Windows Vista Beta 2 Available for Download

prostoalex writes "Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 is now available for download from Microsoft's official site. If you remember seeing reviews of it already, Microsoft made downloads available to a limited set of customers last month. For PC users that are already running Windows Vista Beta 2, Microsoft put together a list of additional downloads like product guide and feature lists."

Ooops, Antitrust

Okay, go to the "resource centre link", provided here [microsoft.com]here for your convenience. What do you notice? I'll give a hint:

Download the Windows Vista Product Guide

Available in Microsoft Word format (60 MB) or the new Windows Vista XPS document format (12 MB) . (emph mine)

Where the hell is the PDF? Aside from the fact that this is really fucking annoying it has some really worrying implications. They're trying to boot out the PDF format, which is nice, open and ubiquitous with their own format - and they're using their monopoly on the desktop operating system market to achieve this.

Let me be the first to call "Antitrust. Thanks for playing Microsoft! Please give the EU another 600 million euros.

For me, this little bit of text says it all. There's no PDF, they're pushing their own format that they know nobody uses. This shows that even after multiple multi-million dollar settlements and huge fines from the EU the company has not changed one bit. They seem to be acting much like a heroine addict, in that they're moving from one crime to the next, getting bigger and bigger fines but no matter how much you fine the company it is still pathologically anti-competitive.

I do have to say that the longer Microsoft remains on this path, and refuses to comply with the law, the more likely that it will meet it's end equally as sticky as the heroine addict. Is it a rule that all big companies go the way of AT&T eventually?

Simon

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

> Of course they're trying to hold onto their monopoly, it's what dying companies that fail to
> innovate do.

You're confusing fantasy with reality, I'm afraid. You mean it's what the world's most successful companies do.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

Obviously you can't be a monopoly without being the most successful company in your field, and after establishing a monopoly you can hardly fail to be successful. A company would be foolish not to desire monopoly, which is exactly why the public would be foolish not to actively thwart them. Why, if you're not careful, you could get a company so "successful" their key divisions make 85% profit margins year after year without releasing a new major product for 5 years, which consistently "earns" billions of dollars they won't even return to their own shareholders. Which is fab if you happen to be them, but a drain on the economy as a whole.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

PDF is an open format? That explains why Adobe doesn't fancy the idea of Microsoft including PDF exporting functionality into Office 12!

As for the openness of the XPS... why don't you hop on into the site linked to above and visit the Licensing Overview page [microsoft.com].

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

Why exactly would Apple give any money to Adobe to use PDF? Your believe that Apple paid off Adobe is totally without merit or evidence. Apple are simply using an open format, as is allowed by the licensing.

Of course Microsoft want to to, and personally I don't think Adobe have a leg to stand on in complaining about it. The only worry with Microsoft as always is that "their" PDF won't be quite compatible with everyone elses.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

Imagine what would have happened if Microsoft tried to force a proprietary networking protocol on you, rather than just complying with TCP/IP?

I imagine they'd call it NetBEUI!

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

So Microsoft want to make printer manufacturers use their own proprietary protocol rather than Postscript which has been doing this job rather well for the last 20 years?

You also don't seem to know how print spoolers work. They do *not* work for the lowest common denominator, they are pretty much device independent until they hit the driver itself... even Windows uses a display language to describe the page rather than Bitmaps (Unix of course use postscript throughout, so if you print a postscript document on a decent printer no driver is ever involved).

Drop the X

and of course you have a language that printers have been speaking for quite a long time. You could even "send a document in PS format directly to a printer..."

Remarkable. MS once again on the bleeding edge of technology.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

How many printers do you know that ship today or will be out within a year allow you to send a raw PDF file to it and have it print as is without any kind of client spooling and image degradation? XPS lets you do that.

So, XPS implements the same technology that PostScript has implemented for years, only using the wholy inappropriate XML, rather than a stack based schema.

Oh, and PostScript being an established, stable open standard, of course.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

How many printers do you know that ship today or will be out within a year allow you to send a raw PDF file to it and have it print as is without any kind of client spooling and image degradation? XPS lets you do that.

Err, just about all decent printers? Support for Postscript Level 3 basically implies support for printing PDFs.

