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First experiences with Windows 7 Beta

Started taking a look at the Windows 7 public beta this week. The target machine for the install is my older PC, a Sony VAIO VGC-RA820G, that I have connected up as an HTPC. As this is a older machine I had held out form upgrading this machine the Vista I didn't want to upgrade or wipe out the existing XP installation on the this machine, so as a first step I created a blank 30Gb partition for the Windows 7 installation using SystemRescueCD. 

Installation of Windows 7 was very smooth, once everything was up and running it also downloaded the latest updates. The Aero interface was working right of of the box, even without installing latest drivers which was nice, and looks great. I decided to install the latest video drivers anyway. A quick search on the ATI website located the ATI Windows 7 Beta drivers. Installed without a hitch, so far so good.

Like previous versions of Windows it nags you to install some Anti Virus software and suggests a few options including Norton and AVG. I've used and loved AVG in the past on XP and Vista, but my current favorite anti virus application is Avira Antivir.

I encountered my first problem with Windows 7 while trying to download the ATI drivers and Aviria installation - IE 8 locked up on me a couple of times, and crashed. Windows did detect that the process had stopped responding and sent the crash reports to Microsoft, but it was annoying as it happened more than once - so my next next download, Google Chrome.

Now on the Windows Media Center, as this is my home theater setup. At first glance Media Center looks similar to the version in Vista. Tried the basics, full screen video looks good. Now the TV setup - ahh, problem the TV tuner card is not recognized, not really that surprizing. So off to the Sony eSupport site to se if there are any drivers, hopefully the Vista drivers will work - here they are - no they don't. Next to try a trick I saw posted on another blog, manualy update the driver and select the old windows XP installation folder as the location to search for drivers. I have my Windows XP partition mounted as drive X: so I pointed the driver search to X:\WINDOWS and bingo - the TV tuner card in recognized.

Well that's it for now, initial impressions of Windows 7 are very positive. My perception of the performance and responsiveness would put it on par with XP on the same machine, if not slightly better. I really hope Microsoft don't screw things up between now and the final release.

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Comments

Greg. said…
I've got the same ra820G, planning to install 7 over the weekend. How's it going?
8:01 PM
elmo40 said…
I have the same rig. Been testing win7 and can not seem to get the SD card reader working. I hear that there are 8 individual drivers required for each card format though I can not locate any on the sony site. They will not support win7 on this machine hence the lack of drivers. The TV-Tuner card (iTVC16) is also non-functional. I guess 'legacy' computers will never be supported, such a shame. Maybe it is time to go to Linux.
10:02 AM
Greg. said…
I backed out @ the install screen. From what I've read about similarly spec'd systems, the only thing you gain on an older PC is the new UI, no significant performance bump, esp. since the RA820's limited to 2GB of RAM
2:03 PM
elmo40 said…
2Gb is double the 'minimum' win7 requires. I found a few drivers from all over the net, but this site is _decent_. http://qurl.org/3u0 Too much scrolling, too many pages ;) The CF and SD card readers recognize that there is a card in the slot but they say they need to be formatted. What gives? Works with every other OS I had on this rig. Silly win7, no where near backwards compatible enough. The RealTech audio now works properly. ATI Drivers for Vista work, meagerly. I have yet to try the IR remote but since the TV-Tuner card is non-functional I might give up on that (or break down and get a new card...) Win7 is more related to XP then Vista, why all these hassles? I believe the main culprit is Sony. Even the PTGD-VX mobo is not on the Asus's website. Intel's chip recognition software will not even run under win7. Many issues but too late in the game to give up and get a new rig. It will last another 2 years and by then octo-core mobo's will be $150 ;)
10:21 PM
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