Windows 7 Gets UK Launch (24 Hours Early) Comments

I'm absolutely gutted by this - my upgrade order through toshiba has apparently been delayed til december because of a drivers disc they need to send with it :(

I too was down on Royal Mail until I read this: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html

P.S. I've been running retail Ultimate for a week, thanks to Houseparty!

My copy arrived in the post yesterday...a very pleasent surprise :o) Already installed & working well with all my software, without a single blue-screen too. Very happy indeed!

Got mine two days ago from Dixons (online) which was a nice surprise. Threw it on a sammy NC20 netbook and have to say it's impressed me so far. A couple of the hardware drivers i had to use were designed for XP only, but just enabling the XP compatibility mode on them means they work perfectly in Win7. Very nifty.

I'm sure Windows 7 is going to be a hit, for me though Vista was the last straw. The thing is when Vista first came out it wasn't too bad, but after so long with Service packs and such, it's now a dog. Now what would worry me as a new W7 user is it would just end up going the same way again, it always has. Every single install of Windows after so long requires a clean install.

What really got me away from Windows is that I wanted to create a Media PC, ok simple eh. So installed Vista, enabled the Media Center stuff, now I want to play some MKV's, well getting MKV's etc to play in MCE is like getting blood from a stone. What should have been simple just ended up wasting hours of my time.

So decided to install an Ubuntu with XBMC on, oh my goodness windows really does look pants now. And this was V9.04(Jaunty), things look even more interesting in 9.10(Karmic) -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYgWE6Svpag&NR=1

Anyway TR, you ever thought about doing a review of Ubuntu Karmic when it's released, or do you only review retail products?

Bit sooner than 24 hours. PC Word and Curry's sent out their stock before the weekend, play.com posted mine Monday. Amazon have been the slow ones.

Got mine this morning, am now going through the pain of having to back-up everything / format and re-install some 30 programs, numerous plug-ins, widgets, codecs, encoders, decoders, favourites, passwords, searching for old serial numbers and codes, updates, updates, updates...drivers and the literally hundreds of small software add-ons you can collect that help things run smoothly that you forget about.

Thanks for the easy upgrade route Microsoft :(

Actaully received my copy on monday (PC world pre-order) so its more than 24 hours! Now just have to finish building the HTPC that its intended to be used on... :-)

Amazon informed that they'd posted my copy yesterday so I hope it's going to be waiting expectantly on the door mat when I get home. This OS isn't coming a moment too soon for me my 3 year old XP installation (yes... I KNOW!) is getting a bit creaky and needs a shot in the arm.

I remember when I used to get excited about spending Saturday nights going clubbing and hanging out with my mates, now I get excited about spending Saturday night installing a new operating system. Parenthood... just say no!

Im still waiting for my copy that I ordered from Play, seems it has been caught up in the wildstrike actions aswell as the official ones :(

I'm using the RC still which is valid for a good few months yet.
However, when I buy a retail copy, will I be able to install over the top or even just validate RC with the retail code?
I'll do a full install if I have to, but I'd rather not!

Painless clean install here, I used MozBackup to save all my Firefox add-ons, bookmarks and other settings.

@vivid- Amazon are using Home Delivery Network so i wouldn't be surprised to see a "you were out when we called" note through the door, they are rubbish in my experience and i'm expecting to find the same thing even though 2 of my housemates are at home today.

I got my copy on monday from pc world only £44.99.

Still waiting for my copy of W7Pro from Amazon to get delivered. I wish i had order a HP copy too for my Aspire One as it now is £80 on ebuyer. I think i will see how Karmic Koala works on it before i commit.

@Billy Rubin - Do you have a cousin called 'Verdin'? Excellent name...wonder how many people get the gag... ;o)

@Keith, Ever heard of "K lite mega codec pack"

@mrtinkles

Amazon are using lots of couriers! Mine came via Citylink at 10 am this morning (and took 20 mins to install) and other people are reporting DHL

Gah!

Post Office have blocked my upgrade plans. Preordered from Play and it did not arrive today.

Saturday now.. Maybe... Assuming it's not at the bottom of the backlog of post by then...

My 3 copies arrived on the 19th!

One installed on my 3+ year old Sony SZ2 laptop. Very easy and only 3 drivers required - just fed it the entire Vista driver set and it grabbed what it needed. Winows Update had a few updates, I got a free version of the UPEK fingerprint stuff and that was it - a full install including finger print logon :)

Will do the other machines in the fullness of time - main desktop on 7 RTM in any case.

Got mine from Amazon and arrived today. Will Install over RC tomorrow. Im very happy

Yeah Amazon are using just about anything other than Royal mail, a friends arrived from Amazon via HDNL. I'm waiting for my download details to be emailed to me and my disc kit to arrive in the post as I went for the £30 student deal. Hopefully tomorrow will be the day.

Waiting for mine to arrive from Play.

@darkspace88
The combined community codec pack is equally good. Love MPC!