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

Technically though it's their website and they can put whatever lame duck format on their they want. I don't think they'll get rid of PDF. Look at WMF it's technically a replacement for Postscript yet people still use that.

The XPS format will either get opened up or nobody but MSFT websites will use it. Especially since Vista will still run Adobe...

What you should be questioning is why XPS exists at all. PDF seems to do the job of portable document format just fine being that it renders [or can be rendered] pitch perfect anywhere. Unlike say Word which is a just a crime against professionalism...

Tom

Re:Software Freedom

As an individual, you have the freedom to decide what you put on your website.

As a monopoly convicted of illegal anti-competitive business practices, the rules change!

If you support free software (and individual freedoms), you have to believe that MS should be allowed to publish *their* documentation in whatever format they choose.

No you don't. Microsoft should be forced to publish documentation in unencumbered formats, after what it's done. Maybe if it didn't have a history of abusing its monopoly to force its formats on people, it'd be different.

Remember, by providing documentation in their own format, they are not removing your choice.

Yeah they are! They're removing your choice to read their documentation without using their software!

Re:Ooops, Antitrust

download Foxit PDF Reader http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php [foxitsoftware.com]

It's much faster than Adobe Reader at opening a PDF file and being a self-executable, requires no installation

The motivation of corporations

They seem to be acting much like a heroine addict, in that they're moving from one crime to the next, getting bigger and bigger fines but no matter how much you fine the company it is still pathologically anti-competitive... Is it a rule that all big companies go the way of AT&T eventually?

Quite possibly. The documentary The Corporation [imdb.com] pointed out how such corporations, while legally people in some respects, would be more like psychopaths [abstractdynamics.org] than any other kind of people, as they do whatever they can get away with on their quest for more profit, showing a complete disregard for morals and the law.

If it's cheaper to break the law and pay a fine than it is to obey the law and profit less, they'll break it.

Re:Corporations have no conscience

You can be the most responsible person ever, but you always have the corp to blame when you "have" to do something "unethic".

As a normal worker, you're doing your job, or you're fired. Yes, you're against DRM but still you code some DRM mechanism, because if you don't do it, you're fired and someone else does it.

As an exec, you do it because it's your responsibility to keep the shareholder value up, shareholders are after all who you are responsible to. Yes, you're firing "some" people, but would it be easier on your conscience to think of all those who invested their money for retirement into your company and now have to work 'til 80 'cause your stock fell and thus their investment?

As a shareholder, you don't even know what you "have". You went to your bank and "bought something" that your investor deemed ok. Hell, I might have Sony stocks without knowing it! You also have no influence what they buy or sell (unless you're doing it the good ol' fashioned way and buy/sell yourself).

As the broker, you don't care for the companies. You don't know about the companies, you know their 3-letter acronym that flashes by on the ticker. What they do? You hardly know. You know their general interest and direction, so you know which itches of the trade their options respond to.

Corps are not "evil". They're also not "good". Good and evil are concepts of emotion, of a conscience. And corps have neither. Not having feelings or a conscience is not "evil" by itself. We see it as "evil", because we try to be "good" people. And who isn't good is automatically evil.

Corps don't go out of their way to do "evil". It's not like chem corps produce a lot of chemicals at a loss only to dump them into the ocean. That would be "evil".

Corps simply have no "soul", if you excuse that religious term. They have no morals, no conscience, no emotion. They only have "intelligence", through the people that offer their intelligence to it. Putting intelligence into a corporation means more money for the corp, so it is encouraged. Putting emotion or morals into a corporation is usually costy for the corp, so it is discouraged.

The net result is a "person" with high intelligence and zero morals.

iBias?

Where the hell is the PDF? Aside from the fact that this is really fucking annoying it has some really worrying implications. They're trying to boot out the PDF format, which is nice, open and ubiquitous with their own format - and they're using their monopoly on the desktop operating system market to achieve this.

Not to be a pro-MS shill, but supporting PDF over XPS is kind of like appls vs. apples. XPS is a totally open standard, its XML based. SUre, it's "controlled" by Microsoft, but PDF is "controlled" by Adobe. One is really no better than the other. PDF is just more popular right now.

Started downloading...

I hope it works on my ibook or mini - Hope it is not like other MS products.

Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

I am a simple man.

