[brynden29]

I just got a beta version of Windows 7 and I am installing on the mini right now. I can't wait to see how it works. I will post my results after it finishes.

[vansmack]

There are a few warnings here you should be aware of, otherwise enjoy the experience. I'm on week 2 and it's been great.

[brynden29]

Originally Posted by vansmack

There are a few warnings here you should be aware of, otherwise enjoy the experience. I'm on week 2 and it's been great.

Thanks for the link, I will check it out.

[tonygoodchild]

I was trying to find out if there is a beta program that can be joined to get Win 7 (for my desktop PC), is that how you got this? Where do you sign up?

[cmarcho]

Right now I don't think there is a public beta program for Windows 7, there was a version released at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles back in October, and that is what most people have now that they are playing with. This was build 6801. From what I gather, this has been copied out in torrents or something. Personally, I would never use software distributed in this manner, you never know what else is in there.... I've never signed up for beta stuff in the past, but I'm sure there will eventually be a public beta next year some time for Windows 7.

[vansmack]

There's a new build available on torrents now. I'm using build 6954 as of yesterday. Seems more stable (especially in the Media Center area) but I can't open all the features (yet).

[vansmack]

Anybody else see these benchmarks? Originally the author did Win7 vs Vista, but was prodded to add XP SP3 later.

I have to agree with his bench marks - Windows 7 is working a lot faster than even XP on my Mini, although I did have to VLite the install as the regualr installation of Win7 takes up 10GB and I wasn't willing to give up that much space.

[Robb318]

hi -

i am having an amazing 7 experience - love everything. sooo much quicker than xp and skinny vista.

i am missing 3 drivers, 2 base system devices, and 1 unknown device.

i love the networking, found everything immediately.


just as a slim down tips..
that
1) slim down the page file, as the default is 2gigs
2) remove all excess restore points except most recent (another gig saved)
3)under disc tools - do disk cleanup, temp install files were 2 gigs.
4) uninstall ununsed games, and other windows features, minus 300 megs.

my full 7 install was 6.5 gigs, i can live with , as its sooo quick.

anyone have those drivers ? i think one may be the camera, and Mic - as bluetooth wifi, and lan came on immediately.

[nollie]

I'd really like to give Windows 7 a run on the Mini, I am surprised it's claimed to run faster than XP though!

[saltek]

Cheers:

I reformatted the standard 16Gig SSHD, and installed Windows 7 Beta B7000 from a 16Gig HCSD card in the card reader. It was late, I went to sleep and in the morning, I awakened the Mini from "sleep" mode. The screen was frozen, I hit the power button, rebooted and the rest is history-it finished set up and is running quite well. I've been tweaking it, but have been taking my time. I haven't loaded anything but AVG AV Free. It set up my wireless network quickly and flawlessly. I do see a couple of unrecognized devices, (bluetooth is running fine,) and will do more checking for drivers later. I haven't tried the camera yet. I have 6 Gigs of space left-I was going to compress the drive, but there seemed to be a problem which I don't care to diagnose just yet-No big deal.

It runs well with only 1 gig of Ram, but I will upgrade to 2, as I'm sure it will increase performance nicely on an already zippy machine. So far, Win7 just seems like a streamlined version of Vista, but I'm looking forward to some experimentation.
I probably will install Firefox as imo, IE8 seems a tad sluggish. (Could be me.)

Later,
Steve