Vista Beta 2 is out!

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 24, 2006, 10:50 am

If you have access to an MSDN account or a Connect account you can download Vista today and if you wanna try out Office 2007, it's available as a public download over at http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview ... fault.mspx

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » May 24, 2006, 1:26 pm

The first Vista beta was a waste of time. Anything new in this one?

What are the release dates for Vista and Office 2007 now? I know they were pushed back awhile ago.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 24, 2006, 1:34 pm

I'm still downloading beta 2 so I can't say what changes are in there compared to Beta1.
Current impressions that I've read say that it's more stable that previous CTP's, however still not quite ready to take over your day to day system at this stage.

Here's a quote from some dude at Neowin.

"Vista seems a little more responsive and stable from 5381. Nothing really different from that build but if you’ve been waiting to run Vista on your main machine then you may want to wait a little longer until RC0, as this release still isn’t at the stage where you could rely on it every day, especially on a mid-range PC."

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 24, 2006, 2:35 pm

Tried on

Dell Optiplex
GX150
GX260
GX270
GX280

None of them will boot and they all run fine from XPSP2 images. I will not be running Vista unless they magically get a devleoper to make a game that is far superior to anything else and will only run on Vista. Then I will still not be running it, but I will be laughing at people installing it to play the game.

Not only that but considering my work is upgrading from 2k to XP NOW, I doubt we will be buying Vista lol.

Truant · Post by **Truant** » May 24, 2006, 2:50 pm

Winnow wrote:The first Vista beta was a waste of time. Anything new in this one?

What are the release dates for Vista and Office 2007 now? I know they were pushed back awhile ago.

they've been pushed back again as of some story i saw on yahoo frontpage. iirc they are waiting until the EU monopoly ruling is finished before they release.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » May 24, 2006, 2:57 pm

Looks like Jan 2007 according to this article:

Microsoft starts Windows test, launch on target

By Daisuke Wakabayashi

Tue May 23, 5:53 PM ET

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) launched its second major test version of the Windows Vista operating system on Tuesday as a senior executive said he was "confident" the company will meet its targeted release date.

The world's largest software company also said it was starting trials of its upcoming Office 2007 business software suite and its Windows Server system code-named "Longhorn."

The next version of Windows is called Vista and will be the first major overhaul in five years of the operating system, which sits on 90 percent of the world's computers and accounts for nearly a third of Microsoft's total revenue.

The follow-up to the current Windows XP offers beefed-up security, translucent windows for easier scrolling and can display and record high-definition television on the computer. It also allows the user to search for information on the PC and across the network.

Microsoft originally targeted a 2005 launch for Vista, then pushed the release out to 2006 before announcing in March that Vista would again be delayed. Microsoft set a January 2007 launch for retail consumers and it pushed back the launch of Office 2007 to move together with Vista.

Long-time Windows chief Jim Allchin said Microsoft is confident it will meet its launch target, even though other Windows releases have undergone a longer gap between second test release and the start of production.

"At the top level, (this test version is) better quality than most things we've released before," Allchin, co-president of the company's Platforms & Services Division, said in an interview.

Earlier this month, research group Gartner Inc. (NYSE:IT - news) said the company likely would delay the new Windows launch by at least three months because it is so complex. Gartner had expected Microsoft to release the second major test version or "beta 2" of Vista during the current quarter.

"Our position has been that we believe it will ship in wide release nine to 12 months after beta 2," said Michael Silver, research vice president at Gartner. "We still think there are significant challenges."

Windows Vista, Office 2007 and "Longhorn" represent a set of crucial new product releases for the company's effort to stimulate sales growth and jump-start a stock that has underperformed every major U.S. stock index since 2002.

"Each of these is a very important product," said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, adding that they were the company's "three most important products."

Allchin, who announced last year that he planned to retire once Vista was complete, said the company is better able to track the trouble spots users encounter within the Vista test and assign engineers to fix the bugs.

Microsoft has "thousands" of engineers working around the clock to fix problems. Allchin said the company aims to improve Vista's compatibility with certain applications, performance and the ability of users to upgrade from Windows XP.

