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Fuzzy Logic Windows 7 beta download officially available, again
Fuzzy Logic Windows 7 beta download officially available, again | Windows 7 beta download officially available, again |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Sunday, 11 January 2009 | |
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Page 2 of 2 Microsoft notes that the minimum recommended specs you’ll need to run Windows 7 beta 1 are as follows: Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
- 1 GB of system memory - 16 GB of available disk space - Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme) - DVD-R/W Drive - Internet access (to download the Beta and get updates) Now, these are the recommended “minimum” specs. I’ve actually installed the Win 7 beta onto two separate computers with only 512MB of RAM, one a notebook with a Pentium IV-m chip, the other a desktop with a standard Pentium IV chip. In both cases Windows 7 worked fine. A little slowly, but more than acceptably enough. This bodes well for all those older Pentium IV computers out there that look to simply need a cheap upgrade to 1GB or even 2GB of RAM for to be ready to run Windows 7 without needing to buy a whole new computer. The download page also makes note of a number of “issues” you might find with Windows 7 and certain software, so it’s worth reading. The most alarming issue of note is an mp3 corruption issue that could wipe several seconds off the start of your mp3 files in certain circumstances. Patches are now available and can be manually download, so please do check the main beta page for details. Another related but separate issue I’m experiencing is occasional SYMNDISV.DLL blue screens of death running Windows 7 in conjunction with Norton Internet Security 2009. It appears to be random and only happens when clicking a link to download a file, and then not in every case. I’ve appraised Symantec of this issue but there’s no word on how quickly a fix will come. Because it’s random and hasn’t happened very often I’m not removing NIS 2009 from my computer as yet, but if it continues happening without any kind of fix I’ll be forced to remove NIS 2009 and install AVG instead. So… Windows 7 is still a beta, but it’s the best beta Microsoft has ever delivered. Now that an official “baseline” is available, hardware and software manufacturers can work quickly to make sure that the Windows 7 beta 1 is fully supported, especially given that millions of people now run it, or soon will be. |
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