I don't want an operating system with bells & whistles. I don't want an operating system that looks like it has a glass face or real marble or the most incredible anti-aliased font you've ever seen. What I want is an operating system that works and works efficiently.

There's no reason to preach to the choir, I have many machines (most of them Linux) that dual boot to many operating systems but you'll always need Windows because it's kind of the 'industry standard' for some people.

But when I look for an operating system the words 'form','function','marriage' & 'perfect' come to mind but not necessarily in that order. What I mean is, there's a balance I seek such that my hardware isn't stressed just to open a text editor yet the design is simple & friendly to the eye.

I run Windows XP professional & it works. It works well, which is surprising considering my history with the Windows operating system. It can be cut down to a pretty bare point of functionality and I like it.

So, Mr. Gates, why should I upgrade to Vista? Your "feature list [microsoft.com]" (the same damn thing I've been seeing for the last year) doesn't entice me at all. In fact, it scares me. You know what else scares me? It might not run the games I currently play [extremetech.com] ... and I'm not even sure it will run on my current hardware [engadget.com]. Hell, even IBM [neoseeker.com] doesn't seem to want Vista.

Tons of cash for a bloated operating system? No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.

Re:Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

Hell, even IBM doesn't seem to want Vista.

What?! Arguably the single largest corporate sponsor of Linux and assorted OSS projects doesn't seem too interested in Vista?

Say it ain't so!

there's a balance I seek such that my hardware isn't stressed just to open a text editor yet the design is simple & friendly to the eye.

So set the theme to Windows Classic. Sheesh; you make it sound like Aero Glass is the only option...

Re:Upgrade My WinXP Machine? Why?

No thanks. I'll settle for Windows XP Professional.

Well, while I agree with all your points. The thing is: I said exactly the same a few years ago when I was running Windows 2000. I thought I would never upgrade... Yet, now I run Windows XP Professional. Why? Well, XP had one thing I really liked (and is very useful on a multi-user-home-machine: fast user switching. I only "upgraded" to Windows XP in 2005, so I am "late" to Windows XP. I always end up upgrading late, because I think it's better that other people test the damned thing and find the quirks.

For now, I do not see any reason to upgrade to Windows Vista, but we'll talk again in 2008, when WinXP isn't supported anymore. Currently, I am evaluating FreeBSD as a complete replacement (and I like it...) Perhaps in 2008, I'll be running FreeBSD exclusively. If not, then I'll probably will be running Vista. You'll probably end up in the same boat as me: either a free OS or Windows Vista. Espcially when you buy a new machine and can't get a (legal) copy of XP anymore...

I got the chance to play with this

I got to play with this a couple weeks of go, and I think MS is doing alot better than expected. Earlier reviews of vista and longhorn before that rightly criticized it for some really bad issues but they're very cleaned up now, and given them more than six months more to complete it I think they can ship something great out of this. I don't say it will end up changing the dynamics of a desktop in competition with linux as they are now very distinct systems with their own niches, as vista is just more of the same, but it's more of the same made better.

Point?

Why would anyone outside of ISVs download this? So for the cost of re-imaging my system I get to test an unstable, feature incomplete OS that is likely to further the bane of human existance. Not only does the install expire but I then have to pay full price for a legit copy at the end.

And for all my bug reports I send in I get ???

At least when you beta test an OSS OS you then get rewarded with a stable OS that you can freely install as you choose... /me hopes Vista never materializes and/or flops big.

Tom

Re:Point?

if you have to support windows boxes, you will probably have to support vista some day. might as well get a headstart and get your hands dirty (best way to learn) even if you don't plan on rolling it out for a long time (a long time after release).

Re:Point?

"If you don't want to run the Beta, fine, don't run it. However, to my mind you lose all rights to complain about misfeatures and bugs if you had an opportunity to find and report them, and didn't." This seems to me to be total crap. It is not my job (nor the job of most reading this) to test Microsoft's products for them for free. This is a commercial product, and it is Microsoft's responsibility to ship a good working product to PAYING customers. If it were an OSS project, your statement would be valid, but this is certainly not OSS. Since when did quality assurance for commercial software become the sole responsibility of the customers???

Re:Point?

If you don't want to run the Beta, fine, don't run it. However, to my mind you lose all rights to complain about misfeatures and bugs if you had an opportunity to find and report them, and didn't.

