Windows 7 beta is perfect.

[vote ron paul]

Happy 2009 to everyone at pcper=]

I just thought I'd recommend windows 7 beta to everyone here.

There's nothing not excellent about it, and as 3dfxrain once said, Microsoft really does care. I like the discontinuation of HW audio acceleration (I think it's best that it's gone, for numerous reasons; my onboard is perfect with s/pdif optical out, the sound drivers can't crash since they're in user space, and it's a lot simpler to just not have to rely on creative for all things audio related), and they made HW AA mandatory with DX10.1. I wish that nvidia included DX10.1 in some of their recent or even not so recent refreshes. I could be wrong, but I think if they used it, then we'd have aa in more games, because I assume more games would support DX10.1 if nvidia supported it, rather than only ATI.

Anyway, windows 7 is very fast, and has all of vista 64's best features, and it's a lot smoother, and physical memory usage is cut by 1/2. Another thing I love about it, is the new visual tweaks, like the lightup of the close, maximize, and minimize buttons, and the new task bar is beautiful in aero glass.

[AMDScooter]

I just downloaded the 32 and 64 bit versions this week. I am kinda disappointed right off that it does not recognize the Adaptec U320 SCSI controller in the backup system I was trying to install it in. It's an older controller that's recognized by win2k.. XP & Vista. I was really surprised 1) that there were not drivers for it already, 2) That it would not accept the Vista64 drivers. I remember back in the day what a pain it was to get MS OS'es to load onto SCSI hard drives.. thought that was a thing of the past. Anyhoo, I'll toss an IDE HD in the rig a bit later and load it up.

[richardd43]

I like windows 7 but would not go so far as to say it is perfect.

I am kinda disappointed right off that it does not recognize the Adaptec U320 SCSI controller in the backup system I was trying to install it in

There are a lot of options to send feedback on the beta. Let MS know and maybe they will get those drivers in also.

I did a clean install and was amazed that I did not have to use the motherboard install disk, the OS recognized everything for me.

[Frank1946]

Perfect? Better than Vista sure, but it doesn't have drivers for my onboard NIC. I was lucky enough to find one in my "junk box" that was recognized. And my MS Sidewinder Precision Pro Joystick (gameport) wasn't recognized and the USB hookup keep resetting the config file so I can't run my MS Flight Sims. Not quite ready for Prime Time.

[vote ron paul]

One serious issue I have is unusable OpenGL. It had caused me to think that I had a serious hardware defect, so I replaced by 8800gt with my x1650gt iceq, and had the exact same issue. So I formatted my HD, and went back to XP. However, I don't know if the OpenGL issue is an ati/nvidia fault, since I had some openGL issues with Vista 64 with my 8800gt.

If it's an opengl issue then I don't expect it to be fixed.

And the latest Catalyst CCC wouldn't install, but that could be ATi's fault rather than Microsoft's.

So, since I went back to xp since it's the only one with useable opengl, it kind of sucks that I had to sacrifice sound quality (realtek xp drivers sound awful, while the ones used for vista and w7 sound great), some speed, and dx 10 when I finally buy a DX10 game (other than DMC4) in the future.