Travel Technology - Windows Vista Beta 2 download

Vista Beta 2 is available to download through Customer Preview Program:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/preview.mspx

Seeing has how my windows box is over a year old, i think I'm out of luck. :cool:

Seriously, I've played with Vista and I think its going to be a hard sell. Until someone changes the way we actually interact with computers (and I'm not talking about Expose or Areo, etc) then whats the point in a new OS? Sure windows needs a better way to deal with media files and better security. But that is stuff that Linux (ok, maybe not so much on the media) and OS X have done for years... I'm just not impressed...and I wanted to be.

I'm not a MS basher...hey, my MCSE payed my rent a few years ago. I'm just saying that I don't see a huge compelling reason to upgrade just for (mostly) visual appeal....

that being said, I didn't get a chance to dig into the hard-core geek stuff like the file system and group policies, etc... maybe I'll be plesantly suprised.

I would highly recommend ordering a copy of Microsoft Windows Vista Unveiled (http://www.bookpool.com/sm/0672328933). I've found it 50% off. I've actually read two pre-publication chapters from the book even though it doesn't publish for a couple weeks. It's going to be a great decision maker for you re: upgrading to Windows Vista.

I am really looking forward to Vista as there are a lot of cool features, but more importantly, I'm looking even more forward to Office - especially Powerpoint. It's truly a revolutionary product this year.

Seeing has how my windows box is over a year old, i think I'm out of luck. :cool:

Seriously, I've played with Vista and I think its going to be a hard sell. Until someone changes the way we actually interact with computers (and I'm not talking about Expose or Areo, etc) then whats the point in a new OS? Sure windows needs a better way to deal with media files and better security. But that is stuff that Linux (ok, maybe not so much on the media) and OS X have done for years... I'm just not impressed...and I wanted to be.

I'm not a MS basher...hey, my MCSE payed my rent a few years ago. I'm just saying that I don't see a huge compelling reason to upgrade just for (mostly) visual appeal....

that being said, I didn't get a chance to dig into the hard-core geek stuff like the file system and group policies, etc... maybe I'll be plesantly suprised.

There is a LOT LOT more to Vista than looks. It doesn't have to be a hard sell, cause pretty much all vendors will be selling their desktop with it preinstalled, and eventually most people will switch or buy a new machine.

I need a new computer now but am holding out for VISTA. Will be trying a new HD in my 4 year old machine this weekend. If it works, I'm set.

Any guesses as to when VISTA will really be available? Should one hold off for 90 days so that others debug it?

There's an upgrade advisor there too to check to see if you can getall the benefits from it or not.

I need a new computer now but am holding out for VISTA. Will be trying a new HD in my 4 year old machine this weekend. If it works, I'm set.

Any guesses as to when VISTA will really be available? Should one hold off for 90 days so that others debug it?

Or order a Mac now :D
Just throwing that in for the rub...not starting the ole os x vs xp debate :D

All the previous CTPs of Vista installed and ran (more or less) on my bog-standard Dell that I bought about six months ago, and that has a performance rating of 3.8 on the Vista-mometer. Sadly, Beta 2 just blue screens right when it boots after the installation, then it goes and unistalls itself without saying a word and dumps me back into XP. I can't get up the enthusiasm to start yanking hardware out of the box to see what the problem is. Oh, well.

There is a LOT LOT more to Vista than looks. It doesn't have to be a hard sell, cause pretty much all vendors will be selling their desktop with it preinstalled, and eventually most people will switch or buy a new machine.

Yeah. I'm waiting for Longhorn server, myself. Some of the stuff they've done there is just amazing. Office 2007 (and Exchange 2007) have me more excited than the Vista client, though. I spend my days in email, Word, Excel, SSH, and Remote Desktop.

All the previous CTPs of Vista installed and ran (more or less) on my bog-standard Dell that I bought about six months ago, and that has a performance rating of 3.8 on the Vista-mometer. Sadly, Beta 2 just blue screens right when it boots after the installation, then it goes and unistalls itself without saying a word and dumps me back into XP. I can't get up the enthusiasm to start yanking hardware out of the box to see what the problem is. Oh, well.

Try reburning the DVD; I had to burn mine at 1x to get a working version...

Got it running (the x64 version) on my notebook and am pretty happy, massive improvement over B1 but the more they add, the slower it seems to be getting, even on my machine (specced to the max) it only says it has a performance rating of 2; which is just crazy...

...not starting the ole os x vs xp debate :DThere's a debate? ;)

Try reburning the DVD; I had to burn mine at 1x to get a working version...

