Windows Vista Beta 2 available for download

[Deadbent]

Beta test Satans new favorite operating system today!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mspx



It -does- rock, believe it or not.
(what would you expect its satan-approved!)

[NightStalker3]

Site is getting hammered. It might be awhile.

[JoeyDVDZ]

Shit yeah it is. I don't remember any previous OS that M$ released that they offered a beta2 to the general public like this! It seems that anybody can just dl a time sensitive copy of it if they're so inclined. Usually it's technet & beta testers alone who get that opportunity.

[patbattlefield]

how long is it good for?

[JoeyDVDZ]

I believe July 07. Plenty of time to get the feel for it.

[patbattlefield]

i get to the download part and it just hangs forever

[patbattlefield]

actually managed to finally start my download i also ordered the DVD kit to make sure i get a copy. can't wait to see how it goes.

[Mommadeez4u]

Didn't I read something about Vista having tons of DMCA restricting software on it?

[Warfarer]

Shit yeah it is. I don't remember any previous OS that M$ released that they offered a beta2 to the general public like this! It seems that anybody can just dl a time sensitive copy of it if they're so inclined. Usually it's technet & beta testers alone who get that opportunity.
I remember having a Beta version of Windows ME that I used for a couple years and I am not a computer inside guy at all. That Beta never had any issues and then I bought the retail and had nothing but trouble with it.

[Chain Rink]

I tried downloading this on my PC that runs a copy of xp pro. The download stopped. I am downloading it on my old laptop though at the moment. Is there something built in that prevents the beta from downloading to a computer with a pirated xp copy?

[patbattlefield]

finally got it loaded ...this is going to take some getting used to...

[krap]

does anybody know if this beta has media center functions?

[Capt.Hilarious]

does anybody know if this beta has media center functions?

Yeah the Ultimate Edition looks like it has aspects of Media Center incorporated. HERE (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/) is a link to the main page where you can read about all of the features.

Chain - I was able to download it just fine and I'm running a certain problem copy of XP as well. Of course, it took about six hours to download...ugh.

I am actually pretty pumped for Vista. I've read some decent reviews and the Aero graphics engine looks really sweet:

http://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/windowsvista/images/features/feat_UX_09.jpg

Anyway, I should have it installed later on this week and I'll let you know what I think.

V

[Chain Rink]

Yeah the Ultimate Edition looks like it has aspects of Media Center incorporated. HERE (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/) is a link to the main page where you can read about all of the features.

Chain - I was able to download it just fine and I'm running a certain problem copy of XP as well. Of course, it took about six hours to download...ugh.

I am actually pretty pumped for Vista. I've read some decent reviews and the Aero graphics engine looks really sweet:

http://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/windowsvista/images/features/feat_UX_09.jpg

Anyway, I should have it installed later on this week and I'll let you know what I think.

V

will you be able to run the aero engine on an amd 2500+ with 1 gig of ram and a ATI 9600xt video card

[Capt.Hilarious]

Yeah I think you will be fine with that. 1GB might run a little slow once you start running progs and stuff, but you'll be able to maximize most stuff with the interface.

GO HERE (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx) to download Window's program to evaluate how ready your comp is for Vista. You should be good for the Ultimate Edition.

[Deadbent]

I really don't want to go back to xp.
Vista bleeds "future".



Btw, what part of the city, Capt. Hilarious?

[Fendbass22]

Is anyone else having issues with the download stopping at just slightly over 2.0GB? It stops at the exact same size every time (3 times Ive tried).

[patbattlefield]

I really don't want to go back to xp.
Vista bleeds "future".

i totally agree after just a day of using it. its worth dealing with some of the bugs IMO. I have to say give MS props this is a great OS so far. Driver support is so so for some hardware though...i had to use xp drivers for my raid drivers. and if you do have a raid device and are installing vista when you load the drivers make sure they are in the root folder of your floppy or usb flash drive otherwise it won't see them.

[Angry_Erock]

How long did it take you to download the ISO file? It only took me two minutes

[JonBenetRamsey]

shit i kinda want to download this. will it be a huge bitch to install? and i ran the detect if your shit can handle it deal and all is cool but my soundcard said check website. i'm iffy on that. fuck. and is the shit 64bit?

[patbattlefield]

shit i kinda want to download this. will it be a huge bitch to install? and i ran the detect if your shit can handle it deal and all is cool but my soundcard said check website. i'm iffy on that. fuck. and is the shit 64bit?

if you have a newer creative sound card i know they have Vista driver. and there is a 32 and 64 bit version of Vista.

[JonBenetRamsey]

i want 64bit god dammit!

[patbattlefield]

i want 64bit god dammit!


i gave up on xp64 anyone try vista 64 yet? how is the driver support?

[krap]

anyone know if you can use the Flip 3D in this beta and how??

