XP installed as opposed to Vista, which even on my e8400/P5Q/8GB DDR2 1066/500GB 7200.10, feels a bit more than sluggish. I'm encouraged by the initial experience, and will have to test more to see what the gaming performance is like, as that's the only reason I keep a windows installation on my box.

Ah, good old Millennium III, Uh I mean Vista SP2, no, um 7? Is that the new name for resource hogging bloatware?

DOLBY & Double D Symbol are TM Dolby Labratory Confidential UnPublished Work C DOLBY Ever Since Geladen UniCode of 1988, GUI has become more Manipulatable expectation...DOLBY Don't Share With Ease or At ALL. GET Dolby? See Down that Street, Mister i'm OLD. Not DOLBY, 7 is 7, NOLess. DOLBY is Young & DOLBY Don't Share. DOLBY is ALL Yous Got. Signed: Dolby Drashek inventor of Dolby.

I installed Windows 7 on Friday and all worked great until I decided to update my ATI radeon drivers. The ATI installer seems to get stuck about 60% through with the "Enumerating source media for installable packages" message and will not go further. Trying to un-install the current gives the same result even if booted in "Disable driver signature enforcement". Booting into safe mode doesn't work either.

After doing a little googling I found a forum that had a link to the "cat-uninstaller" (https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/cat-uninstaller.exe) and this worked like a charm.

Other then this glitch I found that Windows 7 gives very similar FPS in all the games I've played as Windows XP does which is the only reason I'm testing this. All the "Vista" based drivers/software all work without a glitch to date. Actually I was dare I say impressed with what I've seen but I won't hold my breath since I've been down this path before and was totally let down in the end (cough cough Windows ME cough cough).

It's 2009 already and some companies just refuse to change their way of thiking. We all know M$ came a little bit late to the party called 'internet' but it's been some years they should already caught up by now.

Using a direct download link (even if its distributed to many different servers bla bla bla) just proves that M$ is still in the stoneage when it comes to accepting and using internet as a medium.

These days, normal people get a torrent link and by the magic of swarm they have their data quickly, with resume/hecksums you name it.

I did it and only got my key from M$, 0 problems, no site downtimes etc.

And a nice system overall. Got less problems than my previous 2008 server which i tried to turn into a workstation. Despite what the 'enthusiasts' say, its a bad idea, not even close to the smooth 2000 server.

Windows 7 is faster than 2008 server, looks nicer & easier to use (love the new taskbar) and for a while it will be FREE:D

I've bin downloading since late Friday, I expect that I should almost be there and that the install should be completed by Wednesday next... I should have the stamina of Sting... There were cupboards of patience -
There were shelf-loads of care -
But whoever came calling -
Found nobody there.

It installed fine. The only minor problem i'm having in evaluating this wonderful new OS is that it won't boot once the BIOS checks are complete. It doesn't even give an error message; it just checks for a floppy/CD and then sits there, doing nothing. Windows 7 diagnostic tools find nothing wrong with the installation. This was a nice clean install too. No other Windows OS i've used has ever fallen at the first hurdle.

Windows 7 is what Vista SHOULD have been!

It installed pretty painlessly... I put it on it's own hard drive in an ESATA case, so I can disconnect it from the rest of my system any time I don't want to play with it. It did complain during install about the ESATA during install, but I simply plugged it into an internal sata port until it was loaded....with all other hard drives unplugged to avoid any corruption. It didn't see my Atheros onboard LAN, but I had a Realtek PCI LAN sitting around. It found the Realtek, did a hardware update online, and then found the Atheros. I REALLY like the ability to have a slide show for the desktop background. Even on 30 second changes, it doesn't use much in the way of resources. In IE64, it's a little quirky in that it wants to DL Adobe Flash every time I fire up IE. Firefox seems to want to start in safe mode every time, but those are bugs I can live with in Beta. Windows Media Center is VERY pleasing....why can't M$ make it the same product across all 3 OSes with MCE? I noticed the difference between XP MCE, Vista Premium, and now W7...improving with each new OS. The new taskbar is okay...it'll take some getting used to. It's buttons that expand to regular tabs once you click on them, and I like the preview windows when you mouse over the buttons....yes, I know it's also in Vista, but this one is a little more pleasing. The "show desktop" button is on the far right and is unlabeled. I'm not liking that I can't put a shortcut to my data drive in quick launch like in previous versions. Instead, it makes it an option in the "library" button. What happens if you're like me and NEVER keep anything in My docs, My Music, etc? I haven't loaded any programs yet, so I don't know what kind of compatibility issues there will be (VISTA?). It seems to be less greedy with the resources than Vista. Overall, I hope they polish this just a touch before release, but I'm liking it more than Vista even now. My MP3's and WMA's all still work.....yes I have backup copies ;o).
This seems like the bastard child of many OSes....a little Vista, a little Ubuntu, a little Leopard. I don't care where it came from as long as it WORKS! It sails along on a P43, E8400, 9800 GT, 4 gig rig. I'm tempted to see how it works on a E7300, cheapy ECS mobo with OBG, and 2 gigs of ram. I also would like to know what will "disappear" going from Ultimate to Premium when this is released for public use.

Running it on a NEC Versa P8310 (Upgraded to 4GB RAM and 7200rpm WD HDD)- only a couple of devices that it doesn't have drivers for but they are not show stoppers (ie webcam and the Modem (never used that anyways!))

