Windows 7 RC1 - post your experiences!

I've been playing with Win7 since the first leaked versions hit the web and I have to say that I completely impressed with RC1 on my Acer 10.1" as well as on my Dell Studio 17 and home-grown Intel i7 920 - based monster!

I have tried all the stripped down versions as well as full versions and I'll be sticking with the full install of RC1 until the next RC comes about!

My 10.1" Aspire One was at one point upgraded to 2GB and a 320GB 7200RPM drive with 16MB cache, but it's now back at 1GB with a 250MB 5400rpm 8mb cache setup (I needed the larger/faster drive and RAM for my Dell).

Running RC1 has proven to be a very smooth experience though - no hiccups - no slowdowns - very impressed with it's performance over Vista! Vista was a SNAIL.

Notice the nice smooth CPU (green line on the CPU usage gadget on the right) - in Vista even with no apps running at was all over the board - up/down/up/down - looked like a medical EKG!

Here's a few screenshots showing my setup and Windows Experience scores. Please - share yours as well!

 

I have been using Win 7 in a dual boot mode with XP since beta 7000.
I now am using the RC 7100 as the only OS. The problem I have is the use of
a 15" flat panel display. In XP, I could set it as the only display and set it as a more
useful 1024 X 768. I Win 7, in a plain vanilla setup I have no choice as to its
use. I can only mimic the 8" screen at 1024 X 600. Have I missed a driver????
Has anyone been able to beat the intel software to get 1024 X 768 on the provided display.
I know I can by scrolling the screen up and down, etc.
Dick Miller
Hot Springs Village, Arkansas

 

Hi Everybody,

Just finished to install Windows 7 RC1 (build 7100) on my AspireOne 150. Microsoft has made an update for Wireless, and it works OutOfTheBox. After the update everythings works fine. I was used an older release before (build 7057), i had to find a suitable driver for Wifi. Now, not necessary.



Acer Aspire One a150 is ready for Windows 7 : 9gb of hard drive use after install. The Only driver not found (by system) is the CardReader from Jmicron. You also have to install Synaptics Driver (for Vista) version 11.1.4.0

Driver link : ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb38x/XP_V ... 6_WHQL.zip


One Word : Enjoy.

Joe

 

I have a question for all those who have installed Win 7 to dual boot with XP.
I am getting ready to install Win 7 RC1 as dual boot on my AOA150 (1gb ram, 160gb drive) which came with XP SP3 installed.
My question is, will erecovery still work after installing Win 7 if I ever need to reinstall XP from the recovery partition? I am thinking that the Win 7 install will change the MBR, and I have heard that erecovery needs the original MBR to work the D2D recovery of XP from the hidden partition. If this is true, can I get around this by saving a copy of the original MRB before I install Win 7? I have already shrunk the XP partition to give me unalocated space of 40gb for the Win 7 install. Any guidance on this would be helpful. I do have recovery cd/dvd from Acer if the recovery does not work.
Thanks,
Jeff

 

It took me a couple of tries, but I finally think everything's running the way it should.

1. installed vLite version of 7. Wi-Fi had problems, video crashed from time to time, and (?) No games? i can't have Windows without Freecell.

2. Downloaded RC directly from Windows
(Minor point of correction to make: It's not RC1. There is (and will be) no other release candidate. This is it!)
Got games, but still had a problem with Wi-fi conflicting with video. When downloading a large file, connection would drop and video driver would crash. Changed Wifi to 11b and that fixed video crash problem, but connection would still drop out.

3. This morning, noticed Windows Update had 'optional' updated for GMA and Atheros, Installed them. Reset card to 11g. Downloaded 30MB file without incident. All seems to be well about 90 minutes later.
Mostly writing this in case someone else is having similar problem.

I'm really liking the rotating wallpaper, but i miss the sidebar, where windows could be maximized against it, and I could always see my widgets. I'd say it takes just as long as XP to get to the GUI, but once it gets there, 7 is more quickly usable, as in immediately.

One thing i want to try is getting a 4 or 8GB SD card and dedicating it to ReadyBoost, and see what kind of improvements I get, if any, now that it seems everything is working okay.

Daiichi Kuronama
8.9" AAO 1G 160G HDD

 

Regarding the GMA update from Microsoft - it caused my WEI for video to drop from 2.1 to 2.0 :-(

 

Running like a charm!

A bit unstable at times... getting blue screen but a reboot and its up and running again. No need to install any drivers at all. I used a flash drive and had no complicantions what so ever.