I cant figure it out. I suck.

[patbattlefield]

OOF i hit a bump trying to install my Creative X-fi...no fix yet. Headphones work at least!

[Capt.Hilarious]

I am in Uptown - basically right at Irving Park. Only a few blocks North of Wrigley. Pretty fun time to be in this area. How about the weather today, huh? Very nice. Where are you in the south side?

Man I can't wait to get this baby installed - just waiting on a new hard drive from New Egg. Needed to do a clean install anyway and this came out just in time!

[Capt.Hilarious]

OOF i hit a bump trying to install my Creative X-fi...no fix yet. Headphones work at least!
Have you been checking the newsgroups?

[patbattlefield]

Have you been checking the newsgroups?
i'm looking....

[patbattlefield]

i got it...the fucking driver package from creative kept cutting off at 60% i thought it just wouldnt run. wierd because it kept saying download was completed and the file was 10-12 mb short. they must be getting hammered by all the beta 2 users.

[Deadbent]

I'm using the 64bit version, albeit this is a spare rig and isn't too equipped with add-on hardware or peripherals, so I haven't really ran into any problems with drivers... so far.
Was kind of reluctant to throw it on my main box too, since the manufacturer doesn't have any official vista mobo drivers and that shit on their site. I

Running no raid, nvidia video card, creative audigy2blahblahedition.
No printer, or serial-ps/2 inputs. Pretty basic.
Found vista drivers for just about everything I needed but
couldn't find a vista copy of my mouse drivers (razor diamondback). The mouse was still detected and runs fine though.


It's unknown whether or not some or all xp drivers would work with an .inf change or something. I certainly haven't tried messing with it or looking into it.


Btw Capt, I'm right by Midway.
And yeah, it's a great time of year to be a northsider.
All you see around the southside are gutterball looking fat chicks.
Echhhhhhh.

[NightStalker3]

I finally got it last night. Gonna install it on one of the work HP 6120 laptops today to check it out. Tonight at home as well.

[Fendbass22]

Damn, so I take it no one else\'s downloads are stopping at 2.0GB?

[Capt.Hilarious]

Since it's such a big file, I'd recommend using a download manager - if you run Firefox, it has one included. That way if you lose the connection or time out, it will pause and resume from where it left off. The Vista site offers one I think.

Dead - yeah I hear you about the lack of any woman less that 250 down where you are. Sorry, man.

[Deadbent]

Dead - yeah I hear you about the lack of any woman less that 250 down where you are. Sorry, man.


It's fine by me though, chief.
I'm usually up north too much to notice.

[JoeyDVDZ]

I jumped on usenet & grabbed the beta 2 iso. Used the key M$ supplied (thanks, bill!) and it worked out just fine. Had trouble with the sound (Soundmax, built on) but a quick, M$ supplied online search found the correct drivers. So far, so good!

BTW, I like the OS X style add-ons they stole for this release. Tabbed web browsing is nice too! The docked widgets is a nice touch.

So, is there an xm gadget like the XM widget? If I'm gonna be using vista, I need the gadget! :)

[patbattlefield]

So, is there an xm gadget like the XM widget? If I'm gonna be using vista, I need the gadget! :)

i love the cpu usage gadget and the clock.

[JoeyDVDZ]

Oh well, can't find any info on getting widgets to work with vista, had to go back to xstreamer. Yechh.

[Chain Rink]

I really don't want to go back to xp.
Vista bleeds "future".



Btw, what part of the city, Capt. Hilarious?

How long will your vista beta work for?

Is it stable where you would use it as your main OS, the beta I mean?

[Chain Rink]

What's the difference between the 32 and 64 bit versions?

[patbattlefield]

how is the emulator for 32 bit apps in 64bit?

[krap]

this beta does have media center functions, for anyone that wants to know.

[JonBenetRamsey]

this beta does have media center functions, for anyone that wants to know.
fuck now i wanna download this. shit! how long does it stay on your system and if i never installed an operating system sucessfully will i be fucked?

[krap]

fuck now i wanna download this. shit! how long does it stay on your system and if i never installed an operating system sucessfully will i be fucked?

EXP. July 1, 2007 and the install is pretty user friendly, But I do suggest installing on a seperate drive since it is beta.

[patbattlefield]

:icon_conf i keep reading that HL2 is working good for most people running Vista but everytime I try to launch a source game it just crashes me back to desktop.

[Capt.Hilarious]

Was getting ready to burn my ISO last night and throw in my new hard drive when I found out I didn't get the whole file - only 2.95GB. Dammit! Downloaded it again, this time with a much quicker average rate of 450 kb/s and will be ready to dive in tonight or tomorrow. Sounds sweet from what you guys are saying.

[JonBenetRamsey]

ok maybe i'm an idiot but i believe it downloaded 100% it's a 4.04 gb file but i can not burn it to a dvd with nero because it's over 2gb and it won't open with daemon tools. what the fuck did i do wrong
?

