Today I installed the newer version of Windows 7 on my Asus Eee PC 900 using the tutorial to install Windows 7 on netbooks using USB memory sticks. The installation was fine and went slightly faster than the installation of Build 6956, after around 1 hour I could see the desktop.
You can download Windows 7 Beta 1 either from the official Microsoft Windows 7 download site or via Torrent, which should be 100% legal since the official version has been released for public testing. Download torrent file.
I will test out whether I can get Aero running on this version, see if it’s more stable than the old release and stuff like that.
New functions/issues and changes to the previous version (Build 6956):
- Graphics driver for “Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS” included, so full screen resolution (1024×600) now possible without driver installation
- Keyboard function buttons (volume up, volume down, mute, …) still not working without installation of Asus ACPI
- Even after installation of Asus ACPI drivers the buttons are not working… the volume up/down window shows up, but nothing happens, and a window pops up saying “Missing Audio Driver, disable Fn+F7,8,9. Please install Audio Driver” but the audio driver is installed.
- Internet Explorer 8 has now a “InPrivate” mode like Google Chrome’s “Incognito Mode”
- When trying to watch HD videos on Youtube with Internet Explorer 8/Flash Player 10 Windows completely freezes. Only restart helps
- After this Youtube HD crash, the whole Windows 7 system is fucked. Automatic system restore took 10 minutes to fix it, then I could finally reboot. So HD videos can destroy your Windows installation? Interesting…
- The Desktop Gadget Gallery is finally working! In Build 6956 nothing happened when you tried to access it.
- Windows 7 doesn’t recognize the other SDD with Windows XP installed on it. The explorer just shows the Win7 SDD as C:\ and nothing else
- When you click at the images in the task bar that replace the old image and text there, even tabs inside Internet Explorer are shown so you can go directly to the tab you want
- Everything runs much faster and smoother than before. Now you can have multiple applications running in the same time without them crashing all the time.
- Shutdown is still awful slow (takes around 3 minutes, that’s longer than starting up!)
- Windows still crashes when trying to run the Windows Performance Assessment Tool (WinSAT), at “Running: Media Foundation Playback Assessment v1.0.0.0 ‘-input C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\winsat.wmv -nopmp”, thus you can’t get a rating for your computer and Aero won’t be able to run.
- The built-in microphone is still not really working. It can hear something, but is soo silent, when you scream into it, the bar goes up only 0.5%. Something is wrong there.
- When one tab in Internet Explorer 8 crashes, Windows 7 will terminate it, but all the other tabs are still working (like in Chrome). After a few seconds, the tab is restored. This feature is actually not that bad.
- Reactivation from Stand-By is not working, the screen just stays black all the time.
More stuff will follow…