Windows Vista For Free

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badgermonkey

badgermonkey

badgermonkey

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PCFormat said:
After a couple of frankly flaky betas and widespread speculation that it's "early 2007" release date carried more than a whiff of bovine faecal matter, Microsoft has cooly presented it's finger to the haters.
The more stable Windows Vista Beta 2 is now public - and free, complete with product key, to anyone who wants it. It'll time out after a year, which is a decent clue as to when the final version will go on sale. PCF's impressions? There's no new functionality to speak of (though DirectX10 is included, but it's shininess can't be gauged until we have DX10 graphics cards too), but it's a better performer than the last beta we looked at (see PCF 188). Heck, we even won a round of Quake4 using it, though the framerate remained messy. But laden with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and The GIMP (compatibility problems with the AVGFree barring our holy quintuplet of essential free software), it's a comfortable experience.
Want to try it? Head over to www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/default.mpsx - you have the choice of either 32- or 64-bit versions, and to pay for a copy to be shipped to you on disc if you can't stomach a [free] 3.5GB download. Driver support is patchy - ATI and NVIDIA provide 'em, but unless you have a progressive motherboard manufacturer, don't be surprised if you end up with no sound or complaints about unknown storage controllers. Maybe just pop it onto your spare PC for now...
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Personally I might give this a try. If it all goes to pot, I can always re-install XP :) What do you guys think?
 
badgermonkey said:
Personally I might give this a try. If it all goes to pot, I can always re-install XP :) What do you guys think?
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This has been out a while though (beta 2) hasn't it? I'm waiting for RC1 later in the year before I try it again.
 
I installed the Beta lastnight, cant say im overly impressed, takes more resources with a default load then my tweaked XP with drivers and software installed ???

The system feels like XP but with a few little changes, to be honest, i dont see the point in it!
 
UKDTweak said:
I installed the Beta lastnight, cant say im overly impressed, takes more resources with a default load then my tweaked XP with drivers and software installed ???
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Its a BETA, what on earth do you expect?

I have a fresh install of both XP and Vista and I find the speed very comparable - the only drawback with Vista that I have found is the immature drivers, but this is to be expected (meaning low fps in games).

Quite how people are expecting a big imporvement over XP using a BETA OS is beyond me....
 
badgermonkey said:
Personally I might give this a try. If it all goes to pot, I can always re-install XP :) What do you guys think?
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Microsoft stopped signups to the CPP, so you actually can't... legally. Seems they published that a bit late - where've you been? It was released in May!
 
some 1 give me there key so i can try it? downloaded img just need key james(at)myjunk.eclipse.co.uk would be greatfull.
 
csmager said:
Microsoft stopped signups to the CPP, so you actually can't... legally. Seems they published that a bit late - where've you been? It was released in May!
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Yeah sorry, apparently the stupid magazine was behind :mad:

Mods feel free to delete this useless thread then ;)
 
umm, I'm guilty of the same,
...never actually got around to sorting a key out

if anyone is no longer using their key, I'd be grateful if I could borrow theirs.

thanks
:-)
 
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