Home News Reviews Forums Shop


Get a Copy of Vista Beta 2

General discussion. Come introduce yourself. Talk about whataver you want!

Get a Copy of Vista Beta 2

Postby smartin4 on Wed Aug 16, 2006 5:53 pm

I know some people already have this, but figured I'd post this anyway:

http://www.microsoft.com/india/offers/vista/quiz.aspx

Found the link on SlickDeals
User avatar
smartin4
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 296
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2002 11:24 am
Location: New Jersey

Postby aviationwiz on Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:28 pm

Not holding high hopes on getting one. Anyone remember when they were supposed to send out free flash drives to a bunch of people? Not many people ever did. Not to mention that this one is through Microsoft India.
User avatar
aviationwiz
Plextor Fan(atic)
 
Posts: 4069
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2002 2:55 am
Location: Home of the Red Tail

Postby MonsterMan on Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:56 pm

Worth a shot...even if I have the 32-bit & 64-bit public beta's sitting here on nice, pretty Lightscribed discs 8)
BenQ 1655, BenQ 1620, LG 4167, Plex PX-716SA, Samsung SH-S162L, SH-S182M, Pioneer 111D, Lite-On SHM-165H6S and 1.9TB of HDDs to feed 'em and an X2/4800 to crunch for 'em.
MonsterMan
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 387
Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2005 7:38 pm

Postby LoneWolf on Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:13 pm

aviationwiz wrote:Not holding high hopes on getting one. Anyone remember when they were supposed to send out free flash drives to a bunch of people? Not many people ever did. Not to mention that this one is through Microsoft India.


Yep, I was one of those left holding the bag on that one. I don't know ANYONE who got a free flash drive out of that offer.
Intel Q9450 @3.2GHz, Gigabyte GA EP45-UD3P, 4 x 2GB G.Skill @4-4-4-12
Antec P160SW case (modded), Xigmatek 750w PSU
3x 500GB (RAID-5), , OptiArc 7200S, ASUS E818A3T
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer, Hauppauge HVR-1800, Radeon 4890
Dell 2407WFP
User avatar
LoneWolf
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 937
Joined: Thu Feb 06, 2003 4:41 pm
Location: Meecheegan

Postby stix on Thu Aug 17, 2006 4:33 pm

In the US, the Customer Preview program for Windows Vista Beta 2 has been closed. They are not sending out any more. It came out on DVDs, not CDs.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/get_it.mspx
stix
User avatar
stix
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 402
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2003 3:48 am
Location: USA

Postby Bhairav on Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:08 am

^Thanks!
(check my location :D)
Q6600@3.1Ghz | Asus P5Q-E | 4GB DDR2-800 | 8800GT | 4TB HDD | Viewsonic vx2025wm
Xonar DX | Pioneer DVR-212 | Pioneer 111L | Benq 1655
User avatar
Bhairav
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1239
Joined: Mon Jul 22, 2002 5:44 am
Location: Bombay,India

Postby Spazmogen on Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:41 am

I thought I'd try for the one from India too.

What have I got to loose?

My p3 1ghz won't run it anyway...but it would be nice to have on hand.
User avatar
Spazmogen
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 1472
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2001 8:00 pm
Location: Woodstock, Ontario

Postby LoneWolf on Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:20 pm

Well, I just managed to get the Pre-RC1 (5536) build of Vista up and running, released at the end of this week. I had to get a hard disk replaced, and so gave up Beta 2 at the time, but the new drive is back.

Install time is cut in half from what Beta 2's was. The OS itself is also far snappier. It defaulted to Aero turned off on my machine since it now analyzes your system and makes decisions on how to set for best performance during install, but I turned Aero on, and it's still a lot faster than Beta 2 was in Aero mode. The SoundBlaster Live I added didn't install drivers on the first shot (had to go to Device Manager and tell Windows to search on the Web) but that's up and running now, but drivers for the game port on the card did not install properly.

My other issue so far is antivirus software. Avast! Antivirus 4.7 Free edition worked well witn Vista Beta 2; Build 5536 pops up a message stating there is a known compatibility issue, and the OS refuses to load the startup drivers/services. I've installed Trend Micro's Vista-capable beta of PC-Cillin; hopefully that will work, but the installer package is a whopping 83MB. I chose minimal install killing a lot of features I don't need/want, hopefully that will pare the program down. Even though I didn't install its personal firewall software, it turned off the Windows Firewall; looks like some bugfixes are in order.

Web browsing is downright snappy. I don't know what it is, but the build of IE7 loads some pages so quickly, it would seem as if they were already cached locally. I still hate Microsoft locating the Home/Options/Refresh buttons away from the Forward/Back buttons; this just seems idiotic in terms of user interface designs to me, and I'd prefer they were all back on the left, where I think they belong.

I'll be installing Office tomorrow. In the meantime, just an FYI - If you have a Vista Beta 2 key, it will work with Build 5536, including activation. :)
Intel Q9450 @3.2GHz, Gigabyte GA EP45-UD3P, 4 x 2GB G.Skill @4-4-4-12
Antec P160SW case (modded), Xigmatek 750w PSU
3x 500GB (RAID-5), , OptiArc 7200S, ASUS E818A3T
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer, Hauppauge HVR-1800, Radeon 4890
Dell 2407WFP
User avatar
LoneWolf
CD-RW Player
 
Posts: 937
Joined: Thu Feb 06, 2003 4:41 pm
Location: Meecheegan


Return to The Beer Garden

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

cron
All Content is Copyright (c) 2001-2024 CDRLabs Inc.