You're kidding right? If I was to pay for Vista (ha ha) and found bugs or misfeatures, I would have no right to complain about them?! You expect me to beta test commercial software on my own time and money before I have the right to complain about bugs in software that I paid for?!

direct download links

getting the serial # is easy enough, but the download page has been overloaded. here are links for direct download of the english iso

Windows Vista 32bit - English
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2/ en/x86/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_EN_DVD.iso [windowsvista.com]

Windows Vista 64bit - English
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2/ en/x64/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x64fre_client-LB2CxFRE_EN_DVD.iso [windowsvista.com]

they should have had a torrent option.

Re:direct download links

they should have had a torrent option

They Do [thepiratebay.org]

thanks for the update

ill download my antivirus updates ...maybe if this windows is in the wild it will be detected before i get it

Get Your Crack Right Here!!!

Hey kid! You wanna taste the new Vista? Come over here and try some sweet Vista. Don't worry about expirations, vendor lock in, security, assimilation or anything else. I'll take care of all of it for you.

Come on, kid. You know you want a taste. Come try this new Vista Beta. It's free! And I know how much you like free...

Can't log in using Konqueror

Shame on you, such a big corporation not spending a little bit of time on making your site interoperable. :)

They're 2 days late.

Should've released it on 6/6/6.

The only interesting thing about Vista...

...is where was the photograph taken that's shown on the Vista page at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/ [microsoft.com]?

I admit it, I'm a technology whore

For all my constant bitching about how much I despise Microsoft and hate having to reimage my computer every 6 months because of bit rot, you better bet i signed up for this as fast as my little fingers could type. Yeah, I feel dirty, but assuming my computers will support it and I can actually get the iso, I'll be attempting to install Vista this evening.

How does it run

on Virtual PC on a G5 quad with masses of memory, if at all?

Dual Boot?

I want to try the beta out. Has anyone been able to install Vista alongside XP (dual-boot)? What about with Linux?

Out of Curiosity

Despite vowing never to touch vista I decided to try the beta just to see if it is as bad as people claim.

It installed nice and quickly (faster than xp in fact) on my P4 2.4Ghz 2GB ram box duel booting with XP MCE 2005 although vista takes about 4 mins to boot up.

I like the new file explorer interface but from the initial feel it seems to be more about the look than the functionality of the desktop. It is also nice to see an inclusion of a calendar utility which I always thought was lacking from previous windows versions.

Compatability wise; it does not detect my soundblaster pro 5.1 card and will not let me install the drivers for it claiming that windows compatability wont allow me to do so. The same is true of ZoneAlarm Pro and Avast! Anti Virus which I find insulting as a technically minder user but I do understand that most people who use MS products need to be saved from the "lets install anything" mentality.

Open Office and Firefox install perfectly but Vista brings an error halfway through installing Thunderbird.

The display manager will not allow me to set my screen resolution to anything other than 800x600 although the option is there for 1024x768 but nothing happens when the setting is applied and even at 800x600 the screen flickers eratically every few mins.

I have not installed the wireless networking yet but without my firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus products, I'm not sure that I even want to connect the the internet.

My S-video out is disabled on loading the desktop (closing the analog hole?) which makes the media center funtion useless on my current setup and the DRM is making itself known with periodic popups telling me that x has been disabled quoting "Macrovision corporation" in the details.

Media Center mode in my view has a better interface than MCE 2005 however AVI files will not work (or be added for that matter) in media center mode.

I am going to test the beta out over the weekend but I am currently of the mind that it is buggy bloatware and not something I would trust my fles to but I am open minded enough to accept problems under the fact that it is a beta release and is not supposed to be anything near a proper release candidate.

My thoughts...

I was writing a blog entry but figured I'd post it here.

Although the latest Beta 2 detected all of my hardware except my smartcard reader, I'm not impressed. There are some issues with 802.1x authentication which is quite a large hindrance (especially for corporate customers). Mainly, it does not work in my WPA2-Enterprise (WPA2 + AES + RADIUS) wireless network running at my home. Vista would send the proper authentication information and the Microsoft IAS RADIUS server (running on Win2k3) would grant access (confirmed via logs) but Vista would not grab an IP address. Statically setting an IP also failed to provide network access. I had to pull out an old WEP access point and finally Vista worked wirelessly. Due to WEP's insecurity, I have resorted to having to use the built in gigabit ethernet. Albeit that most of the public doesn't have as an elaborate of a set up at home, but I'm surprised that this is borked in Beta 2.