[krap]

sounds like you downloaded the 64bit edition. do you have a 64bit CPU? If not, you got to go for the 32bit

EDIT: I also did download the 64bit one for my bro and it would get an error on the install. I dont know if it didnt burn correctly, or if the download is corrupt.

[JonBenetRamsey]

yea i have a 64bit chip. fuck it, for beta im gonna go with 32 bit

[Fendbass22]

Ive tried three times (at different times of the day) with two download managers and it stops at just over 2.0GB everytime. Might try a torrent.

[JonBenetRamsey]

how in the fuck do i get this to a god damned dvd-r? nero won't do it because nero is a pussy.

[krap]

my nero burned it fine.

[JonBenetRamsey]

i keep getting that i have to do some other shit because it's over 2 gigs.

[patbattlefield]

i keep getting that i have to do some other shit because it's over 2 gigs.
hmmm nero didn't give me a problem...

[JonBenetRamsey]

finally got it.

[JonBenetRamsey]

god fuck fuck dammit no i didn't fucking shit am i retarded or is my shit not working right? FUCK!

[The Sarge]

**cough, fuck off-bill gates, cough**.

[patbattlefield]

god fuck fuck dammit no i didn't fucking shit am i retarded or is my shit not working right? FUCK!
just order the cd if you can't get it. or get it from bitorrent.

[JonBenetRamsey]

fuck ordering it that's my 10 dollars.

[al885]

I would never install a fuckin microsoft beta operating system

by the way probably has to be burnt to a dvdr, jonbenetramsey

[patbattlefield]

sweeet i finally got HL2 working on vista

here is the fix that worked for me if anyone has the same problem:

If you're having problems starting any source game, e.g. the "Preparing to play" appearing for few seconds and then dissapear, or the game crashes at start, this thread feature all the solutions to this problem that i've managed to collect.

As far as I know a fix for that problem was released a long time ago, but it appears that some people still suffer from this problem, so here are so some solutions that should work for most people:



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) Make sure you've the lastest drivers for your graphic card (can be downloaded from your card manufactor site), and the latest version of DirectX - Currently v9.0c.
ATI
NVidia
DirectX 9.0c

2) If that doesn't solve the problem, make sure you don't have any program that force a refresh rate (like "Reforce") and make sure that your graphic card doesn't force a certain refresh rate.

3) If you don't have such program and your graphic card doesn't force any refresh rate (altough I doubt it), try doing this:

Create a shortcut for your desired game, and add the following line to the shortcut command line:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"-fullscreen -width 1024 -height 768 -refresh 100"

Replace the values of width, hight and refreshrate with values that you have find to work at your system. The correct refreshrate is essential!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Deadbent]

Forced refresh...!!!


FU FORCED REFRESH!!!

[patbattlefield]

Forced refresh...!!!


FU FORCED REFRESH!!!
its always something really simple and stupid...HL2 looks sweet on Vista; most of my games do. COD2 looked beautiful.

[JonBenetRamsey]

I would never install a fuckin microsoft beta operating system

by the way probably has to be burnt to a dvdr, jonbenetramsey
yea, i tried that and for some reason my dumbass can't get that to work right

[JoeyDVDZ]

i keep getting that i have to do some other shit because it's over 2 gigs.

Are you dl'ing the iso to a partition that's fat32? It doesn't support large files. Max filesize = 2gb. DL to a NTFS partition.

[JoeyDVDZ]

how in the fuck do i get this to a god damned dvd-r? nero won't do it because nero is a pussy.

Nero burned mine just fine. Worked perfectly.

[JonBenetRamsey]

all my partitions are ntfs. i use the start smart bullshit and burn from there but when i go to my computer it says the disk is full but it does not show anything on it. then when i boot from my dvd drive, it boots to xp and not the vista disk.

[JoeyDVDZ]

I didn't even bother dl'ing the iso from M$. I went to newzbin.com and grabbed the iso from usenet. Then I used the activation key M$ sent me to install with. Worked like a charm.

[Capt.Hilarious]

all my partitions are ntfs. i use the start smart bullshit and burn from there but when i go to my computer it says the disk is full but it does not show anything on it. then when i boot from my dvd drive, it boots to xp and not the vista disk.

If you are using the smart start menu, then you are using Nero Express to burn the ISO - go into Nero Burning ROM from your start menu and select burn image (not sure what drop down menu right now). Make sure you burn at around 4x to be safe.

If that doesn't work, try using DVD Decryptor to write the ISO - I used it for mine and it worked no problem.

BTW, I installed Vista last night and am definitely impressed. The gadgets are pretty sweet and the CPU clock is my fav too. The whole feel of the OS is really nice. Haven't really gotten into too much yet or installed any games or anything but I am sure I will enjoy.

