Windows 7 Beta Taking Unusual Development Route

ComputerWorld reports that Microsoft is taking an unusual (for them) path in bringing Windows 7 to the masses. They’re moving straight from the single beta release that was made available in January to a release candidate. Is this acceleration of the development process another admission to Vista’s shortcomings or a preview of the more agile schedule MS would like to use?

Microsoft usually runs its operating systems through multiple betas and multiple release candidates. It delivered two betas and two release candidates for Windows Vista, for example, during that operating system's trouble-plagued development. But Microsoft has been adamant about speeding up the development process.

awesome! I just hope there is more driver support soon.

I hope they aren't jumping the gun by going straight to RC, if it needs more time to become more mature I'd rather they get it right first out of the gate rather than a rushed product. Vista was rushed, look what happened.

Originally Posted by Brent_Justice

IVista was rushed, look what happened.

Yeah, they brought a great OS to market.

Originally Posted by computerpro3

Yeah, they brought a great OS to market.

^^^

Originally Posted by Brent_Justice

Vista was rushed, look what happened.

Originally Posted by computerpro3

Yeah, they brought a great OS to market.

Eventually. When Vista started out, it was total crap.
Now it's a decent OS.


Don't start with the stupid OS wars, it doesn't get anyone anywhere...

The Beta is working pretty well for me.

Originally Posted by Brent_Justice

I hope they aren't jumping the gun by going straight to RC, if it needs more time to become more mature I'd rather they get it right first out of the gate rather than a rushed product. Vista was rushed, look what happened.

qft. However; Polishing a turd is possible, but it takes a long time

Originally Posted by Emission

The Beta is working pretty well for me.

Exactlly. Other than some slight issues with drivers, and such. The Beta is just as stable, and much faster than Vista ever was for me. I say bring on the RC!

Originally Posted by n3g471v3 d3c1b3l

awesome! I just hope there is more driver support soon.

Why? W7 uses Vista drivers.

Technically if you look at the road map... we had Beta, Next comes RC, then RTM. So its not like they shrink wrap the RC necessarily. Plus just like all other modern windows.. there will be windows updates available by the time its on the shelf....they aren't rushing it in my opinion. The Beta has the code for every single feature the are releasing in final so it was code complete basically.

Originally Posted by NympH

Why? W7 uses Vista drivers.

there are a few anomalies still

for example my g15 screen goes blank when my computer is left idle for a while and my monitor shuts off.

and for some reason i don't get shadows even though they are on in lotro in dx10 mode, in part on turbines side i'm sure, but still.

i'd like to see them get it really solid before they put it out, a few more months of prep work is worth the payoff i think, even though i'm very excited to have a final version.

Well they can move more quickly with 7 because it's built on Vista. I'm glad though, after playing around with the beta, it's a pretty slick OS, and I'm sure I'll upgrade ASAP.

Originally Posted by NympH

Why? W7 uses Vista drivers.

Unfortanetely not all drivers from Vista work with Windows 7. My laptop is a good example of that. I have a Lenovo T61 Thinkpad and anything built on the Thinkvantage technology such as Active Protection and the finger print reader do not work yet in Windows 7. Software installs fine, just cant find the devices.

Originally Posted by Lazy_Moron

Unfortanetely not all drivers from Vista work with Windows 7. My laptop is a good example of that. I have a Lenovo T61 Thinkpad and anything built on the Thinkvantage technology such as Active Protection and the finger print reader do not work yet in Windows 7. Software installs fine, just cant find the devices.

I have an R61, and my fingerprint reader works fine...

Originally Posted by Lazy_Moron

Unfortanetely not all drivers from Vista work with Windows 7. My laptop is a good example of that. I have a Lenovo T61 Thinkpad and anything built on the Thinkvantage technology such as Active Protection and the finger print reader do not work yet in Windows 7. Software installs fine, just cant find the devices.

Fingerprint reader works fine on my T61...haven't triedthe other stuff.

Service packs don't require that much development time compared to an OS. This is to be expected.

Originally Posted by computerpro3

Fingerprint reader works fine on my T61...haven't triedthe other stuff.

What did you do? As I mentioned, I get the software to install, it just wont take the driver. Are you running 64bit or 32bit Windows 7? Im running the 64bit edition.

I'm not surprised at this. 7 is hardly as much a ground up release as Vista was (well as ground up as an MS OS can be). I bet all they did was get the Vista development team going again soon after it was released and kept them at it.

Vista has been the beta to a degree. I'm quite happy with a tidied up Vista version in 7.

I don't see it as a surprise that MS isn't going to go with multiple betas like was done with Vista. First of all, Win7 is built off Vista and most of the work was already done obviously. Next, the current public beta has been running really really well for most people. Yes, there are glitches and bugs but that is to be expected when talking about a beta OS. I used betas of Vista and it wasn't anywhere near the shape of the current Win7 beta. Considering how well the current beta runs, I see no reason to waste time with another beta just because that's what people are used to seeing. Sure, it's a good idea to run multiple betas when you have a lot of stuff wrong, but if you don't have a lot of stuff wrong, what's the use of not moving to a release candidate? It's not like the RC won't have a few more things fixed and tweaked before being RTM.

Originally Posted by Lazy_Moron

What did you do? As I mentioned, I get the software to install, it just wont take the driver. Are you running 64bit or 32bit Windows 7? Im running the 64bit edition.

I did it a while ago so I could be wrong, but I think I had to use winrar to extract the lenovo exe and manually install it via device manager. I can check later on tonight when I'm on my laptop.