The next testing phase starts today VNU news, but you will have to wait until May 7 to download from the MS site

Windows 7 RC

We’re excited to announce the availability of the Windows 7 Release Candidate! The RC milestone is an important step on our path to final delivery of Windows 7. RC signifies that engineering and testing have made significant progress, and that the code is entering the final phases of testing.



Feedback from our customers was instrumental in shaping Windows 7 RC. We made a number of enhancements between Beta and RC, including the following:

· Easier, more intuitive navigation through JumpLists, desktop enhancements and improved search relevance

· Improved Windows taskbar scaling

· Improved driver support and management, as well as Device Stage to help manage devices

· Windows Touch updates and Touch Zoom

· More Aero themes

· Improved security and enhancements to User Access Control (UAC)

· Reducing the Windows 7 partition drive size (required for Bit Locker and Windows Recovery Environment) from 200 megabytes to 100 megabytes

In moving from Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC, we listened to feedback from you – our customers and partners -- and focused on the improvements you asked for the most. We hope that you will find Windows 7 RC to be a high quality release that makes everyday tasks easier and faster, while making new things possible.

MSDN and TechNet subscribers can download Windows 7 RC as of April 30. On May 5, Windows 7 RC will be available to the general public through the Customer Preview Program. Anyone can download the RC build through this program. There will be no limits on the number of keys provided or the number of Windows 7 downloads supported. RC downloads will be available at least through June 2009.

For everyone using a Beta version of Windows 7, it is important to migrate to Windows 7 RC to avoid the timebomb that is built into Windows 7 Beta. That timebomb will activate on 7/1/2009. When the timebomb activates, users will experience frequent notifications and forced reboots. (Windows 7 RC also has a built-in timebomb, but this will not activate until 3/1/2010.)

Please visit the Windows 7 TechNet Site for more information.

---

I will most likely do just a straight upgrade as I am running a more recent version.

---

I'm downloading the RC from TechNet now. Now, if only I could find a spare PC new enough to test 7 in a real environment instead of through Virtual PC.

---

I'm downloading the RC from TechNet now. Now, if only I could find a spare PC new enough to test 7 in a real environment instead of through Virtual PC.

Same here, but I've got a rig ready for it. Also, just received an invite to the Win7 roadshow MS is holding over here. Just missed out on the London event but managed to get booked in closer to home, so looking forward to May 19th to see what MS has to offer.

---

I have been running Beta for a couple of months now, only minor flaws that I am sure will be corrected by RC.
Installed on Q6600 OC to 3060 which I run under XP X64 most of the time.
When RC gets downloaded in a few days I will start running majaority of time under it instead of XP X64.

---

When we finally figure it all out, all the rules will change and we can start all over again.

I´ve been trying to get Windows 7 to work on my crunching machine, but I can´t get it to find all the GPU´s. It only find one of my 8800-cards.
I read somewhere that in earlier nvidia drivers, you needed a dummy device on each card. Is it the same here? It feels a bit like a waste of space and watts to have three cards idling away...:)

I am not getting any CUDA work for my machine since I went to Boinc 6.6.20.
Not sure what the problem is, but I know that under Win 7 I had to go to Nvidia for their beta drivers for before a bunch of things woruld work right.

---

When we finally figure it all out, all the rules will change and we can start all over again.

I am not getting any CUDA work for my machine since I went to Boinc 6.6.20.
Not sure what the problem is, but I know that under Win 7 I had to go to Nvidia for their beta drivers for before a bunch of things woruld work right.

Use the reset debts flag. Stop and restart BOINC. You will have to do this every so often depending on the speed of the CUDA card compared to the CPU. I just had to do it on my Q9300 with a GTX280 after about two weeks or so. On my i7 with two GTX295 cards I have to do it every couple of days.

Be advised that there is another bug with 6.6.20 that can cause tasks to take significantly longer to run. Fixed in 6.6.23 and later, though the other bug has not ...

Just finished reading the white paper on Win 7's new power management. Just wondering..........could this interfere with Boinc?

As boinc is supposed to use the idle clock cycles, the new power system could interfere as it would detect the system being idle & power down.

I also like the fact that Win 7 will have an XP mode, unfortunately, this is not part of the RC but has to be downloaded seperately.

---

As far as I understand it, 7 detects for a high percentage of the System Idle Process to enable the power management, but since BOINC takes all those spare cycles and distributes them to the science apps, the System Idle Process is never at a high percentage.

---

I´m starting to think that this isn´t a Windows 7 related problem, but either driver or boinc-related, since when I migrated the machine back to Vista, it behaves in the same way. At first, it did run multiple cards, but when I installed either updated drivers, or the new motherboards overclock and fan control program, it dropped everything but a single GPU. Same gpu drivers, so it ought not to be those.
Any way to force work on all GPU´s?

As far as I understand it, 7 detects for a high percentage of the System Idle Process to enable the power management, but since BOINC takes all those spare cycles and distributes them to the science apps, the System Idle Process is never at a high percentage.

Thanks Ozzfan, much appreciated.

---

My win7 beta box was shuting down, but by setting just about every power option to 0 (zero) except turn off screen, I have managed to keep it running Boinc for a coulpe of day's now unattended. Funily enough it is running on a (old) box on which Vista refuses to even boot. AMD SSE3 1Gb ram and mobo graphics, no problem for Win 7, Vista forget it.

Win7 beta, AMD cpu, 1 Gb Ram. Boinc 6.6.20, op' app's for both Seti and Milkyway. (Configs tested, MO'Board graphics only, Mobo graphics plus CUDA 8500, dual 8500's and no mobo graphics - all ok).

I will be reverting this box back to Linux next weekend, been nice playing with win7 though.

Rob.

---

I will be updating my current machine to the RC probably Wednesday.

---

For those interested...XP Mode & Windows virtual PC

Finished transferring all my XP Data & programs over, sure beats Vista. Windows Virtual PC is required, rather than virtual PC 2007. With V-PC, it integrates seamlessly into Win7, with the only exception is that should one have copious ram on the host, will have to change the ram settings as XP Mode only sets itself up with 256mb ram. Another advantage is that XP Mode will come with a product key as well.

I still think that Microsoft is getting back on track with this release of Windows & I will definitely be upgrading all my rigs to Win7.

---

I still think that Microsoft is getting back on track with this release of Windows & I will definitely be upgrading all my rigs to Win7.

I'm still seriously concerned about the ease of writing a script to automatically elevate a program's privileges, effectively bypassing Win7's minimal UAC so as to continue the spur of malware and "annoy" users with less UAC prompts.

---

I still think that Microsoft is getting back on track with this release of Windows & I will definitely be upgrading all my rigs to Win7.

I'm still seriously concerned about the ease of writing a script to automatically elevate a program's privileges, effectively bypassing Win7's minimal UAC so as to continue the spur of malware and "annoy" users with less UAC prompts.

Good point. However, it's still only a beta release, & with the way that they are continuing to improve it, maybe by the time of the RTM release, it will be more secure...........

---

Grrrrrr just finished reinstalling all apps and other stuff as best as possible from XP X64 Win 7RC.
Not sure why there is no upgrade between these two platforms. I have been running Beta for a couple of months now and RC is better from what I can see so far and head and sholders above the VISTA stuff. I am still annoyed by the loss of control and configuration abilities offered in earlier versions of the Win platform. Oh well like Socialiasim, it's for the common good, eh?

---

When we finally figure it all out, all the rules will change and we can start all over again.

The worst thing I've seen so far is that the Users folder (and all subfolders) are shared by default. Don't keep anything private in the default locations in the RC.

---

--
Classic 82353 WU / 400979 h