Allchin said he would not hesitate delaying the release of Vista again if the product's quality were not up to par.

"We took a lot of pain for moving the date before, but quality will remain the top thing. However, we feel very good about where we are at," said Allchin.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 24, 2006, 4:06 pm

I am willing to bet it will not be January

check out http://www.physorg.com/news67676495.html

noel · Post by **noel** » May 25, 2006, 2:03 am

Kylere wrote:I will not be running Vista unless they magically get a devleoper to make a game that is far superior to anything else and will only run on Vista.

Sure you won't.

Don't worry, you'll be in good company. Siji won't be running it either.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » May 25, 2006, 9:36 am

Most companies wont upgrade, waste of money and there is no way in hell I will put Vista on our computers before it has been tested (aka been gold for 6 months and the first dozen exploits have been fixed heh).

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 25, 2006, 10:05 am

I think a good rule for corporate envorinments is to wait till the first service pack is out before starting your testing with Vista for your production environment.

SP1 with Microsoft usually means some significant bug squashing and hole fixing.

noel · Post by **noel** » May 25, 2006, 2:12 pm

I'm not sure if those were a replies to what I said or not, but I'm assuming they were.

To your posts... one word: Obviously.

That said, any 'IT Guy' who isn't running the latest and greatest shit BEFORE he has to implement it in a production environment is an idiot. Personally, I'd rather bleed at home on my personal box (unlikely that anyone with decent hardware will, but we are talking about Kylere here) than wait and learn it as a trial by fire in a production environment. As with all the MS OSes, I'll get it the night it comes out, and work to learn every aspect of it as quickly as possible. I won't wait for a 'game that requires it'

to install it.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » May 25, 2006, 2:39 pm

noel wrote:
Kylere wrote:I will not be running Vista unless they magically get a devleoper to make a game that is far superior to anything else and will only run on Vista.
Sure you won't.

Don't worry, you'll be in good company. Siji won't be running it either.

Hmm?

-running
+purchasing

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 25, 2006, 2:59 pm

noel wrote:I'm not sure if those were a replies to what I said or not, but I'm assuming they were.

To your posts... one word: Obviously.

That said, any 'IT Guy' who isn't running the latest and greatest shit BEFORE he has to implement it in a production environment is an idiot. Personally, I'd rather bleed at home on my personal box (unlikely that anyone with decent hardware will, but we are talking about Kylere here) than wait and learn it as a trial by fire in a production environment. As with all the MS OSes, I'll get it the night it comes out, and work to learn every aspect of it as quickly as possible. I won't wait for a 'game that requires it' to install it.

I'm the same with Trial by Fire with my home box. The only thing that worries me slightly with the Vista rollout will be with the media center interaction with my Xbox360. The reset of my family uses that pretty routinely and if it don't work right away I might havta go the dual-boot way for a while.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » May 25, 2006, 3:55 pm

I'll run Vista when I can download it from a torrent site.
I cannot justify paying the $400 price tag they will tack on it when it comes out, and I do not have a version of xp I can upgrade from.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 25, 2006, 4:23 pm

I usually use the version I download off MSDN from work(it's a nice perk =P)

Posting this from Beta 2(Home Premium version since we can't get ultimate keys off MSDN for the moment).

The OS is running a lot smoother from the beta 1 iterations. The OS looks nice and polished.

Sound Drivers for the HP I pulled from our build room aren't available yet sadly. Aero UI worked on a fresh install in the built-in intel video adapter so that's a good thing.

I'll post more as things go.

noel · Post by **noel** » May 25, 2006, 4:44 pm

Siji wrote:
noel wrote:
Kylere wrote:I will not be running Vista unless they magically get a devleoper to make a game that is far superior to anything else and will only run on Vista.
Sure you won't.

Don't worry, you'll be in good company. Siji won't be running it either.
Hmm?

-running
+purchasing

Right, so you're a thief. Thanks for clearing that up.

noel · Post by **noel** » May 25, 2006, 4:59 pm

Funkmasterr wrote:I cannot justify paying the $400 price tag they will tack on it when it comes out...

Where are you getting that number?