 

I've used Windows 7 as the primary OS on my full-size laptop since the first beta. I am very happy with it. I tried it on my AAO, but it proved to be too sluggish on the SSD.

 

I like the windows 7 RC1 and installed it
Only driver i installed was synaptics to get scroll function to work...

However I dont like the RAM usage on my AOA 150 (160 gig Harddisk) with windows 7...
RIght now I have Google Chrome and Windows Live Messenger open and the RAM usage is 65 % - 70 % (right now using 708 mb RAM)... Anyone found a solution to reduce W7's RAM usage???

 

You could always vlite it.....i would, but then i'm all for performance and speed than having useless crap...

 

First I dont know how to Vlite windows 7.. I might have to try to find out.... Also dunno what to remove and what to not.

Second - right as we speaked my windows 7 crashed and I had to hold down the power button... Now my windows 7 cant restart again....
Everytime I start it goes directly to Startup Repair tool and tries to fix a problem... It cant fix the problem and shutdown again. It keep doing that even when i tried the different bootupmodes...

Is it safe to take the Windows 7 dvd and install on the same partition as Windows 7 is installed on already.. Like installing "over" it. Or do I have to remove windows 7, swipe the partition, make a new partition and install it there?

 

Running the RC at the moment and its working great. Everything installed out of the box didnt need to hunt down any drivers I have had the one plugged in to various external screens and have never had a problem setting them to different resolutions, runs my uni monitors at there 1280x1024 res fine. You sure you aren't just missing the option? Set it to extend display and then you should be able to adjust both screens resolutions.

 

Installed it this morning, grabbed the latest drivers from Windows Update, and I've been using it pretty much all day. Sleep/hibernate works fine, as do the Fn keys (though without notification). I like it.

 

too lazy to screenie..
WEI scores:
Processor: 2.2
RAM: 4.4
Graphics: 2.2
Gaming Graphics: 3.0
HDD: 5.1

 

OUCH!!! sorry to hear about that....but if you are interested in vliting win7, you just need vlite. You will definitely find last session files (these determine what gets removed and what doesn't) by searching google. Haven't tried it with Win7 RC1 though, so i'm not sure of compatibility issues. i have read that some builds weren't working with vlite, throwing up all sorts of errors...good luck man

 

Is anyone using it on an SSD system? How is the shutdown time? On the Beta it took over 3 minutes to shut down.

 

Awesome
My hdd WEI seems to be 0.3 points highier than everyone else and I'm using the stock driver.
Anyways.. windows 7 boots under 20 seconds now after a day of defraging my 80% filled 160GB hdd. The performance is better than XP. I can play 720P blueray rips right in windows media player witch support multicore h.264 decoding by default. It's about as good if not better than corecodec.

Photoshop cs3 starts under 5 seconds and everything is very fast.
The UI is awesome as well

 

Have you vlited anyting??
I really dont know what to vlite and what to not :S

Before my windows 7 crashed it took 1 minute to startup and the startupscreen was only black :S
and it used 700 mb ram all the time...>_<

(I use AOA 150 with 160 gig harddisk like you)

EDIT: My windows 7 can still not boot up for the moment... Everytime I boot it it shows "windows is loading files" and then go to startup repair that cant fix my problem and then genstarts... The problem began when I had to close windows 7 holding down the power button...

So far I still got acces to the windows 7 partition through my windows xp (i am dualbooting). Is there no way to tingle around with the files to make windows 7 like "reset"...

 

:mrgreen: Very impressive. 8gig SSD. ReadyBoost 2gig SDHC in ntfs mode actually works! Haven't tried Steady State yet. I used an 8gig HP bootable ntfs formatted ufd to install Win7...the entire process took less than 2 hours. It installed everything out of box(didn't need vlite nor did I need to compress anything!) accept the Jmicron multi-card reader driver. Mic works with a little tweaking(mic boost +20; echo cancellation left off). I turned off Paging File and System Restore.

Winrc7 runs like a champ...13month activation included.

:idea: Final thoughts: I still felt that WinXpHomeEOM with EWF enabled ran the fastest...but Win7 is very bearable and enjoyable to test. Bootup time for Win7 still takes forever; but readyboost helps a lot. Shutdown takes longer than Xp as well. My Solution: I put it in sleep mode during the day; and power off/shutdown when I goto bed. Windows7 is getting much, much closer to being my OS of choice! Great work Microsoft!

Anyone have an opinion about steadyfast post 'em here...thanx. Cheers! :mrgreen:
Screenshot 1:

 

remember from march 2010 rc1 will ask you shut down every 2hrs.