Windows 7 RC Discussion

[apfhex]

After seeing a friend gush over how much they like Win 7 I decided to try out the RC on my MP. I gotta say that for Windows, they've actually done a good job. Suspiring number of little things they got right (of course still some big things they got wrong...again). It's quite fast and I do like the new Dock...er, taskbar because it IS more like OS X's Dock. Thing is, a lot of the new/improved features ARE things OS X has had for a long time now. I'm not complaining, they were right to do it, but they're still playing catch-up IMO.

Because I've had the "Select CD ROM boot type" problem with past Vista/Win7 ISOs, I used the Imgburn instructions from Jowie (wasn't necessary to create a separate ISO or disc first, just mounted the ISO with Virtual Clone Drive and burned it with modifications to a DVD+RW). Also I removed my other hard drives before installing because at least with Vista x64, it was UNABLE to be installed with all 3 hard drives in the machine, even though it recognized them all. Don't ask me why. Anyway, I like to play it safe anyway and protect the rest of my data. I installed on the other half of the drive with my Boot Camp partition. Triple booting works fine (when I select Windows, it gives the option of Win7 or "Old version of Windows"). The partition doesn't show on my OS X desktop though.

Didn't have any problem installing Bootcamp drivers (2.0.1 for Vista x64 from a 2008 MP disc -> 2.1 from Apple.com) and they're all working, but I immediately went and updated to the latest Nvidia Geforce drivers and after some serious searching found the latest Realtek audio drivers (their own website doesn't actually work, not even in IE).

I copied over my Steam games (which took a REALLY long time considering it was from the other partition of the same drive - seriously, Windows is bad at file copy operations!) and got Fallout 3 running but the audio was all out of whack. Didn't have time to test out anything else. The only DX10 game I have is Far Cry 2 so when I get around to playing that I'll see if it works in Win7, otherwise I'm sticking to XP to avoid any other issues.

 

[steveza]

I did all Updates, but still, no 2-finger rightclick, and still, no way of adjusting the backlight brightness... This way it's really not nice to work with this way (getting blind from the very bright LED backlight, not being able to right-click anything...)

You need to have completely and succesfully installed the boot camp software to enable these features. If this is seriously bugging you, use the 32bit version of W7 instead.

Edit: or try what runebinder said

 

[Tex-Twil]

So what's the status with the bootcamp drivers for Win 7 ?

Tex

 

[ryannazaretian]

So what's the status with the bootcamp drivers for Win 7 ?

Tex

I have everything fully working. It took some time to get it that way, but it's 100% working correctly. I even got the trackpad update to work, which didn't work in XP or Vista and caused me a lot of headache...

So far, I feel like I want to buy Windows 7 when it comes out.

 

[Stridder44]

So what's the status with the bootcamp drivers for Win 7 ?

Tex

Pretty much the same as it is in Vista; they work alright but they could work a lot better.

I'm sure with Snow Leopard (and hopefully Boot Camp 3.0) we'll see some big improvements and a lot of updated drivers for both 32 and 64-bit.

 

[flopticalcube]

Pretty much the same as it is in Vista; they work alright but they could work a lot better.

I'm sure with Snow Leopard (and hopefully Boot Camp 3.0) we'll see some big improvements and a lot of updated drivers for both 32 and 64-bit.

While I agree, I don't see why we have to wait for (and purchase) a new OS just to have the drivers upgraded. If its an advertised feature (and it is) which is not working properly (and it isn't), then Apple should fix it and give us an update.

 

[Stridder44]

While I agree, I don't see why we have to wait for (and purchase) a new OS just to have the drivers upgraded. If its an advertised feature (and it is) which is not working properly (and it isn't), then Apple should fix it and give us an update.

In an ideal world, yes. But unfortunately, I think if Apple was being supportive of Boot Camp at all they would have offered another update for it by now. Trust me, I wish they would.

 

[ryannazaretian]

In an ideal world, yes. But unfortunately, I think if Apple was being supportive of Boot Camp at all they would have offered another update for it by now. Trust me, I wish they would.

This is against the forum rules, but I must say it...

+1

They could have and should have released about 10 updates by now.

 

[AuNate]

Are you guys still seeing heat problems with 7 in bootcamp? How much battery life are unibody MBs getting in 7?

 

[pdxflint]

If I wanted to actually install Win7 via bootcamp, can I get some recommendations for partition size, and what drivers everyone thinks are necessary to run on a MBP.

I'm now using it with VirtualBox, which works pretty well, actually - including two-finger clicks, etc., and it is convenient to have the virtual machine 'configuration' running Win7, due to not having to deal with the drivers, etc. But I'd like to try in on the 'bare metal' to see how it feels in comparison. An earlier poster said virtualization didn't support Aero. What functionality is that, and how would I notice, because my install seems to look like everyone elses graphically, even in VirtualBox? If it's just visual, do we really need it? I've used Win2k for years, and XP for a couple... but this is a bit confusing to someone who's been away from Windows for a couple of years..

