http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/beta2/en/x86/download.htm

Will work until June 2007!

I am gonna install it on a Virtual machine.

6/8/2006 2:19:00 PM

yea i'll wait for the real thing that actually works and has full driver support.

6/8/2006 2:20:25 PM

i started the download last night, but the servers were fubar.

it was running ok this morning tho when i left for work.

i have a 40gig drive im gonna throw it on when i get home.

6/8/2006 2:21:39 PM

my download speed is only 106 KB/s right now...with 3100MB remaining to download.

I only have 20GB free on my laptop though after I installed a virtual instance of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise on it along with Office 2007 Beta.

6/8/2006 2:27:54 PM

last night i tried using the provided download manager but the thing kept getting disconnected and didn't have an auto resume feature.

So i threw it into another download manager and let it run. The servers got destroyed last night, but it seems that many torrents have popped up here and there and its taken the load off microsoft's servers.

6/8/2006 2:29:39 PM

is it possible to install it on a USB external hard drive, or would that be too slow without write caching enabled?

Also, any idea if Virtual PC 2004 would let me enjoy the Aero interface with its 8MB VDD emulation?

6/8/2006 2:32:01 PM

^no and no.

It's a really demanding OS. I've been running it off and on since the pre beta 1. It's come a LONG way, but it's still pretty hoss.

6/8/2006 2:40:57 PM

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikekol/archive/2006/05/23/603900.aspx

Fucking sweet

Noen, my laptop is Vista capable.

6/8/2006 2:44:27 PM

im telling you, its worthless to run it in VM. It's going to be slow as fuck. And Aero wont work. (yes I read the blog)

And my laptop is vista capable too (celeron 1.4ghz, 512mb, 20gig, 16mb ATI M6). It ran okay, but there were many instances of lag and slowdown during some actions.

6/8/2006 3:04:12 PM

crap

looks like I need to find a newer machine...I am gonna give it a shot nevertheless.

I am surprised you were able to get Vista running on 512MB RAM. The blog says that 512 would be very slow. I was thinking of giving the VM a GB of RAM.

6/8/2006 3:12:08 PM

Actually it ran equally as well with 256mb of ram.

Just not all that well, but it was certainly still usable. Once you hit a gig though it's a LOT smoother. The hangups come when you are trying to move a bunch of files, or open a big folder of images or video.

6/8/2006 3:22:05 PM

It's funny because I'd imagine file operations would be faster due to the compacted non-fragmented nature of the VHD.

I run Windows Server 2003 with SQL server on my laptop in a VM with 1GB of RAM dedicated to it...and it works faster than a P4 with 1GB of RAM.

6/8/2006 3:24:12 PM

Last weekend I loaded up a dual boot with Vista Beta 2 and XP on a core duo laptop w/ 2gb ram. performance so far is great..aero runs smoothly 99% of the time. power settings are a bit wiggy - but I usually use Notebook Hardware Control to override everything. Network seems a bit slower..probably a driver issue with my wireless card.

6/8/2006 3:25:56 PM

network support is horrible.

You can do a lot to massively speed up net speed though, google it.

6/8/2006 3:34:20 PM

i read somewhere that all versions of windows based on the Windows 2000 kernel (XP, 2000, 2003 etc) have a bug that limits their network max throughput...I don't remember the exact cap.

Seems like Vista is solving that issue.

6/8/2006 3:35:46 PM

hahah yea, not so far it isnt. youll be lucky to get 10-20% utilization out of the box with beta2, and maybe 50 after killing off all the bullshit QoS and support services.

6/8/2006 3:40:29 PM

^^^ - cool, I'll take a look this weekend. Thanks noen.

6/8/2006 4:40:38 PM

just started - 580k/s, hour and a half remaining

6/8/2006 4:48:30 PM

whoa

mine is still 110

6/8/2006 5:01:25 PM

just started mine, 40000kbps 22 seconds to complete

6/8/2006 5:13:50 PM

what the...?

-95%
852mb of 3.12gb completed
539kb/s

-95%?????


EDIT: 312% right now? 311% a moment later? hmmm...

[Edited on June 8, 2006 at 5:29 PM. Reason : now it's 310%!]

6/8/2006 5:15:21 PM

Been trying this all day and al I get is busy... any mirrors?

6/8/2006 5:30:43 PM

Hah, that's great.

6/8/2006 5:32:11 PM

looking for a public release torrent.. all the ones i've found are the illegal copies.

anyone else have luck finding one?

6/8/2006 5:53:18 PM

Noen, are you like sitting at a Microsoft Data Center?

6/8/2006 5:56:28 PM

nah im just competing in the epeen speed contest

6/8/2006 6:02:22 PM

grabbed mine from newsgroups, got free key from MS

6/8/2006 6:03:45 PM

60% done

2:50 remaining.

6/8/2006 6:36:44 PM

PM SENT

[Edited on June 8, 2006 at 6:38 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2006 6:37:50 PM

i wish i could figure out that newsgroup stuff

i got to the point where you could see the txt files and i heard like you had to compile them or some shit

6/8/2006 6:44:26 PM

Please never post in Tech Talk again.

6/8/2006 6:48:56 PM

ncsu wireless bandwith is being whored out as we speak
900kb/sec

[Edited on June 8, 2006 at 6:55 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2006 6:54:13 PM

how the hell are you guys getting such good speeds?

6/8/2006 6:57:09 PM

Quote :

"ncsu wireless bandwith is being whored out as we speak"

6/8/2006 7:05:09 PM

also, using getright to split it up

6/8/2006 7:05:33 PM

without using their downloader, took me almost exactly and hour to dl the whole thing (with another 10 minutes to transfer it from temp)

6/8/2006 7:08:45 PM

ok downloaded it once, said it was completed, ended up being 350 megs?

so i'm downloading again, and i'm at -14%. something's getting fucked up.

6/8/2006 9:01:04 PM

^^ using IE is a bad idea

6/8/2006 9:07:44 PM

Mine is at -8%... wtf lol

6/9/2006 1:19:26 PM

wtf are you people using to download?

6/9/2006 1:21:42 PM

I'm glad I have my nice DVD burned and on my desk I'll make people copies for beer....

6/9/2006 1:45:34 PM

the first one i downloaded from their site was all fucked up b/c their site is getting hammered.


There are many torrents availible i'd imagine. If you're a goon theres one on http://www.alluvion.org/

6/9/2006 1:52:55 PM

I'm getting 800k at work

6/9/2006 1:53:13 PM

I'm getting over 600k... with just standard roadrunner. I wish I could get the damn 64bit version to download though, I wanna see how it runs on this new X2 64 4800+

6/9/2006 2:08:58 PM

ok I am installing it in a VM right now...so far it looks good...if it works, I'll give each one of you a kiss on the cheek

6/9/2006 2:31:50 PM

haha it slowed down a little, but IE screwed up

6/9/2006 2:49:45 PM

I hope you know that IE is gonna take like 20 mins to copy the DVD from the temp files folder to your destination

6/9/2006 2:52:52 PM

that's fine... its the last thing i wait on before i go home for the weekend

6/9/2006 2:55:02 PM

i envy you

Inever got to go home in grad school.

6/9/2006 2:56:00 PM

The logon screen saver is fucking up

6/9/2006 3:51:55 PM