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 25, 2006, 5:23 pm

noel wrote:
Funkmasterr wrote:I cannot justify paying the $400 price tag they will tack on it when it comes out...
Where are you getting that number?

I couldn't be surprised seeing that price tag on Windows Vista Ultimate. I suspect Home Premium will most likely fall between 250-350$ US.

For Comparison, XP Professional currently retails at 299$ and XP Home at $199.99 off Bestbuy.com.

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » May 25, 2006, 5:26 pm

I don't think it will be that much. Not if they want people to actually buy the thing. I suspect somewhere around $200 range.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 25, 2006, 6:22 pm

I will not be running it on my personal system, I can keep up with new OS's without having to suffer them, hell at the moment my primary is multibooting FC5, XP, and when I am feeling particularly full of self hate, OS/2. Hell, the first time I supported OS/2 I was replacing it with WIN95, but that did not mean I personally had to use it.

But I have been supporting 2k/ME (even Bob for 6 months I would I rather forget) for years without EVER running them on a home comp. I have seen the Vista Beta, and the changes are as much cosmetic as anything else, the worst parts will be figuring out the new language for the same old problems, and the new click order for the same old problems. But OS support is not rocket science, hell honestly network is not anymore, a decent fluke and a clue and you can run any network under 5k users, I have seen people without a fluke or a clue run 1k person networks. After the new OS has been out a year, I will have had to deal with it enough to support it, even via glacing views, TCP/IP is still TCP/IP programs still involve files, files are data and data still resides in storage or in active memory.

The only thing that would even begin to pull me to install it would be a game, but at that point it becomes a console not a PC.

Aranuil you have to get over this thing about me man, I know you hot for me, but I really do not care. Your constant sniping is frequently incorrect, and often ignorant being based off incorrect assumptions.

Kylere
Unrepentent member of Team OS/2

noel · Post by **noel** » May 25, 2006, 6:51 pm

Kylere wrote:...honestly network is not anymore, a decent fluke and a clue and you can run any network under 5k users...

You didn't really just say this, did you? I mean... if your network is so simple that your cable plant is the biggest of your worries than grats you, but I'll take a high-end packet sniffer over a fluke (to go along with my clue) any day of the week.

I've been running MS OSes from day one of their availability (or sooner) for years, and it's paid dividends when I've had to support them in the corporate world (or just plain babysit my coworkers). Fortunately, I'm not doing systems administration anymore so I largely don't have to worry about it, but I can't forsee a scenario when I'm not running what will undoubtably end up being a desktop operating system of choice for a large number of my customers.

I'm not sniping at you except for when you say things that I find utterly ridiculous. The fact that it happens frequently is as much your fault as it is mine. Or perhaps it's neither of our faults and we're like oil and water. I really don't care either way.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » May 25, 2006, 8:13 pm

Of course, there are guaranteed minor changes that will impact how softwares run on Vista compared to Win2K or XP. I know of differences between Win2K and XP itself. These are impossible to document and work around without more intimate knowledge of the OS and actually testing on it.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » May 25, 2006, 8:20 pm

noel wrote:
Funkmasterr wrote:I cannot justify paying the $400 price tag they will tack on it when it comes out...
Where are you getting that number?

My price ceiling is about $175-200 for software, and that would only be for an OS. I would not buy the chintzy home edition of it, and I just dont feel that its worth anything more than that.. When you consider their profit margin keeping in mind how many people will buy it, its sickening.

I figure my pirating their OS is about as insulting as them charging what they charge for their OS, so I can sleep perfectly well at night.

noel · Post by **noel** » May 25, 2006, 8:30 pm

I think if you worked with a development team for a while and had an idea of the amount of work that goes into writing an OS you'd feel differently. Then again, maybe not.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » May 26, 2006, 11:52 am

Just got my activation keys.

Downloading beta 2 now.

Anyone have any installation tips or caveats I need to watch out for?

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » May 26, 2006, 12:37 pm

Kelshara wrote:Of course, there are guaranteed minor changes that will impact how softwares run on Vista compared to Win2K or XP. I know of differences between Win2K and XP itself. These are impossible to document and work around without more intimate knowledge of the OS and actually testing on it.