USB2 is horribly slow. I connected a USB2 memory stick to copy some files off the system when wireless wasn't working. The new Vista file copy progress dialog displays transfer rate. The fastest it ever got was about 300KB/s! Can you imagine waiting almost 10 minutes to transfer 150 megs locally? I almost went nuts. Again, I acknowledge this is beta software, but is it that hard to get USB Mass Storage drivers to work properly?

The Aero Glass interface isn't very responsive. Since Windows 95, the mouse pointer in Windows has never been afflicted by pauses when moving the pointer. I'm sure all of us remember these hiccupy movements of the pointer in X Windows in Linux distributions a few years ago, but the Linux community largely solved these problems. I was very surprised when I saw this behavior in Vista Beta 2. I was running the Vista nVidia drivers. I also noticed the screen compositing process pegging the CPU usage to about 30-40% and sometimes it would completely pause for a few seconds before updating the desktop and its windows. I tried XGL on this same system and never dealt with any of the problems. Maybe my Direct X 9-enabled, 128 meg nVidia Quadro FX Go video card may be 2 years old, I'm surprised with the lack of performance. Can Microsoft streamline and optimize this in time for a release? I hope so otherwise I'll be running the basic interface if I ever upgrade.

Vista Beta 2 is a resource hog. A full install with Office 2007 took nearly 14 gigs of hard drive space. After boot up, Windows commit charge was averageing nearly 750-800megs of RAM on my laptop equipped with 2gigs of RAM. Opening up Firefox with a few tabs, MSN messenger, and playing a DivX AVI in Windows Media Player 11 pushed up the usage to nearly 1.3gigs of RAM. I know any unused RAM is wasted RAM but when a basic Windows hogs that much, it shows that power users will easily have to push 4gigs of RAM if they intend to run Photoshop or a few instances of Office applications.

The other annoyance is the new non-admin user model. It is completely broken and illogical. Inevitably, those people that get Vista Beta 2 working on their hardware will complain about constantly being bothered to elevate privileges. The end result will either be people disabling the new protection scheme or learning to click without reading-both scenarios are disastrous and will render this protection useless.

As it stands, Microsoft needs to revamp the model. I want a Control Panel applet that will let me choose the level of incisiveness. Here is my proposal:

1. Off - If I'm logged in as an Administrator, then it will work as current Windows machines.

2. Default - The current default settings as shipped in Vista Beta 2. The user would be hand held even while in his/her profile (aka home) directory. Deleting, editing and installing any files would all require the annoying pop-up dialog confirming action.

3. Limited Power User - Following the Linux model as shown in Red Hat of yesteryear, Ubuntu and others with a modification or two. All system files, installation of software available to the

Good!

Slashdotters, we should be pleased this shinny new Windows is coming to the masses. I have tried it already, and uninstalled it already - it being unusable as it is in a Virtual Machine.

My critique of Vista thus far is summarised as such:
-Vista is furthers the very Microsoft-based philosophy that it knows how to run your machine better than you do - a good thing for average users; a bad thing for geeks.
-Security has been improved & tightened (better firewall, more built-in protection); more or less a good thing for everyone, even if the more technical people may tweak this.
-Improved kernel; a good thing for everyone too, but maybe once it's stable.
-Very pretty graphics. Good for some people; irrelevant for people with slower machines, and damned frustrating for geeks.

Overall, the masses win in most cases and the geeks have very little to benefit from Vista.

The things that I noticed perhaps the most however, are the minor unsung improvements to how user-actions flow together just better; a bit like the small but noticeable improvements WinXP made over Win2k. For instance, the setup process - I must've made about 5 mouse clicks in total; the wizard is simultaneously even more slicker and patronising than ever - good for users, bad for geeks.

Anyway, I very much doubt I'll be upgrading myself as I can handle my own machine perfectly well on my own, but assuming Microsoft can pull it off, I say this is a positive thing for the majority of computer users that, frankly, want Microsoft to take as much care of their machines as possible. The more Windows can take care of a machine; the less irritating requests I'll get to "fix my bloody computer please!"

