Windows 7 Beta arrives, minimum specs revealed

happygeek 0 384 Views

Barmy Steve Ballmer, sometime monkey dancer and full time Microsoft top dog now that Bill Gates has gone, has surprised us all by informing the world that January 13th will not be Windows 7 day as predicted. The good news is that Windows 7 day will be on the 9th January instead.

Yes, Ballmer has confirmed that an almost feature complete Beta version of Windows 7 will be made available for public download for the first time tomorrow. Talking during his keynote address at the opening of CES in Las Vegas, Ballmer revealed that software developers can get their hands on the Windows 7 Beta immediately, while the general public would only have to wait an additional couple of days.

You had better hurry if you want a copy though, as Microsoft will almost certainly restrict the total number of downloads available in this fashion.

Which is not great news, considering that tens of thousands of people have been downloading Build 7000, a pirated version of Windows 7 that many security experts have warned could be a ticking time bomb, during the last week or so. If the official Beta gets closed down too quickly, people will surely turn back to the dodgy Torrent version instead.

Ballmer, however, promises that Windows 7 will help to re-define how we think about Windows. Although to be fair, I seem to recall Microsoft saying pretty much the same about Vista and I am not sure that one worked out too well.

If you want to give it a try yourself then you will need to be equipped with a PC containing a 1 GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, 128MB of DX9 supporting graphics and at least 16GB drive space.

Dani AI

Generated

Good summary from and thanks to for the links — a few practical notes and gotchas that aren’t obvious from the thread and that save time (and headaches) if you’re planning to try the Beta.

Microsoft’s Windows team posted official guidance on the Beta: it was distributed as an ISO (download-only), in-place upgrades were supported only from Vista SP1, and product-key distribution / download limits were revised soon after launch. Read those posts before you start so you don’t install on a primary machine by mistake. (blogs.windows.com)

If you want to test without risking your main system, run the ISO in a VM (Virtual PC, VirtualBox or VMware). VM testing is the fastest way to confirm driver/app compatibility and to capture the whole VM image for rollback. If you do a physical install, image the disk first and use a separate partition; expect to do a clean install unless you’re coming from Vista SP1. The community guides and early install writeups show which virtual tools people used and common pitfalls (burning the ISO, product-key timing, etc.). (datamation.com)

For people trying this on low-RAM hardware (as notes, some have run it on very little RAM): trim the desktop and services before blaming the OS.

  • Switch the theme to Basic / Classic and set Visual Effects to “Adjust for best performance.”
  • Disable nonessential startup programs and services.
  • Increase the pagefile (or let Windows manage it) and consider ReadyBoost with a fast USB stick when you have <1 GB of RAM.
  • Prefer testing in a VM so you can easily tweak resources and revert. ReadyBoost and Windows’ caching behavior are documented on Microsoft’s site. (windows.microsoft.com)

Final heads-up: the Beta had a built‑in expiry — Microsoft clarified that bi‑hourly shutdowns for the Beta would begin July 1, 2009 and the Beta would expire on August 1, 2009 — so plan to use a VM or a secondary machine and keep backups. If you want a longer-lived test environment, move to the Release Candidate or an officially supported build. (blogs.windows.com)

Member Avatar for peter_budo
peter_budo 2,532 Code tags enforcer

I have spare HDD, so I may give it a go...

Member Avatar for peter_budo
peter_budo 2,532 Code tags enforcer

Links if anybody interested

Download: Windows 7 and

Member Avatar for DevGeek
DevGeek 0 Newbie Poster

what are the requirements for this ?

Member Avatar for happygeek
happygeek 2,411 Most Valuable Poster

Er, as it says in the piece: "If you want to give it a try yourself then you will need to be equipped with a PC containing a 1 GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, 128MB of DX9 supporting graphics and at least 16GB drive space."

Member Avatar for IanCun
IanCun 0 Newbie Poster

It runs ok with 512MB ram, I've got this running on a PC no problem with only 1/2 a GB :

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