The PC (Personal Computer) is a highly configurable and upgradable gaming platform that, among home systems, sports the widest variety of control methods, largest library of games, and cutting edge graphics and sound capabilities.
On 9 January members of the public will get the chance to download the successor to Windows for themselves
This from the BBC:
The first public trial, or beta, version of Windows 7 has been released.
Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer used his keynote speech at CES to announce that software developers would get at the trial version on 7 January.
Mr Ballmer said Windows 7 would be the pivot of a broader Microsoft push to improve the way its separate software and service families work together.
In delivering the opening keynote (CES), Mr Ballmer has taken over from Bill Gates - who in 2008 bowed out of day-to-day involvement with the company he founded.
In a nod to the chilly economic climate, Mr Ballmer said: "We face some really big challenges. We are all feeling it and its impact will likely be with us for some time." But, he said, the global economic slowdown would not hobble the pace of technological change.
The newest version of the Windows operating system would, he said, be the "linchpin" of an effort to make it easier for customers to do more with the different Microsoft gadgets and services they use.
Although Windows 7 was a trial version it was, said Mr Ballmer, almost "feature complete" and would help to re-define the way people thought of the software.
Instead of it being an operating system mainly associated with a PC, he said, Windows was becoming a "connected platform and experience".
Microsoft is expected to cap the number of copies of the beta version of Windows 7 available to the public. The minimum requirements for running Windows 7 are a PC with a 1 Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16 GB of disk space, 128MB of video memory and support for DX9 graphics.
Some of the Windows 7's features help it work with other devices. A "home group" system makes it straightforward to enrol PCs, Xbox 360 consoles, media servers and other gadgets into a local network that can share media and content.
Futher reading about it's features and also videos in the original article here
Got into the Beta when it was released publicly and it works great that I might just run it all the time. It is stable, quick and the little things like keybind shortcuts are things that I actually see myself using to get around quicker. Get it before the beta signup closes.
Yup, Vista drivers work great although I can't get my 360 controller to work at all. It installed the driver but the pc doesn't see the gamepad at all. Time to figure out the bugs.
"Yup, Vista drivers work great although I can't get my 360 controller to work at all. It installed the driver but the pc doesn't see the gamepad at all. Time to figure out the bugs."
Hah. Funny that a Microsoft product is the one that doesn't work.
I usually prefer getting drivers from the manufacturer as well, but only for important ones like graphics. Microsoft tried to make sure that Windows 7 was backward compatible with Vista's drivers since the driver model wasn't significantly changed like from XP to Vista. Of course, using Windows 7 drivers is preferable if available and even advantageous in the case of WDDM 1.1.
"I think that it looks uglier than Vista, and whoever complained about small toolbar icons must be an asshole. Other than that it seems to improve a little and I am getting it because DX 11 should be a Windows 7 only thing and there is that thing that makes all windows invisible which can REALLY come in handy."
DirectX 11 will also be released for Vista. It looks mostly the same except for the taskbar. Most changes are under the hood.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along
with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely
increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.
Comment and Save
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other
Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll
send you an email once approved.
Log in to comment