Butch, have you heard anything about MS giving free upgrades in August? I doubt it's true, but I read it somewhere. I think it was an article about 5 reasons why MS is giving free upgrades. BTW, thanx for the key!

Getting ready to install Impulse!!

 

I gues you what you mean is that anybody that buys a computer in July or August on is going to be entitled to a free update to Windows 7 but you know Microsoft LOL....

I guess I thought it meant free upgrades from beta to full version...silly me.

ok started my download wich is going to take 20 hours.....

and my key is ready and waiting........ 

I have been trying Stardock products on 7. Here is some results, BTW Neil says " UNDER ON CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU TRY BOOTSKIN PRO ON WINDOWS 7!!"

https://forums.wincustomize.com/336036/page/1/#2015030

OOPS

Whoa... 20 hours???

Well my mouth, mine took just 4hours 46mins to complete... that was the 3.5 gig W7 x64 version.

So guys what are your first impressions?????????............

I must say I am very impressed.............

Speed and responsiveness is always two of my main concerns..........and I'm amazed. I installed 7 on a three year old laptop with an AMD Turion processor with a gig of ram and a very lightweight graphics card and it flies along........Just as quick as XP.

I'm using IE8 on it and thats flipping round the net like a mad thing............

No compatability problems.............It found several drivers that I needed and installed them...........All hardware is working fine.

Has the WMP had an update?.............replay quality on music seems better

It's a least six months away from being released.............and it's this good already !!!!!

 

  

And here's a great article that talks about many of the changes. A really useful read:-

http://mintywhite.com/tech/windows-7/will-windows-7-be-a-worthwhile-upgrade/

First impressions....

Installation of W7 x64 was quick and seamless, completed in just over 16 minutes... clean install not an upgrade

Startup is much better than Vista's... cuts out the logo screen and goes straight from a 'sort o'f bootscreen to logon to desktop in just under 30 seconds.

Over-all system speed is appreciably faster than both Vista and XP, the UI is slick, well laid out/presented and feels smooth to use... over-all MS has streamlined the GUI and access to Windows apps and functions is much better than in previous incarnations.

The shutdown on the start menu is much improved... now there is a main button with various sleep, logoff and shutdown options.

I like the new wallpaper function that allows time alterable slideshow feature... and for Aussies selecting the Oz location option an Aussie wallpaper theme pack.  Oh, and the new interactive taskbar thumbnails are excellent.

I like the fact that MS dropped the sidebar on this one... in Vista that was a resource sucking hog with no use or practicality for me... yet the sidebar gadgets are still there should one want or need them.

I seems also that MS may have done away with 'Ultimate Extras'... also another good thing cos most of that is bloat anyhow, like who needs Dreamscene when we have Deskscapes... right!

Windows Media Player has had a facelift... the UI mightn't be as flashy as in Vista, but it is clean looking and WMP  seems to sound better when playing MP3 or WMA files.

My internet connection seems rather slow at times, however, but I think that may be due to a wireless driver thing... W7 is now updating the Netgear drivers so that may very well resolve that issue.

Another strange thing was that my media drive was not showing up in 'Computer'... although it was appearing in 'Disk Management'  It took a little while to figure out why not, but I was able to bring it on line easily enough.  For some odd and unexplained reason this partition did not have a letter assigned, so it was as simple as assigning it a letter and voila, it was there.

I haven't delved into it too deeply as yet, but early indications are that W7 is superior and a more user friendly OS than Vista was at the same stage... and is now, so yeah, the finished item is a must when it becomes available on the shelf.

Oh yeah, the UAC is nowhere near the pain in the arse intrusive as Vista's... I don't have it turned off, yet it certainly isn't as bothersome as Vista's is on the lower elevation using TweakVista.  Dunno if it'll keep asking permissions on previously allowed items as I haven't got that far, but installing Firefox only took the one permission, not 2 like in Vista with UAC fully turned on.

And file move/copy/transfer is decidedly faster than in Vista.... no more of that 'calculating' crap, it just gets stuck into it and is done in no time.

Well I figured out why my internet is slow... excruciatingly so, and it has nothing to do with wireless drivers. I have a 25gb per month package that reverts to dial-up speed when the allowable amount is reach... and yeah, the 3.5gb Windows 7 download helped push me/us over the top. Normally 25gb is ample, but I've had some heavy duty downloads this month and obviously exceeded our monthly limit. Dunno how anybody could live with dial-up, it's bloody woeful. Oh well, it's only for a day and our account resets to broadband, thank goodness.

mine took 55 mins to dl

Crap it only got to 1.86 Gigs and stoped downloading and the iso don't work.....