Also, for those of you saying you'll buy Win7 when it goes retail, which version are you talking about. Isn't Win7RC the 'ultimate' version, which would be somewhere around $300? How much will you lose dropping down to the $100-150 version. Isn't the basic version going to only support three running apps at a time? Is MS going to make huge disclaimers on all PCs running this version so consumers will know it's been crippled? What would be the version for serious personal usage? (not corporate network admin controlled)

 

[pdxflint]

This is against the forum rules, but I must say it...

+1

They could have and should have released about 10 updates by now.

I'm not sure why Apple has to be constantly updating Bootcamp to support Windows changes, especially betas. As long as Bootcamp does what it's supposed to do, and creates a Windows bootable partition on your Mac, isn't it doing what it's supposed to? Is it possible to now install Win7 on a Mac even without bootcamp? - something I thought I read recently...I can't remember where I saw it. I didn't know Apple 'officially' was supporting Windows. Who you gonna call when you have a problem with Windows on Mac? Apple, or Microsoft? Or some other third party? It's one reason I'm pretty happy with Mac in general - the ecosystem is closed, but it's harder for support folks to pass the buck, and point the finger... oh well, I'm now off-topic - sorry.

 

[Signal-11]

An earlier poster said virtualization didn't support Aero. What functionality is that, and how would I notice, because my install seems to look like everyone elses graphically, even in VirtualBox? If it's just visual, do we really need it? I've used Win2k for years, and XP for a couple... but this is a bit confusing to someone who's been away from Windows for a couple of years..

I missed the Vista boat, so I guess that puts you and me on the same boat in terms of the "newness" of Win7. Aero adds a LOT to the interface. On an old Pentium M 1.6 with no Aero, Win7 definitely has a Fisher Price feel. On my desktop, it works.

Also, for those of you saying you'll buy Win7 when it goes retail, which version are you talking about. Isn't Win7RC the 'ultimate' version, which would be somewhere around $300? How much will you lose dropping down to the $100-150 version. Isn't the basic version going to only support three running apps at a time? Is MS going to make huge disclaimers on all PCs running this version so consumers will know it's been crippled? What would be the version for serious personal usage? (not corporate network admin controlled)

The 3 app Windows Starter version will not even be available to the general public. Put it this way, Windows Starter is one step below Windows Home Basic, which as an American, you STILL won't be able to buy because it's marketed towards developing economies.

I don't expect that Win7 Ultra OEM will cost any more than Vista Ultra OE, which will run you $180 on Newegg. If MS prices the OEM versions anything like Vista, ~100USD will get the everything you need. From reading all the stuff about the versions, I still haven't figured out what the real difference is between Ultra and Pro.

 

[Tex-Twil]

I have everything fully working. It took some time to get it that way, but it's 100% working correctly. I even got the trackpad update to work, which didn't work in XP or Vista and caused me a lot of headache...

So far, I feel like I want to buy Windows 7 when it comes out.

ok so I"ve just installed the 64bits Win 7 on my UMBP. most of the drivers seems to work ok execpt the secondary click on the trackpad + the eject button on the keyboard. Any hints how to fix this ?

 

[ryannazaretian]

I'm not sure why Apple has to be constantly updating Bootcamp to support Windows changes, especially betas. As long as Bootcamp does what it's supposed to do, and creates a Windows bootable partition on your Mac, isn't it doing what it's supposed to? Is it possible to now install Win7 on a Mac even without bootcamp? - something I thought I read recently...I can't remember where I saw it. I didn't know Apple 'officially' was supporting Windows. Who you gonna call when you have a problem with Windows on Mac? Apple, or Microsoft? Or some other third party? It's one reason I'm pretty happy with Mac in general - the ecosystem is closed, but it's harder for support folks to pass the buck, and point the finger... oh well, I'm now off-topic - sorry.