Broadband Recommended

Broadband Internet connection (highly recommended)
Yes, I would also recommend broadband for a 4.4GB file...

Prepared?

I'm gunna try it out on my laptop, what the hell. Computer guy .. gunna have to support it anyways.

Besides, I gotta know how to make it run and look like XP, right?

FWIW I might even put a different HD in my PC and install it to that just to take a looksee..

sweet!

oh cool now we can bitch about how much it sucks and we won't have to wait!

Performance of the most basic stuff

For those of you who have tried this, could you please let me know how long it takes, on average, to:

1) Open a folder
2) Cut/Copy & paste a file to another folder
3) Delete a file
4) Open the full program list from the start button (or whatever has replaced it) ...because these things are too damn slow in XP.

I really don't want, or need to upgrade, but my Dad will want to buy the next incarnation of Flight Simulator, so I might have to.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista Beta 2.

We are currently experiencing a high level of demand and cannot process your request at this time.

Please check back later for availability. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Microsoft has been slashdotted. Our life-long work has been accomplished.

32 and 64 bit versions

Dumb question perhaps, but why not stick them on the same disk and detect which to installed based on the CPU. Producing distinct versions is going to be a pain in the arse for everyone, not least for the poor consumers who don't know what the terms mean.

Windows Beta anything can't be good...

Why would anyone WANT to download Vista Beta? Ok I guess if you have a spare machine or two, IMHO it's not worth the headache. Even with the final release, I would wait at LEAST a year before considering Vista. Don't get me wrong, I'm a XP user both @ work and home, as well as Linux. The thought of Vista Beta just gives me the creeps.

German DL links

32bit:
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2/ de/x86/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x86fre_client-LB2CFRE_DE_DVD.iso [windowsvista.com]

64bit:
http://download.windowsvista.com/dl/preview/beta2/ de/x64/iso/vista_5384.4.060518-1455_winmain_beta2_ x64fre_client-LB2CFRE_DE_DVD.iso [windowsvista.com]

Slashdotted hmmmm?

So did Microsoft post a torrent for this? . . . . . . .HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha . . . ha. Boy I kill me.

Microsoft site overloaded...

And I can't find a well-supported torrent. Anyone wanna help out? Thanks!

Signatures? (MD5/SHA1?)

For people who are grabbing the disc image from unofficial sources - can folks who've downloaded it directly from Microsoft post MD5 / SHA1 signatures and filesizes so we can be sure we're all getting the same stuff?

--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up [sourceforge.net]!

My views of Windows Vista

Well, seems they've come out with another beta. I think it's a nice idea and all, but my main problem is the lack of a normal CD ISO. Sure, it's pretty obvious that they wouldn't support it. But can anyone convert the ISO into CD formats for those of us who want to run Vista Beta 2, but don't have $100 or so DVD-burners in their boxes? I run Ubuntu mainly, and I don't have a CD burner, so I would love to dual-boot Vista. But all I see is DVDs.

Intel Macs

It seems that Vista is going to be a decent piece of software, if even on Slashdot you can read people make positive comments. As I'm probably going to buy a Macbook, I'm really interested whether Vista is going to run on that. Has anybody tried?

Servers overloaded

Had to reload a few times to get it to generate my product key, and it looks like they've taken the download down for now:

Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista Beta 2.

We are currently experiencing a high level of demand and cannot process your request at this time.

Please check back later for availability. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I guess they didn't anticipate as many people as are trying to download it now (the bandwidth must be costing them a fortune, a torrent would have been a much better way to go...)

I guess I'll look around for a torrent when I get home from work, want to make sure the one I download is the current legal version released today. Or maybe by tonight Microsoft will have their download servers working again.

torrent! (please help)

http://plonkmedia.org/tracker [plonkmedia.org] the MD5 of the ISO from Microsoft.Windows.Vista.64Bit.Build.5384.4.DVD-Win Beta seems to match the public beta ISO's MD5, so please help out seed to those too lazy/with not enough time to refresh the Microsoft page that seems to be overwhelmed at times

Even the download page doesn't work.

