[MERGED] Windows Vista Beta 2 Download Available

[Graham M]

Here we go, screenshot of Windows Vista 32-bit, a fresh install with no drivers yet, even Paint's had a makeover! It's all very Mac OS X- like

---------- Post added at 14:47 ---------- Previous post was at 14:06 ----------

Here's one of Vista running World of Warcraft in a Window without any hassle

---------- Post added at 14:51 ---------- Previous post was at 14:47 ----------

Oh and just as a sidenote Outlook Express has been named Microsoft Windows Mail

[littld]

Okay (better be careful how I word this) got a working ISO file, but not through the traditional means (that failed twice in all).

Just loaded and about to boot for the first time. What a lot of hassle!

[Graham M]

64-bit or 32-bit?

[littld]

32 bit, install is complete.

A few teething issues - seemed to attack the hard disk for a while and then calm down (I think it was building search index).

It didn't like the default Nvidia driver, but one from the Nvidia website is okay.

Microsoft wireless mouse and keyboard don't like working through usb hub (crashed on every video I played until I worked this out).

Not sure if you care, but I've jotted down my first impressions for you:

- It looks nice, better than the "similar" themes available for XP
- The Start menu is much, much better and I really like it
- It is fairly fast compared to what I was expecting, and quite stable
- Window animations are nice, not sure if I'll get bored of them
- Getting around Explorer takes some getting used to - difficult to locate things when you're used to XP
- No idea whether I can use this as my main OS but I will install a few things and try

[Legorol]

For those of you trying to download the 64-bit version and getting a download size of 13.7 Mb, the cause is what I beleive to be a fault in NTL's proxy servers. See the following two posts I have made about this issue:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=469703
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...d.php?p=760411

The bottom line is, NTL's transparent proxies can't handle a download of this size (greater than about 4 Gb). Doesn't matter what browser or download manager you are using. Since NTL customers are forced to go through the transparent proxies, we are in trouble.

[McDave]

wow I was just comeing on cable forum to see if anyone had the awnser to that neowin problem with stupid NTL...

I mite just give up on Vista64, that is the only reason I was going to upgrade from 5381x86 to 5384x64. Oh well can't be bothed upgradeing the build for next to no change.

you wont be able to upgrade you will have to reinstall.And it is available in other places as ive said

[SunilDVR]

I've been trying to download the 32bit edition for several days...

At first I tried using the MS download manager (in both IE7 and Firefox) but that never even connected to the remote file. Then I tried the direct ISO, in Firefox, which got to ~1.99GB before saying it was "completed". Upon examining the ISO, it had the text file which has previously been mentioned, but nothing else...

Now I've tried several times using FlashGet, which is at least seeing the correct total size (3,276,952KB) . The official MS ISO location stopped after 60% yesterday, and when I forced it to resume continually said "Error Occured!" after "Content-Range: Bytes *****" in the transfer window. Eventually it started recieving again, this morning, but stopped at 64% (2097508KB) and has not gone any further.

I've also tried the mirror at betanews which was mentioned in this thread - again, it got to 60% before stopping, and after a number of reconnection attempts started again, once more getting to 64% (this time a different size - 2098155KB) before stopping and being unable to reconnect with "Error Occured!".

All my disks are NTFS formatted... and this is driving me mad Does anyone have any suggestions as to what it could be?

I'm on an 120 cable modem, through an Asus router using a wired connection, not the wireless ability, and I've downloaded larger things before - albeit not recently...

Sunil

to the forum
get it from somewhere else

It cant be piracy as its a freely available download.Also a key is freely available and its distributed by micr$oft without a medium so any source of this has to be ok to use imo (obviously as long as theres no viruses or the like added )

[littld]

Originally Posted by SunilDVR

I've been trying to download the 32bit edition for several days...

I did as well. In the end the only thing that worked was another copy on something that rhymes with FitBorrent.

Getting it working can be expensive - so far new graphics and TV card not sure what next...

[SunilDVR]

Thanks zinglebarb. I've been lurking on the site for a while and thought it would be prudent if my first post was not "why hasn't NTL upgraded my 2Mbit to 4Mbit yet"...

I've already got the key - it seems like that is the only part of the MS beta program which is working correctly!

I was hoping to avoid "other sources", but meh. I'll probably end up doing this then...

I would still like to know why it's bugging out at approx. the same point (give or take 100Meg) each time though... it never stopped at less than 1.9GB, and it's never gone much over 2GB. Some other people seem to have had no problem downloading it... Is it an NTL thing, perhaps linked to specific invisible proxies - I'm in Cambridge by the way - as I was having lots of fun last week with proxy/DNS issues...

Cheers

Sunil

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

to the forum
get it from somewhere else

It cant be piracy as its a freely available download.Also a key is freely available and its distributed by micr$oft without a medium so any source of this has to be ok to use imo (obviously as long as theres no viruses or the like added )

[McDave]

What is wrong with useing the word BitTorrent? Its not an ilegal program just like Limewire is not ilegal, some people may use it to break the law but also people can use it to share legal documents or files.

Most "other sources" will have split the file into rars and created parity recovery files for it which is a far far far better way of dealing with such a big download.
This is a warning quote on the easynews web page about single files in excess of 255 meg

Originally Posted by Easynews

Never download any zip file or zip segment that is greater than 255 Megabytes (MB) in size. If your zip file is greater than 255 MB, use a download manager to split the download into multiple parts.

This is a limitation of broken, or misconfigured, web cache servers operated by your ISP. These cache servers behave in unexpected ways when transferring files greater than 255 MB in size. They can induce corruption, or premature session termination.

The cache servers are usually transparent. You can't tell they are in place until they corrupt a download.

This is a similar explaination as posted earlier about bigger files and NTL's proxies just not able to deal with it Micr$oft should archive there iso's before hosting imo

[slowcoach]

I recently downloaded a 7GB+ ISO with no such filesize problem via my ntl connection, makes me think that the problem points to the M$ servers.

Just had my technet bi weekly email if you need a key to run vista legit you have to register and gain your key by the 18th June