[JoeyDVDZ]

If you happen to find a gadget to stream XM, let me know. Widgets don't work under Vista, at least not for me.

[krap]

When I went to burn it in Nero StartSmart I went to Copy and Backup> Burn Image to Disc.

And when you want to boot from the Vista DVD, you got to make sure that its set to boot from the CD/DVD-ROM instead of the Hard Drive in the BIOS.

[LilJimmyRbinson]

So if I download this beta, does it just automatically run over XP until it expires?

[patbattlefield]

So if I download this beta, does it just automatically run over XP until it expires?

if you do the upgrade there is an option to roll back the OS.

[JonBenetRamsey]

So if I download this beta, does it just automatically run over XP until it expires?
when my computer boots i can use vista or xp

[martianvirus]

I'm running Vista on my Gateway computer and the only thing that doesn't work with if so far is my MICROSOFT finger print scanner.

All other companys shit works, but microsoft can't even get their stuff to work.

I did have a couple of small problems, but they were easy to fix.

[BusyChild04]

If I don't want it can I uninstall it and not lose ANY files and information I have on my laptop? I ran the test to see if vista would work on my HP Laptop and it says it is ready. BUT I need to update my graphics card. Can you upgrade graphic cards on laptops?

[Deadbent]

. Can you upgrade graphic cards on laptops?


Yeah, but it can be a pain. You don't want to lose screws.
You need to see if your laptop's motherboard can house a vista-capable card first. Either google what parts your laptop has, check a manual, or call HP.

From there, you have to see what cards your laptop can take.
I'd call hp to see if they sell loose laptop video cards.
I've done it with dell a few times, they usually have 20% coupons every so often, and you can really snag a good deal on shit like that.
But HP, I'm not sure of.

[weezcase]

gonna try it

[martianvirus]

I really like vista a lot. My computer runs smoother and has less hangups than xp pro. Not bad for a beta os with no programs written for it.

sure there are a few bugs needing to be worked out, but you can't complain about a free os.

[jpc165]

It looks cool. But I had to uninstall it. Way too much software/hardware I use was useless. Every time I started up it would bitch about drivers missing for about 5 minutes. I will wait until it comes out and developers start supporting it more.

Glad to see IE7 ripped off firefox with the tabbed browser thing though.

[VirusInNH]

It looks cool. But I had to uninstall it. Way too much software/hardware I use was useless. Every time I started up it would bitch about drivers missing for about 5 minutes. I will wait until it comes out and developers start supporting it more.

Glad to see IE7 ripped off firefox with the tabbed browser thing though.

I'm uninstalling for the same exact reasons. It's cool to see what the interface is going to be like but having an "extra" operating system on my PC is pretty f'n useless. It doesn't recognize the multimedia video and sound card drivers downloaded from the manufacturer's website SPECIFICALLY FOR Vista.

[patbattlefield]

IMO the 64-bit version runs much smoother on my system. i have had far less problems with it than the 32 bit version.

[martianvirus]

I had some problems, but there are work-arounds.

When running a setup program you can force compatiblity with xp. This works in most cases.

My sound blaster wouldn't install, then I did the compatiblity thing and it worked fine. It had on error during instalation, but it works.

There are also some vista beta drivers out there if you look hard enough.

Almost all of my programs are installed and working. There are a few like Premiere pro 2 that won't work, but I think I have a way around that also.

Also, This beta 2 of vista works far better than xp pro sp2. My programs work a lot better in vista than xp, unless they won't install. That is the real trick.

Another Driver trick is to have vista search in your old xp windows folder.

[JoeyDVDZ]

Can the 64 bit OS run on a 32 bit machine though?

And, has anyone found a workaround for the widget engine in Vista? I want to use the XM widget, but there doesn't seem to be support for it.

[martianvirus]

Can the 64 bit OS run on a 32 bit machine though?
No if you have a 32 bit machine you need to download the 32 bit Vista os.

Vista is both.

[patbattlefield]

Can the 64 bit OS run on a 32 bit machine though?

And, has anyone found a workaround for the widget engine in Vista? I want to use the XM widget, but there doesn't seem to be support for it.
as long as you have a 64-bit processor you're fine.

[LilJimmyRbinson]

I don't have to backup everything on my harddrive to use Vista do I? It reads from the same hard drive doesn't it?

[LilJimmyRbinson]

OK so I go to install Vista and it's telling me I have to do the Custom install which will not save programs and files. I can't do the update install because I don't have SP2, which I never got because I heard it was such a shitty patch.

What should I do?

[Skeet Slambone]

Just update to SP2. Most people that complained just didn't know how to turn off a fucking firewall.

[poopiebottoms]

I got a copy when it was called Mac OSX

[JonBenetRamsey]

how in the hell do i uninstall this? i need the hd space.