I decided to go ahead and give the new WIndows Vista a test drive. Right from the start Microsoft's website gives me the notice that "Due to high demand, downloads are offline at this time" and to "Come back later". Well, I tried it again in an hour, and now it tells me "You have been issued the maximum amount of Vista keys" and will not allow me to even download a copy. Hmmm. I was SO looking forward to trying Vista tonight. Since I now have nothing to do and a nice, fresh computer to play with can anyone suggest a good flavor of Linux for me to fire up and give a test run?

Upgrading XP Pro to Vista Beta2 on Mac Book?

Please forgive me if this has been posted already - but it's late (up almost 18 hours already - too tired to read all the threads), but anyone try upgrading the XP partition on a Mac Book or any other Intel-based Mac? if so, any gotchas you'd like to share? I rarely use the XP partition, but thought it'd make a good test bed. Off to dreamland - good night all ./ers.

Wow

Has anyone else noticed that it seems like for firefox users the download page for Vista displays a "high traffic message, come back later" message while in IE, it displays additional download options including one that works without a problem and if you try to access that URL directly through FF, you get an Access Denied error? I didn't think they'd go that low.

link in question [windowsvista.com]

Download Manager

I'm a little bit pissed that they can't allow a normal download manager to pause the download. Firefox 'pause' does indeed pause it, but if you try to restart it, then it just finishes up the file and says that its done. All 30Megs of it. Tried it 3 times.

Why would I want Akamai downloader or whatever it is they are offering? Every other download in the world is just fine with 'pause'....irritating.

I'll start looking for a torrent of the damn thing. Just plain stupid to not have a standard pause enabled download of a 3.2Gig file.

Yes This is a Flame. No, you shouldn't mod me that way. Mod me insightful...hopefully make more people seek other download options.

Display dpi change still causes bitmap aliasing...

I'm typing this from the new Windows Vista Beta 2 and I am impressed so far. However, I figured it was just a given that Microsoft would have sorted out the variable display dpi issues which I've had with Windows XP in the past. I thought this would be easily fixed by Microsoft in Vista because Vista uses your video cards 3D features for rendering the desktop. Right?

So I set the display dpi to that of my spectacular Sony 17" notebook's widescreen of 1920x1200 at 133dpi. I allowed the machine to reboot as required and then got ready to see a gorgeous desktop... well no... just like Windows XP, the text is lovely, but most of the icons have seemingly now scaled up from their original size, to some very very ugly aliased bitmaps.

Also, this dpi change did not apply to all aspects of the system. For example, IE7 font sizes did not change, nor did the bitmap (little icons, etc) sizes within IE7.

What's the story? Am I missing something here or do Microsoft still not understand how to design a GUI from the fundamentals all the way up to the user?

OSX scales bitmaps in style, but I have not needed to change the dpi drastically, so I can't comment on that aspect of OSX (can that even be done?). I guess this is due to Apple going back to the beginning and doing things right from the ground up.

Does anyone know if this can be fixed with proper configuration or if this is an issue that MS will be addressing? Am I doing something wrong?

PS, I'm not a Mac zealot. Truth be told, I spend most of my time in xterms under OpenBSD/fvwm. For me in my particular line of work, Windows is a necessary evil, so I would at least like to make the most of it.

Vista Beta 2 available on BitTorrent

If you're still having trouble getting a copy, check out www.bittorrent.com to download Vista Beta 2.

Re:Oh great

Windows Vista Beta 2 expires on the 1st of June 2007, giving you just under a year to use it.

Re:Oh great

Worth reading the page properly - July 1st 2007 - so you've got a year of beta OS goodness and crashes before you need to worry :-)

Re:Oh great

Read it again. It actually says June 1st, 2007.

Re:Oh boy!

I know!! Linux isn't even out of alpha too!! Crashix! Updates/patches each week! Doesn't support your hardware!

Mac getting viruses! OMG SKY IS FALLING

Re:GPU Temp increased dramatically

"The one thing he has noticed though is that the idle temperature of his GPU has increased from an average 34 degrees to 45 degress. And he's not even tried any games with it yet (apparently this used to get the GPU temp up to about 44)"

If he's using the flashy new aero interface that's because it uses the GPU's 3D capabilities for accelerating the UI. With WinXP and earlier, most modern GPUs down throttle when just running 2D desktop applications.