My main beef is the driver support Apple gives for it's products under Windows. Sure they say to contact Microsoft if you're having a problem with your computer, but guess what, Microsoft doesn't make the drivers for the trackpad, keyboard, the chipset, or anything for that matter. When Apple goes the custom route for it's hardware, it needs to fully back it all up. The chipset has flaky support from nVidia. Almost everyone here will back me up in saying that the trackpad driver under Windows is unreliable, inconsistent, and hard to use. The keyboard is another issue that I have had some problems with. The Boot Camp manager has bad DPC latency issues, so if you were to do any audio work under Windows, then you would have to messed with kbdmgr.exe, the Boot Camp control panel. If you end this process, then it makes all the F keys unusable for changing brightness, ejecting, etc... Apple could easily release a good update and would stop all the fussing and fighting I have with Apple's support of Boot Camp, but instead, they release trackpad drivers like they did in December that completely killed trackpad use in Windows and I had to roll back the driver. I've called Apple many times over this and it's a known issue according to Apple Care, but where's the new update? We've gone almost 5 months without an update to the trackpad, and I was still stuck with the driver released on the Boot Camp disk back in October. You know the one right? Two finger click required 3 fingers, cannot select text at all, dragging was impossible, just numerous trackpad problems that would have been fixed within a few days by any other computer manufacturer, but with Apple, you just expect it to take a few months, maybe years, before you see a full performance and well working driver for Boot Camp.

I did however fix the trackpad problem in Windows, mostly... I think the EFI partition had some crap in it that didn't work well with the trackpad in Windows. But still, if this was the issue, then why didn't Apple tell me? Why am I forced to do everything possible to fix this obvious Apple problem on my own? Why can't the dang manufacturer of this laptop support their own product that they advertise can run Windows natively?

From Apple's website:

Can a Mac run Windows?
Yes. Every Mac includes Boot Camp, which lets you run Windows natively. Or you can purchase an applica tion such as VMware Fusion to run Mac OS X and Windows side by side.

Running VMware or Parallels is not an option when playing a graphic intensive game such as those on Steam or while trying to record audio as a professional, so I have to pretty much use Boot Camp. I bought this $3k machine expecting it to run Windows natively as they advertised back when I bought, and how they advertise it today.

This is why I think Apple needs to work on updating Boot Camp's drivers.

Also, it has been almost 8 months since they released this version of the MacBook or MacBook Pro, and they still don't have the Boot Camp drivers available on their website.

All of this is just plain unethical business practice, especially for Apple. I expect top quality support for purchasing Apple Care, not to just be brushed off and hope that I figure it out myself or just forget about me all together.

 

[kevin j]

If I wanted to actually install Win7 via bootcamp, can I get some recommendations for partition size, and what drivers everyone thinks are necessary to run on a MBP.

I'm now using it with VirtualBox, which works pretty well, actually - including two-finger clicks, etc., and it is convenient to have the virtual machine 'configuration' running Win7, due to not having to deal with the drivers, etc. But I'd like to try in on the 'bare metal' to see how it feels in comparison. An earlier poster said virtualization didn't support Aero. What functionality is that, and how would I notice, because my install seems to look like everyone elses graphically, even in VirtualBox? If it's just visual, do we really need it? I've used Win2k for years, and XP for a couple... but this is a bit confusing to someone who's been away from Windows for a couple of years..

Also, for those of you saying you'll buy Win7 when it goes retail, which version are you talking about. Isn't Win7RC the 'ultimate' version, which would be somewhere around $300? How much will you lose dropping down to the $100-150 version. Isn't the basic version going to only support three running apps at a time? Is MS going to make huge disclaimers on all PCs running this version so consumers will know it's been crippled? What would be the version for serious personal usage? (not corporate network admin controlled)

The 32-bit OS takes up about 6GB, so about a 20-25GB partition. Some win7 features actually require aero (and some 3rd party apps). For example aero peek, aero snap (win + arrow key), aero shake (win + home) and the taskbar and alt-tab behavior changes with aero.

And here is an article on the product versions of win7 http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus.asp

 

[Stridder44]

This is against the forum rules, but I must say it...
+1
They could have and should have released about 10 updates by now.

Agreed, but how is this against the forum rules?

I'm not sure why Apple has to be constantly updating Bootcamp to support Windows changes, especially betas. As long as Bootcamp does what it's supposed to do, and creates a Windows bootable partition on your Mac, isn't it doing what it's supposed to? Is it possible to now install Win7 on a Mac even without bootcamp? - something I thought I read recently...I can't remember where I saw it. I didn't know Apple 'officially' was supporting Windows. Who you gonna call when you have a problem with Windows on Mac? Apple, or Microsoft? Or some other third party? It's one reason I'm pretty happy with Mac in general - the ecosystem is closed, but it's harder for support folks to pass the buck, and point the finger... oh well, I'm now off-topic - sorry.

Well obviously I don't expect them to support a beta OS, what I was talking about was supporting drivers for Vista 64/32 and XP 32 for their already released hardware. There are drivers there, yes, but they're all very old. OR, they'll only update drivers for newly released hardware. For example, they released some new improved driver for the Unibody MB/MBPs trackpad, meanwhile all the previous models get stuck with the crappy trackpad driver that works OK at best.

ok so I"ve just installed the 64bits Win 7 on my UMBP. most of the drivers seems to work ok execpt the secondary click on the trackpad + the eject button on the keyboard. Any hints how to fix this ?