Kelshara, I agree it requires a fine knowledge of the OS, but MS has been releasing upgrades since the 90's not new OS's heh. Windows 3.1 , then 3.11, then 95, was 4.0, 98 was 5.0, NT was 6.0, XP/2kSP4 was 7.0 and now they are releasing Windows 8.0.

I WISH THEY WOULD RELEASE A NEW OS

I would spend 400 bucks on an OS that throws out backwards compatibility, is geared from ground up to take FULL advantage of the newest tech, gets rid of the registry and DLL's, puts all the files needed by an app in the same directory (with a clearly marked common folder that identifies by keywords, which app uses which common files) gets rid of the concept 640k memory entirely etc.

I will not spend 400 bucks x 7 machines for 2800 bucks when I can spend 99 and put linspire on all 7. Or I can run FC5 with a slight bit more hassle entirely for free. I cannot afford to run Vista, and I refuse to pirate something that is not clearly superior to inexpensive or free solutions. None of the office environments apps requiring M$ os's is superior, none of the "utility" stuff is superior, games are the deciding factor.

My wife HAS to have Adobe CS2,(I have her running The Gimp on FC5, with Gimpshop setup but it still does lack next to Photoshop, and I cannot find a Vector app as good as Illustrator.) and we paid for it, she HAS to have XP for work, so it is a good balance. She will eventually HAVE to have Vista ( basically by the time it is released she will have it, thank god Tucows will be buying it.) but that is the only machine that will be that way.

BTW Kelshara this is not all a rant on what you said, so do not take it personally, but the fact is that you do not have to suffer being a Gold release ( but actually beta release) user to do it.

XP is the best MS has done since DOS6.22, Vista is not that big a step up, it is more like 95A, versus 95B.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » May 26, 2006, 1:08 pm

Neost wrote:Just got my activation keys.

Downloading beta 2 now.

Anyone have any installation tips or caveats I need to watch out for?

If you're gonna set a machine up as Dual Boot, changing the Boot.ini file will no longer configure the boot menus.

You havta go through a text based peice of software called bcdedit.exe.

I had an interesting time changing the labels of OS's from "Earlier Version of Windows" and "Microsoft Windows" to "Windows XP MCE 2005" and "Windows Vista Ultimate Beta2"

Other than a bit of trouble installing a few drivers, everything worked flawlessly on the run. OS is running very well and seems stable. I've installed a few necessaries like quicktime, acrobat reader, setup the media center and got it working well and a few other misc things like finding out where the File Settings were to see the damned extensions on my files. (Control Panel in classic mode is still your best bet for anything).

The User Control notification popup is somewhat excessive since it pops up asking for confirmation everytime something that could potentially change Windows Configuration wants to run. I've yet to click Cancel on it and is kinda defeats the purpose since now I've stopped reading it and just click Continue.

I downloaded the Office 2007 Beta2 this morning and installed it on the vista box at work and the thing is leaps and bounds different from it's predecessor to say the least.

This is a Win3.1 -> Win95 type leap in terms of user interaction. Real easy to grasp and use though which is a plus.

I'm not sure how much I like the new interface overall however. The whole thing, while pretty, seems really bleak, almost depressing to me. Maybe I just need to change the colors of the aero window to something more lively or brighter.

Install was more informational and somewhat faster than the previous iterations of beta which was a really good thing.

I'm pleased with it overall.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » May 26, 2006, 1:29 pm

Thanks.

I just bought a new video card for my gaming rig and think I'm gonna install vista on that one after I install the card.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » May 26, 2006, 1:32 pm

noel wrote:
Siji wrote:-running
+purchasing
Right, so you're a thief. Thanks for clearing that up.

You're so very welcome darling!

Xanupox · Post by **Xanupox** » May 26, 2006, 7:36 pm

I got this to boot on my Radio Shack TRS-80.

Janx · Post by **Janx** » May 26, 2006, 8:03 pm

Easy to dual boot with it?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 1, 2006, 2:37 pm

Here's a lengthy (40 online pages) review of Windows Vista B2 by Tom's Hardware Guide.

It goes into detail so is worth a look if you're curious about a certain part of the new Vista OS:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/31/wi ... index.html