Using the 64-bit version - its stable and very fast compared to a clean vista install on the machine - so far its running all my apps I need running and looking after external devices I use every day.

Having being part of the Beta Program since Windows 95 - this is by far the most stable and usable beta I have seen (and yes - i selected do not release ME)

I spent all last night booting back and forth between Vista and 7 on the same machine, just to see how each one handled the identical hardware. I dare say that 7 actually runs gracefully, and already i like it way more than Vista. I didn't even have a huge problem with Vista, I found it easier to look at than XP. 7 is almost Mac-like in its aesthetic. Which is not a coincidence, since several prominent features were ripped right from mac, lol. But hey, Mac like OS without overpriced hardware? Sold.

I see a few comments out there which are out even before the bloggers have tried the OS. I would just like to say try it and then hate it if u have to. Dont give the OS the unfair negative publicity.

I think Microsoft never intended on keeping the 2.5 Million download limit in the first place, they just set that in place and publicised it so much so that everyone would 'panic download' the beta giving them plenty of out-reach and get everyone telling there mates how much windows 7 is better than Vista.

I know I downloaded it the second it was released to make sure I got my copy even tho I never installed it, I've just got it stuck on a DVD waiting for me to find a spare afternoon and an old harddrive.

Just my 2 cents :)

I installed Windows 7 64 bit OK on my Athlon X2 4400 with no problems. It was able to get onto the internet fine. I had to install my Logitech webcam in a Vista compatability mode (under properties for the program). It does seem to be a bit flaky withmy ATI Theator 650 Pro, but it does work most of the time. The remote though is kind of set up messed up with the FF not skipping to the next song, but just fast forwarding... and I could not figure out how to adjust it. My ASUS Xonar sounds great still. I have a dual boot with WindowsXP on my 250GB drive and Windows7 on my 1TB drive. 2GB of RAM works flawlessly. I have not tried games or playing Blu-ray yet, but the latest nVidia drivers actually recognized Windows7. The biggest flaws are the complete lack of a mail service (like Outlooks Express) and not being able to use any provider for your search engine (like you can with IE7). You have to pick it off a list and my favorite (WebCrawler is not there). It is very zippy, looks good, and seems to be pretty strong.

Windows Live Mail works with Windows 7.

I forgot to mention in my prior post that UAC is much nicer having a "throttle". I disabled it in Vista, but I'm on the mildest setting in W7 and it hasn't been too annoying. My AverMedia M780 works flawlessly....actually watched the Pittsburgh game on it yesterday in HD. WEI now goes to 7.9... I got a 7.9 for desktop graphics with a 9800 GT, and a 6.8 for "processor" using a E8400 OCed to 3.6 ghz, the rest of the scores are 5.9's. In Vista, I have all 5.9s with the processor dipping to 5.8. How do I score a 6.8 in one OS, and a 5.8 on another with everything the same except the primary hard drives?

They still didn't get rid of that dreaded Vista look. I hate those fishy window decorations. Looks like they are drowning or something. I am not an apple fanboy, but Aqua looks way better. Even Linux is more sexy nowadays. Also the handling is very awkward. Of course you don't expect Windows to be as user-friendly as Mac OS or Ubuntu, but this is just irritating.

You do realize that another name for a Siamese Fighting Fish is "Beta"? Could it be coincidence that the current version of Windows 7 that's out there is called "Beta"??? Read between the lines as to why that fish is there as the primary background graphic for the desktop!

Seems like to me that M$ is using the same tatic again as they used in win3.1, "Click Skip if you don't have your serial number to continue...". Just different this time, is they are giving you the serial, and with a name "Beta".

I have to say, this is a really good tatic. Look at all those who don't willing to that (i.e. OS2), they all vanish...

So Microsoft have written a new program have they? No thank you. Apart from a mild curiosity as to whether they have seen their way clear to implementing multiple desktops yet, I am never going to buy it. I've had it with companies that try to limit what I can do with My Computer. Why on Earth would I want to buy anything, or for that matter spend hours downloading anything, that has been specifically designed to make stuff not work unless you hand your bank account to the makers?

I don't trust Microsoft. Haven't for a long, long time. Actually, I should qualify that: I DO trust them to act in their own best interest, and I do not thrust those interests to coincide with mine.

All these cheery reviews (Yay! They got it to work this time and IT'S NOT AS ANNOYING AS VISTA!!) do not convince me that I am missing anything. For goodness' sake, people, if you are so eager to download a massive Sixteen Gigabytes for a tryout version of a bare operating system, without even any applications, then you may want to point your downloading agents in the direction of one of the many Linux distros out there.

At least, what you download there won't conk out after thirty days.

'One billion flys have not mistaken, shit is good'.
We don't have a billion flys, only about 14.000 but Visva might have cost us many mega$. Every time we got to make a big move, we got to install the OS to those 14000 PC, part of them being in laboratories or otherhow having programs or some special equipement, whose drivers are not compatible with the new OS.

We are just hoping to get this '7' in our hands ASAP so we don't have to tangle with this 'Multimedia OS for secretaries and laboratories' anymore.

Windows has lost years ago any visions, how an OS should work in a work environment. Win 98 was the last OS from M$ which could be used in a laboratory environment.