Microsoft is giving away Beta 2 of Vista Ultimate. It's good for one year (expires mid-2007). Not feature limited, but it *is* beta. Download it. Install it. Play your games on it. Why bother with a torrent when you can download direct from MS? (oh yes, and it comes with a reg key too). http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/preview.mspx If you don't want to download, you can pay a fee to have them send you a DVD instead. Enjoy. -hl718
When is Vista set to release again? Mid-2007 I take it based on the expiration date of this beta. But then, does this release include DirectX10? I'd like to know because that would be a good indication that cards utilizing dx10 may see the light of day before years end.
I downloaded it a few days ago and have it installed. I've not done much with it so far, mainly because I've had trouble finding an anti-virus package that will run on it. Though I'm a simple guy and just seeing things like Flip 3d in action are impressive enough for me. I'm going to install some more programs soon. The first thing that struck me was how it ran. I'm not even using the recommended system spec, and everything (except Media Centre, it looks hideous for some reason) runs fine, with no real slowdown. It's also a real treat for the eyes. XP looks nice and all, but it's a bit boring. Aero, however, is lush.
When it expires will it stop working??? If thats the case I am just going to wait for the betas time limit to be cracked then download it. Its no offense to MS but I dont like using it for less then a year and then being made to shell out $400+ or downgrade to XP. Seems like alot of work for nothing to me :shrug:
I installed it once, had to uninstall it, and then reinstalled it again. Why? First time, I accidently installed it to the same drive as XP Professional, so, as Microsoft told me, it upgraded Pro to that. Finally fixed it by setting my first boot device as CDRom and put the Professional disc in...reformatted drives, and then partitioned. Have XP on C:\ and Vista on D:\ now XD
It will stop working, or at least there will be no patches etc. If you are happy with cracking the beta then why will you not just crack the full OS when released - it has the same effect on MS Also, This isn't intended to be a full operating system for use everyday, it's more a "Ooooohhhh, look, thats pretty" version and to help you get used to the operating system.
well im not that great at cracking myself. I plan to buy vista when it comes out. Im just saying that I dont know how long it will take to get money togather for it. Like if the beta ends and then it takes me 2 months to get the cash to make the purchase. Depending on what they do with the beta I could be screwed for those 2 months. Or at the very least I would have to format to XP then back to Vista again when I buy it.
It's a BETA of course it's going to stop working. This sort of thing normally isn't open to the public, especially not from a company as large as MS. With every major release of the OS people have been begging to get access to the betas. With Vista MS is basically letting anyone who wants to test it, play with it, have access to it. If you're not interested in checking out the OS, then don't bother downloading it. Wait for the year, and then buy it. Or keep using XP. But to complain because MS didn't offer up a full retail copy and then use that as a reason to crack it just smacks of entitlement.
Isn't the solution to that to start saving in advance? I mean, if it'll take 2 months to raise the cash, why not start after christmas then you can buy as soon as it is released?
Sadly, I have no DVD-R burner, and DAEMON isn't much help in these situations. Oh well, guess its time to upgrade.
woah... I didnt say I was going to crack ANYTHING. I am going to buy vista and I do plan to save up for it but as of right now money is super tight and I dont know its price or release date. I plan to keep using XP. I was saying that the ONLY way I would use the beta version was if I wouldnt have to worry about it running out. I didnt mean to offend anyone or anything like that and if I did I am sorry.
I hope you are not refering to my reply! I was just meaning that Microsoft will give the release date well in advance of shipping the product/closing the beta (one assumes, at least), so just start putting themoney aside then Thats what I am gonna do!
Yeah I wasent talking about your post. I was referring to hl718. Once they tell people the ship date and price I will start saving up for it.
Sorry if I misunderstood your reply Micjohvan. It's just that when one of the first responses you get is "I'm just gonna wait for the crack" my thought was "why did I even bother posting the link?" Seriously though, if you're worried about what you're going to run you probably shouldn't run beta anything. Doesn't matter if it's Vista or a game a beta always has the potential of royally hosing your system and destroying everything. But given than Vista is what everyone's going to be playing PC games on in less than a year, it seemed appropriate to post the link here on a forum filled with people that are always searching for the latest unreleased code. As for the ship date, you know the beta is good until June 1, 2007. That means MS is planning to release it before then. You may not know the exact ship date, but if you're going to save you might as well start saving now. No reason to wait for the exact date when you've got a pretty good approximation. And if you hit the goal early, well, you've got the cash ready to go. Nothing wrong with that.
Typically, the MCE extender doesn't work with PAL 360's still, thought they would have changed that one region code in the build to allow all regions...
Well, I can't even install it on my machine. It loads up all the installer files then hangs just as soona s it first displays the mouse pointer :/
^ That's normal, it's loading up, give it a few minutes. If you start getting other problems like error codes and such, your download was probably corrupt. For anyone planning to install this, once the download is complete, be sure to check the MD5 of the .iso file before burning the DVD. Also turn the Data Verify option on in your DVD burner software to make sure this disk burns properly. For the MD5 values in Google Groups type: "vista beta" md5 And click the second post.
I left it for about 20 minutes with nothing happening And yeah, I've done the md5 check, re-burned on slower settings, data verification. And since I downloaded the X64 version, I cannot test installing from within Windows (Only have XP).
Anyone else not seeing a reason to upgrade to Vista? I'm not playing games on my PC really, and all the other "features" seem to be visual fluff (I have XP running in classic style anyway, can't stand the Fisher Price look of the blue and green) and a stack of DRM. Where is the appeal? Also, it's a bad idea to download this if you're thinking of keeping it for more than a year. Beta OS's are more of a "hey, that's cool" thing. For one, a lot of programs aren't going to work, and that probably won't change until it's shipped. What happened to WinFS, anyway?
