Missed It By that Much
Sorry for not giving you the daily buzz today (technically yesterday). I was busy installing Windows 7 on "Jeri", a hot rod desktop replacement we just purchased at the office. Jeri hasn't been commissioned yet, so I figured it'd be the perfect machine to test Windows 7 on bare metal with. The picture to the right is "Jeri" with a Gen1 Zune for reference. Jeri is a Gateway P-172X FX. Now I know what you're thinking. Gateway seriously? They've come a long way. Here are the stats for this beast of a machine:
- Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 (2.4 GHz)
- 4 GB RAM
- nVidia 8800M GTS with 512 MB RAM
- 17" Monitor (up to 1920x1200 Resolution)
- Two 150GB SATA Drives (currently striped)
- Full Keyboard with numeric keypad
- 802.11 N/Bluetooth/Gig E
- FireWire/E-SATA and of course USB 2.0
- VGA and HDMI! output
- DVD R/W, Fingerprint Scanner, Built-in Webcam
Probably some other crap that I'm forgetting. This machine would make a good gaming rig. And I get to let loose on it with Windows 7! Let's do this!
Pre-amble
This is a Pre-Beta build of Windows 7. However, even with that said, it is very impressive and responsive even when run in a Hyper-V Virtual Machine (with 1GB of RAM allocated to it). It sings like a canary on Jeri. The machine was not given to me by anyone, like I said before my company purchased it. The copy of Windows 7 was "given" to me by Microsoft...after my employer shelled out a hefty chunk of change to send me to PDC. With that out the way, let me assure you dear reader that if this sounds like an advertisement or endorsement for any particular product, it's because I truly like that product. I'm getting no personal gain from this post. So on to the good stuff!
ACT 1: The Install
Installation was uneventful. The installer had no problem seeing the RAID, formatting and kicking off. Didn't really require much input from me other than asking for a computer/username and initial password and (required) password hint. After that, I was ready to boot Windows 7.
ACT 2: Drivers
Without any effort on my part, Windows 7 recognized most of the devices on my machine...it even proceeded to download the video driver from nVidia and update it for me. The only devices that did not register were the webcam and fingerprint scanner. I was able to get the drivers from the Gateway site (for some reason they don't acknowledge the P-172X FX but it's practically the SAME machine as the P-173X FX (and because it's discontinued, you can get it for a steal which is why we have one here).
BTW, don't go looking on Gateway's or nVidia's site for Windows 7 drivers. You won't find them. But the Vista Drivers work just fine (even on 64 bit Windows 7). There definitely should be fewer issues with incompatible hardware when Windows 7 is released. This is a huge plus for Windows 7, it can take advantage of the drivers that already exist for Windows Vista. So it's very likely that your laptop from 2007 will run 7 just fine in two years (perhaps even better, but more on that later).
ACT 3: Enter Aero
After I installed the SuperBar hack and rebooted, It was time to get the rating and enable Aero. My eyes almost popped out when I saw the numbers. That's right, you're looking at a 7.9 for Aero! The memory is dragging my performance index down to a 5.1. Anyway, everything looks beautiful! all of the bells and whistles of Vista Aero are here, plus a few extras like the new SuperBar.
ACT 4: The Honeymoon
There is a big caveat for this PRE-BETA version of Windows 7. It doesn't play well with Active Directory domains right now (at least not our particular domain, YMMV). It also doesn't seem to be a fan of sleep mode Other than that, everything runs fine! I've got it loaded up with VS 2008 (installed in 5 minutes!!) and all of my development tools. Enso, Synergy, and all of my other power tools work fine with it. I can even use Virtual Clone Drive to Mount the ISOs from my. I haven't tried mounting/booting from a VHD yet but will.
So far, Windows 7 seems very stable. Aside from the aforementioned issues, I haven't had any problems. If we could get commitment from Microsoft on an upgrade path from 6801 to Beta to RC to RTM, I would switch over now. But if I had to choose between time being spent on enabling that scenario or spent on more features/stability/performance in RTM, I'd go for the latter.
I'll have more screenshots and maybe even some video for you later. For now, I have to hop in the shower and get to work!