You installed the Boot Camp 2.1 update right?

 

[Signal-11]

This is against the forum rules, but I must say it...

+1

They could have and should have released about 10 updates by now.

Well, let's hope that Apple doesn't stop at new Bootcamp features and improvements on Snow Leopard with the ability to read HFS+.

 

[xJus10x]

Hey guys could anyone link me how to, if possible, install Windows 7 via Boot Camp? Thanks

 

[Tom B.]

Hey guys could anyone link me how to, if possible, install Windows 7 via Boot Camp? Thanks

Try this.

 

[flopticalcube]

Agreed, but how is this against the forum rules?

+1'ing

Useless posts. Do not bother making posts with only one or two words (e.g., LOL) or a smilie, or post simply to have the first reply in a thread. Such posts waste everyone's time and will be deleted. Posts saying "I agree", "+1", "me too", or the equivalent are also routinely removed.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

It's quite fast and I do like the new Dock...er, taskbar because it IS more like OS X's Dock

I hope the taskbar is never as clumsy as the dock. All they did to the taksbar is take out all the redundancy (quick launch and running apps are no longer separate) and labels. It still functions like the Taskbar, which, imo, is tons easier to use than the dock. Window previews are ace, jump lists are perfect (though can be cluttered sometimes), window management is just amazing... I suppose they took the good features of the dock (aesthetics) and added the functionality of the taskbar.

 

[Signal-11]

I hope the taskbar is never as clumsy as the dock. All they did to the taksbar is take out all the redundancy (quick launch and running apps are no longer separate) and labels. It still functions like the Taskbar, which, imo, is tons easier to use than the dock. Window previews are ace, jump lists are perfect (though can be cluttered sometimes), window management is just amazing... I suppose they took the good features of the dock (aesthetics) and added the functionality of the taskbar.

I disagree with you on taskbar vs dock usability. They're not meant to do the same thing. To me, the Dock is more a launcher and not as much of an application or window switcher. It can do those things, but for that job, Expose in combination with Spaces can be much more efficient, particularly on a laptop. Just a swipe of the thumb. That's not even getting into multitouch gestures on the new portables.

For the way that Windows 7 handles windows and applications, Aero is better, but I find the overall general solution to window and app handling of OS X to be superior.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

Expose is a pain if you have a ton of windows open. The get so small that you have no choice but to mouse over each one to see what it is. The Taskbar has small tumbnails, but its at least organized by app instead of just pushed all around the screen and hovering over a thumbnail shows the window full-size. I didnt mind the dock/expose for a while, then i tried windows 7 and realized just how clumsy window management in osx really is. Everything just kind of floats around.

 

[dsnort]

Expose is a pain if you have a ton of windows open. The get so small that you have no choice but to mouse over each one to see what it is. The Taskbar has small tumbnails, but its at least organized by app instead of just pushed all around the screen and hovering over a thumbnail shows the window full-size. I didnt mind the dock/expose for a while, then i tried windows 7 and realized just how clumsy window management in osx really is. Everything just kind of floats around.

Most of my most recent experience with Windows has been XP, a little with Vista, no Win 7.

Dock vs. Taskbar? Personal preference, IMO. I prefer the dock and expose. You can open a lot of windows in a few apps with the taskbar fine, but when you open a few windows in a lot of apps, it blows. (Maybe they found a way around this in Win 7?)

There's more to Expose than just "Show All Windows", there's also "Show Current App Windows". Never have problems finding the page I'm looking for.

 

[ryannazaretian]

ok so I"ve just installed the 64bits Win 7 on my UMBP. most of the drivers seems to work ok execpt the secondary click on the trackpad + the eject button on the keyboard. Any hints how to fix this ?

Hmm... not sure, they just started working once I installed the drivers. From your description, it sounds like the Boot Camp manager program isn't running (The gray diamond in the taskbar). I really don't know what to suggest because it just worked for me. It's sad that the experience is different from person to person. If most people are using the same machine, such as you and I are using the MBP, then our experience should be identical.

Try to update Windows, that may help. Reinstall all the drivers. Reinstall Windows?

Also, just kind of adding more to my last post. pdxflint, I agree Apple shouldn't have to support Windows 7, but this has been an issue for me with Windows XP 32bit, Windows Vista 32bit, and Windows Vista 64bit. They should support those operating systems on their machines. To call and just get a response back to call Microsoft about my trackpad is not correct at all. From what I understand, Apple makes the trackpads, install them in their machines, slap their logo on it, and advertise it runs Windows natively. It all sounds like Apple's problem in this situation, and I have run into this problem many times.