Ain't Beta Testing Fun?

[Lee H.]

Gigabyte 7VT600P-RZ, AMD XP3200, 2 Gigs of cheap memory, 2 WD 250 Gig
SATA drives in Raid O. Been running XP (on WD IDE drive) since it came
out and finally have it where I want it. Now I'm bored!

So, I played with Beta 2 for a while and just got it set up when Pre-RC1
came out. Didn't get too involved with that because RC1 was around the
corner. Now: RC1! (All downloaded problem-free with Opera, average
D/L time between 2 and 3 hours, and burned fast and faultlessly with
Nero 7)

Was very impressed with the fast install and setup--only about 20
minutes to a working desktop. The Windows Sidebar and the Aero/Glassy
thingy are neat but I'll probably turn all the eye-candy off when the
novelty wears off.

Set power options to leave computer on all the time and turn off
displays after 10 minutes. No luck--displays stay on all the time
despite the fact that they turn off OK when booted into XP

No suitable drivers (Catalyst Control Center) for my ATI X1600 so I
can't switch one of my dual monitors to my LCD TV. OK, they'll come one
day. Gee, Windows update says there are new drivers for my card
released "yesterday". Here we go! Instant BSOD. Oh well, roll back
and keep hoping.

I keep setting Opera as my default browser but every link I click opens
IE which, as we have read in this group, won't open half the pages I
send it to. I can't be bothered to fix IE, I just want Vista to agree
to allow Opera to be the default browser.

I have about 33 gigs of music and video on a separate partition. Windows
Explorer keeps choking and shutting down after browsing this partition
for a minute or so.

Windows Defender blocks startup programs and won't let me override its
decisions. What good is an "Enable" button that's not enabled? I'm not
particularly anti-Microsoft but I'd like to know which drone decided to
allow Adobe Speed Launch and disallow, e.g: AVG and BOINC.

Latest versions of AVG Free, BOINC, Motherboard Monitor 5, eMule,
Limewire, DivX player, Forté Agent, Logitech iTouch, all seem to work OK
after playing the "run as administrator" game. So, to my surprise, does
an old favourite, T-Clock. Office 2007 Beta won't even install. I hope
the "Technical Refresh" is free, too. It's not the $1.50 that bothers
me--I just don't use credit cards and MS doesn't take PayPal. 'Til then
I'll have to boot back into XP to do anything "Officey".

I understand the reasoning behind UAC, but I still hate it. Haven't
turned it off yet but it's damned frustrating not being able to just
click on a program and have it open like you've been used to for years.

Lots of good people and useful info in these groups. Just don't have
time to read it all. Information overload! Thanks to you all!

'Nuff for now.








--

Lee H. in beautiful Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada!

This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you
would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go.

 

[Sascha Benjamin Jazbec]

If Office 2007 doesn't like your RC1 - give Suns StarOffice free Brother
"OpenOffice" a try,

its a full featured and gratis OfficeSuite like Microsoft Office
Professional :


latest Versions for Mac,Windows and Linux :

www.openoffice.org ( reads and writes doc,rtf,xls,ppt and all other
filetypes )

(free of course)

SBJ

 

[Chad Harris]

Also on the fly, particularly for students and people on a box that might
not gasp gasp have the cash cow that Mr. Sinofsky has been dumbing down for
years because of the focus groups and surveys that have long told MSFT that
about 97% use 3% of the features in Word for example, you can use google's
new Word Processor and spread sheets that store your docs on the web
(free)--that means no money and money is what drives MSFT to do everything
including make CPPs free.

http://www.writely.com/

http://www.writely.com/favicon.ico gives you a pencil icon which should
make your year.

https://www.google.com/accounts/Ser...ntinue=http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?new

Right now, BTW the CPP website for Vista has blatantly wrong information and
MSFT has been notified in spades and not lifted a finger to correct it.

1) It says that RC1 needs a Tech Beta 2 Refresh to run Office. That's just
plain wrong. The comical question is which of the non-intuitively named
Beta Vista teams or Office teams posted this on the MSFT Web site?

2) On the Get Vista RC1 site for about two weeks now, they have had a link
to the Beta 2 Technical refresh but it's not a valid link. It will take you
to http://office.microsoft.com ( a very useful site particularly if you
search your topic under the app's hyperlink on the left) but *it does not
have Beta 2 Tech Refresh on it. One can only wonder what went on in the
head of whomever posted this on the Vista site since you would assume all
the ad agency boys and girls from Wagner Edstrom and McCann Ericson (since
marketing is the main gross national product out of the Redmond campus)
would be watching this like a hawk--also that Mich Mathews, Sr. VP for
Central Marketing, would but apparently that's not the case.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/mathews/default.mspx

CH

 

[David Sherman]

Sure is fun

Add (1) applications run fine in XP don't run in Vista and (2)
Internet explorer dies when you try to download the "problem reporting
tool.

Look on the bright side. ( I can't think of one, tey!!)

 

[Techno-Crat]

Yes isn't it great Lee??
God I must get a life.....
Find it, break it, report it, curse it, bash it
New build woooooooot
The circle starts again

 

[MICHAEL]

For Opera: Go into Control Panel> Default Programs.

You should be able to set all your link defaults
to Opera.

I actually had to go into Default Programs and
do it for IE. On links included in email, Firefox
would always open up. Fixed that easily enough
in default Programs.

-Michael

 

[deebs]

Hmmm... Interesting!

I hope Microsoft Marketing and PR are reading this.

I too believe that a dodgy CTP or dodoy beta does not a great deal and
may possibly have the reverse effect. Maybe instead of creating
interest it stuntifies it?

On the other hand, EGD CTP must be one of the best CTPs on the go. It
too is not 100% (image maps and pattern fills are zapped after closing
the program) but (in my opinion) the good far outweighs the bad.

The trouble starts when the bad outweighs the good especially when one
knows one may use another program and do the job in 20 minutes but the
CTP/beta makes it a 4 hour chore?

Equally, no matter how bad the CTP/betas appear to be quite a few people
appear to be knowledgeable experts in NGs with a desire to see things
through, so maybe community works after all?

 

[Possum]

Dell Pentium III, 1 Ghz. 512 Mb RAM, 32 Mb video memory. Betas of Office
2007 & OneNote 2007 installed and run o.k. Still have not been able to set
up LAN but have a connection to the internet.