An eagle-eyed Bith Tech reader discovered a Microsoft webpage which outlines the shutdown strategy for both the Windows 7 Beta and Release Candidate.

Microsoft says that the operating system will automatically inform you that your licence is about to expire and then two weeks later it will shut down your PC every two hours until the key expires.

For the Windows 7 Beta, this will start on 1st July 2009 before the 1st August expiration while the Windows 7 Release Candidate will start bihourly shutdowns from 1st March 2010 ahead of its 1st June timeout.

While this means both the beta and RC aren't in a fully functional state until the original expiration date, the demo versions of the OS are still mostly usable until then.

When you consider the fact that, by the time the Windows 7 RC starts its three month count down to expiration, the full Windows 7 release will have been available for at least three months (and more likely four or five), it's hard to understand what the fuss is all about.


https://partner.microsoft.com/US/40084742
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/05/12/windows-7-rc-to-shut-down-bihourly-from-mar/1

PR and windows 7? how has anyone got it to work?

I keep getting kicked prior to joining game something called o/s bla bla bla,

I`m guessing its a punk buster thing?

I have it running fine, on Windows 7 64 bit, and have had it running fine for nearly a year now?

I do get kicked via PB on a PB Enabled server, but thats an evenbalance problem, and will be resolved when win 7 is released to retail.

You shouldn't be kicked by PB on windows 7. I'm running it find on 64bit RC 7100 build. PB had it messed up for a while, then released a server side change to avoid the kicks.

suggest you re-install with the latest build (its later than 7100 now i think)

From Dailytech:

Windows 7's feel is much improved, but actually performance varies

While Windows 7's requirements (a 1 GHz x86 processor, 1GB of RAM for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit, and support for Direct X 9) are similar to Windows Vista, its install footprint is leaner (16 GB for 32-bit versus 20 GB in Vista, 20 GB for 64-bit versus 40 GB in Vista) and its memory usage is tighter (some users have run the release candidates on systems with less than 1 GB of RAM). All of this adds up to significant improvements over Vista and a modern OS capable of running on most netbooks.

Great graphical looks, touch functionality, and new UI options make the package even sweeter. However, no matter how nice the ride looks, it's always good to look inside -- for example, the snazzy OS X Snow Leopard may look slick, but is incapable of playing most games and will only run (officially) on Mac hardware. With that in mind let's look at a recent benchmark by CNET of the Windows 7 RTM build.

Interestingly, the results were mixed. Boot times, despite dedicated tweaking from Microsoft were slightly worse than in Vista SP2 or XP SP3 (by over a second). Shutdown times, though, showed much improvement over the slow XP, and even some improvement over Vista.

Since the 7100 build, Windows 7's performance in Microsoft Office and iTunes has improved significantly. In the Office benchmark, though it still gets beat by both Vista and XP (the overall leader) and it manages to now tie with XP in iTunes (ahead of Vista). In a final Cinebench benchmark, Windows 7 performance improved between the 7100 and 7600 builds, moving it ahead of Vista and just behind XP.

Gaming results should be coming soon, which should provide more interesting analysis of the new OS's true performance. In the meantime, though, the verdict seems that despite mixed performance against XP and Vista, Windows 7 holds its own.

As the experience and feel are much smoother than the previous two OS's, the standstill in performance, normally a bad thing, probably will be sufficient for Windows 7 to see great commercial success. Windows 7 completes Vista's ascent into a OS X level of user interface polish, while holding its ground in performance, something that has placed Windows ahead of competitors Linux and OS X.






http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+7+RTM+Gets+Benchmarked+Results+Are+Mixed/article15892.htm
The full article is here http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303203,00.htm

Last minute dramas have came up with Win 7 which could delay the release date:

Quote:

Aside from a minor squabble about the User Account Control's security settings, that it later relented on, Microsoft's Windows 7 beta and release candidate builds have met with little criticism and plenty of praise. The builds have offered performance surpassing Windows Vista noticeably, while at the same time improving further on Vista's level of graphical polish. And notably they have been seemingly free of almost any show-stopping bugs. However, Microsoft is now in code-red panic mode as a major bug has been found in Windows 7's RTM build, one which threatens to kill the OS's release party. The RTM build -- 7600.16385 -- thus far only received by a handful, features a reportedly massive memory leak in the unassuming, but frequently used program chkdsk.exe.

The full article is here http://www.dailytech.com/Catastrophic+Bug+Found+in+Windows+7+RTM+Build+Launch+May+be+Delayed/article15901.htm