Installing Windows 7 (Build 7000)

Wow. I’m in love again.. well, maybe – I’m certainly in LIKE!

A few days ago I wiped out my gaming rig with the intention of installing the latest beta of Windows 7. The Beta was opened up around mid-January and attracted a LOT of attention, and downloads. Personally I grabbed both the 32-bit and 64-bit builds as at some stage I’d like to see if I can get an install running on the EEE.

Installation:

The 32-bit DVD turned out to be a failure, but – since I have a Core 2 Duo I was able to install the 64-bit version without issues, in fact I was struck by just how FAST it installed – I was go to whoa in around 15 minutes. In terms of peripheral detection, everything- including my Leadtek USB DVB-T tuner were found and working right off the bat.

So, first impressions are ‘wow’ and ‘cool’ and ‘I want to replace Vista PERMANENTLY’. If you have a spare machine kicking around at home, I’d fully recommend it.

Post Install:

Media Center – This just works. No fnarkling in the registry, no loading internal webservers and pointing guide downloads to a local source – it just works… with a DVB-T tuner that is – the channel names are captured but I’m not seeing the guide data getting populated within the grid. I have my suspicions that the guide may not be found as my DVB-T card is kinda ancient and may not be picking up the now/next data correctly. I know Mauricio has been testing the Win7 Media Center for a lot longer (and probably has more recent gear than I do) and, given that he’s replaced Vista on his primary media server box, I suspect he has had more sucess in this space.

I haven’t had time (or free PCI slots) to try a traditional tuner and, given the guide data in NZ is only transmitted in band for DVB-T transmissions, I’m not holding my breath.

Edit 02/02/2009: I’ve got the bug!

I wandered into the office at home this afternoon to find my Win7 rig dead. Well, running – but with no display and no ability to wake it up. Apparently others have also seen this behaviour but, unlike those commenting on the article, I have yet to have any sucess in the whole ‘turn it off and on and off and on until it wakes up’ department. So, at the moment – I’ve got a dead PC and no obvious way of sparking it back to life. Granted, it’s Beta – but this seems kind of fundamental so, assuming I can resurrect the box and get Windows 7 talking to me again, I’ll be disabling all power saving features in the hope that things don’t repeat. Failing that, it’s back to WinXP, or Vista, or Ubuntu + WINE.

Edit 03/02/2009: Aaaand we’re back

Managed to get the PC booting again, it may be conincidence, but after popping out the video card and booting off the onboard video, things livened up once more. Reinserted the video card and all back to it’s normal speedy self. Much enjoyment playing around on the system now.