@ deus1066: may I ask what type of download is the student deal? is an iso file which mimics the physical disc? also can you have the download and physical copy as I read you could only choose one or the other

Hi all, I have been a long time reader of trustedreviews but never bothered to register! But the urge to clarify is too strong! The student deal should be an .iso file. You can get a disk kit costs 9 pounds. You can also get an extended download service (your download is kept backed up on a server, should you wish to redownload it) costing 3 pounds. I'm doing this from memory so sorry if the amounts are not right.

PC World sent me an email saying they were unable bill my card for £45, for Home Premium and I would have to reorder. That's just too bad, now that W7 Professional is available at £30 to .ac email addresses! Like deus1066 above, I await the email eagerly.

Working OK in Parallels 4. What can I say, it's still Windows. No problems, though, and as the 'new' Windows I'm sure it'll serve PCs well!

I have just finished (well almost) rebuild with my retail copy of 7. Migrated from 7 RC to 7 Pro - its taken about 3 hrs and 20 mins. Most of which was wasted (bring on USB 3.0) using the Easy Transfer process to back up files to external drive. I thought it wise to backup data just in case but wasn't really necessary*. The clean install path follows the same as it did from Beta to RC which basically shoves all your files in Windows.old. Once you have completed the install you can then move files/folder from Windows.old to your new user folders. The nice thing about Easy Transfer is that it gives you a list of programs/drivers that you had installed. The report also updates as you install items which is nice. For everything else its probably faster if you already have a backup or skip copying. One strange issue was the insane amount of time it took to delete the Windows.old 15 mins + to remove 16GB. I had 2 of these (Beta & RC) command line deletes nearly instantly.
*Since I already had critical backups.

I feel my fellow Play orderers' pain. No W7 for me yet either!

@Jay As mentioned above I believe the download is an ISO which costs £30, then you can pay extra if you want them to send the discs to you and if you want the extended download thing. I went for the whole lot and it came to £43 (cheaper than the cheapest pre-order offers I saw). You also can choose between 32 and 64 bit versions of home premium or professional at no extra cost. I, like many I imagine, went for 64 bit professional which makes it an amazing bargain!

@darkspark88 and @ravmania:
Have always used K-Lite pack myself, but didn't like MPC. Discovered TheKMPlayer a couple of years ago and haven't looked back (amount of configurable option too overwhelming for some): http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14938

Got my W7 off Amazon, but will have to wait for the weekend to install, as have to clear a few things off the ol' HDD and make sure I have the time should anything go wrong.

@keith at al - Regarding codec parks, DivX released a beta codec for playing MKV files in Windows 7 x64. Just install it, and MKVs instantly work in WMP and MCE:

http://labs.divx.com/mkvwin7preview

Regarding Windows 7 - So far I've been very impressed with it. Installation took under twenty minutes doing a fresh install. And the UI seems much snappier then Vista. Only had a few problems getting old games to run on it (mostly games from GoG). To quote a Fatboy Slim record - You've come a long way, baby :)

My Amazon orders were waiting in my greenhouse last night.

Personally, as I'm already on a beta version of 7 64, I'm not going to re-install immediately, but rather wait to buy a new SSD and then go for it.

@darkspark88: Ever heard of "K lite mega codec pack"

Yep, been there done that, got the t-shirt. But there was obviously more to do, I did get MKV working in MCE2005, but Vista MCE wasn't playing ball. I'm sure if I kept trying for longer I would have managed it. But after trying a Live CD of XBMC and everything under the sun just played, then that clinched it for me. Anyway, I'm glad I didn't get MCE working with MKV's, XBMC just makes MCE look pants, in a similar way I suppose Android/Iphone make WindowsMobile look pants.. :) I mean come on -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuDs0HV0Pls , btw. all that media info is grabbed from the the Net too. :)

@deus1066 and lildwarf: thanks for the info but now you should have the email links can you confirm 100% that it is an .iso file as I have read that some student downloads have been exe and .box files but this may not be direct from microsoft. sorry for asking again but just want to make sure

@Jay

Having downloaded it, it is indeed a .exe file and two .box files. Which you need to use Oscdimg CD/DVD Premastering Utility and the command line to make a bootable .iso in UDF format.

Hope this helps

thank you, thank you, just wanted to have a full understanding on the process of the download of the student edition

@comments above

The downloads are .box and .exe (3 downloads in total). You can then use the oscdimg and the instructions on the sites below to make an iso:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/10/22/how-to-make-a-dvd-of-that-student-only-windows-7/
http://forums.multiplay.co.uk/general-chat/71359-windows-7-student-download-problems-here

And then burn the iso to dvd and treat this as a normal retail full edition of Windows 7.

I was running Windows 7 RC 32 bit and had to do the above method as it would not let me use the 64bit download in a 32bit environment. Once I'd done the steps above it worked perfectly and am now using Win7 Pro 64bit, and I have an iso disc as a backup.