Windows-7 release candidate

A clean installation on a fast desktop system should finish in a half-hour or less. On slower hardware, it could take up to an hour. When performing an upgrade, you'll need to allow additional time for migrating data files and settings. I haven't seen any upgrade take more than two hours.

Technically, no. If you leave this box blank, setup will continue and your copy of Windows 7 will work with no restrictions. You will have to enter a valid product key before activating. Yes, in my testing product keys acquired as part of the beta program work just fine for clean installs and upgrades. By default, Windows 7 will activate automatically three days after you install it. You can disable automatic activation during setup by clearing the check box below the product key box.

You can reset the day grace period up to four times, using the same technique that works with Windows Vista. The software will stop working on March 1, , which should be long after the official release is available. You must either uninstall the RC or replace it with a licensed copy of the final RTM code before then. Your guess is as good as mine. In the words of a Microsoft executive, "Those who know, won't say. Those who say, don't know.

I've changed the way I charge my iPhone. You should, too. Time for a Linux smartphone? Developers are in short supply. Here are the skills and programming languages employers need. Best iPhones : Which model is right for you? Windows Do these six things right away after you finish setup.

The painful shame of owning an Android phone. Best keyboard Because you deserve better. Best Apple iPad deals available right now: January You agree to receive updates, promotions, and alerts from ZDNet.

You may unsubscribe at any time. Consequently the upgrade knocked out my audio card driver. I reinstalled it after the upgrade and all was fine. Having learned my lesson, I did remove the Thinkvantage update service from my laptop prior to the upgrade and reinstalled it fine on the other side. Edit the file cversion. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build.

In this case, change Note: See this article where they discuss how the build floating around the Internet still has the MinClient build number set to — in that case change to Save the file in place with the same name ie: overwrite the prior version.

You can bypass this step but you will have to type it in within 30 days of the upgrade. The crucial difference comes in how 7 feels. A standardized benchmark may have a hard time bearing this out, and benchmarks released on the internet show little difference in overall performance between Vista and 7. For the most part, this is true. That said, 7 feels snappier in general, and this has been a pretty universal sentiment. Microsoft claims to have made improvements in the memory management of Windows 7 compared to Vista, and I believe it.

The best way I can describe the difference is is surprise with a gaming analogy. That average is your absolute performance. Windows 7 feels like it gives you those extra five frames per second — or the equivalent performance boosts — with almost every application.

The odds of this being a continuing issue are very slight, and Nvidia may already have this kink worked out. In my experience, even since playing with early builds of Windows 7, the operating system has been phenomenally stable. Much more stable than Vista was for its first year in retail actually. Windows 7 is rock steady. While I love ATI, quality control seems to be sorely lacking. The first I bought had a problem with one of the power leads, and the first my friend Jon bought was just plain unstable.