Got it running (the x64 version) on my notebook and am pretty happy, massive improvement over B1 but the more they add, the slower it seems to be getting, even on my machine (specced to the max) it only says it has a performance rating of 2; which is just crazy...

I did a 1X burn and same problem. Finally tracked it down to the fact that the NVidia driver that comes with beta 2 just bluescreens, as does the new beta 2 driver that NVidia has on their site. :rolleyes: The forums are full of people with the same problem. I finally booted into safe mode, installed an NVidia driver from a few months ago, and it worked. Really well. All the problems I had before with sound and network connectivity are gone and it's fast and stable as can be. I'm impressed. Except for...

Outlook can't connect to my Exchange server. :( After maybe a dozen uninstalls/reinstalls of Office, countless profile deletes, hacking the .prf file to point to the new Vista-approved application data paths, I track it down to a missing registry entry in the ClientProtocols branch of RPC. And wouldn't you know...it WILL NOT let me add it. Access denied. Using runas makes no difference.

I am about to have a stroke.

I also agree that B2 is a huge improvement from the previous releases and I've actually been using it as my main OS for the past week...had the same Nvidia issue so I just did a clean install. While there are still a lot of bugs and performance issues, it's proof that Vista is finally going down the home stretch :)

Is anyone running either Vista or Office 2007 Betas on a notebook/laptop? I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S311 I bought a year and a half ago and was thinking it might be fun to upgrade the memory (it currently only has 512MB but is upgradeable to 2GB) and install the two Betas on it. My desktop is my primary machine and I don't want to install betas on it, but my laptop, while important to me while travelling, is not mission critical.

Someone told me I might not be able to run Vista because of the video card or integrated graphics on the laptop. I thought the memory upgrade would be more important but OK, what would I lose graphics-wise or video-wise on my notebook? Isn't Microsoft interested in an operating system that will run on both laptops and desktops????

Is anyone running either Vista or Office 2007 Betas on a notebook/laptop? I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S311 I bought a year and a half ago and was thinking it might be fun to upgrade the memory (it currently only has 512MB but is upgradeable to 2GB) and install the two Betas on it. My desktop is my primary machine and I don't want to install betas on it, but my laptop, while important to me while travelling, is not mission critical.

Someone told me I might not be able to run Vista because of the video card or integrated graphics on the laptop. I thought the memory upgrade would be more important but OK, what would I lose graphics-wise or video-wise on my notebook? Isn't Microsoft interested in an operating system that will run on both laptops and desktops????


All my machines have Office 2007 Beta 2. I love it and it's pretty stable.

As far as Vista, a gig is minimum RAM IMHO. You won't get all the special effects on most laptops but it will run fine.

All my machines have Office 2007 Beta 2. I love it and it's pretty stable.

As far as Vista, a gig is minimum RAM IMHO. You won't get all the special effects on most laptops but it will run fine.
Thanks for the reply, Brian! Are you actually running the Vista Beta also? I'm wondering if you have you installed it on a laptop?

Is anyone running either Vista or Office 2007 Betas on a notebook/laptop? I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S311 I bought a year and a half ago and was thinking it might be fun to upgrade the memory (it currently only has 512MB but is upgradeable to 2GB) and install the two Betas on it. My desktop is my primary machine and I don't want to install betas on it, but my laptop, while important to me while travelling, is not mission critical.

Someone told me I might not be able to run Vista because of the video card or integrated graphics on the laptop. I thought the memory upgrade would be more important but OK, what would I lose graphics-wise or video-wise on my notebook? Isn't Microsoft interested in an operating system that will run on both laptops and desktops????

I ran it on my machine (64bit version) and was very unimpressed. I've heard the latest beta released to developers is much better than the first preview release.

I ran it on my machine (64bit version) and was very unimpressed. I've heard the latest beta released to developers is much better than the first preview release.
I've heard the same. I would be using Beta 2.

Is anyone running either Vista or Office 2007 Betas on a notebook/laptop? I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X-S311 I bought a year and a half ago and was thinking it might be fun to upgrade the memory (it currently only has 512MB but is upgradeable to 2GB) and install the two Betas on it. My desktop is my primary machine and I don't want to install betas on it, but my laptop, while important to me while travelling, is not mission critical.

Someone told me I might not be able to run Vista because of the video card or integrated graphics on the laptop. I thought the memory upgrade would be more important but OK, what would I lose graphics-wise or video-wise on my notebook? Isn't Microsoft interested in an operating system that will run on both laptops and desktops????


Yes both- IBM Thinkpad

Also note - got an email from MS - today is the last day to download Beta 2

Yes both- IBM Thinkpad

Also note - got an email from MS - today is the last day to download Beta 2

I'd better hop on this then... hmm...main work laptop, or home desktop...