Windows Vista Beta 2 now available for public preview

[Steve]

Windows Vista Beta 2, released some weeks ago to MSDN and technet subscribers, is now available for the general public to get their grubby hands on it. An MSN Live account is required and you can download AMD64 or x86 versions from Microsoft, or order a DVD. Of course, MS's download servers are overloaded right now so you're not likely to be able to download it for a little while.

[Windows Vista preview]

So, with this thing now freely available, you can expect yet more reviews of a piece of software that's not finished yet... which is OK in a way, because it's well on its way. Then there's the columnists. Oh dear god, they're bound to go for a fair few Vista opinion pieces this week, and don't get me started on the analysts and researchers (bah, I love them really, well, some of them).

Anyway, let us know how you get on with Vista. I'll probably whack x86 on my laptop next week.

[5lab]

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77469

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77475



i've had the 64 bit running for a month. had to re-install cos the key ran out

[Deviate]

I'm downloading x64 edition at the moment.. Looking forward to testing.. I'll post my impressions when it's all up and running.

[Steve]

I got my copy today... thanks to JANET.

It's burned and waiting installation on my laptop, which, seeing as I'm revising for exams... won't be just yet.

Still, I'll probably do something with it that's worth writing up, so keep an eye out.

[prints400]

can anyone tel me a valid key for win vista X64 build 5384. couse mine don't work.

[toolsong]

can anyone tel me a valid key for win vista X64 build 5384. couse mine don't work.

It's at the bottom of the email you would have got titled "Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 Order Confirmation and Product Key"

[ajbrun]

Does anyone know if there are torrents about that we could use instead of the MS servers? I'm assuming this is legal and all since it's free if you have window live account and an activation key. I've managed to get the email with the key in it, but it won't let me download atm .

[toolsong]

The direct link is in other threads eg http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77469

The torrent is on the usual sites

[nvening]

wont let me download either grrrrrr

[Timmy!!!]

Does anyone know if there are torrents about that we could use instead of the MS servers? I'm assuming this is legal and all since it's free if you have window live account and an activation key. I've managed to get the email with the key in it, but it won't let me download atm .

I too have the same problem, my key is sitting there waiting in my inbox, so I decided to go the BT way and I now have 20% - this may take a while lol.

Microsoft in this instance really should have used bittorent to help them with their servers, everything seemed to be slow yesterday!

[Lee H]

I left it downloading overnight, but thankfully getright had reconnected 7 times while downloading it so if I didn't use that I would still be waiting

[ajbrun]

I have mine now .

Only problem is, I just asked my brother to borrow his DVD burner, which he was fine with, but when it came down to borrowing a disk he refused!

[bouncin]

Really hoping this will be better than win64

[FatalSaviour]

Driver support doesn't seem to be tip-top yet, but that's mainly down to hardware manufacturer's.
Much easier to live with than x64 IMO though

[nvening]

Im downloading now - apparently it has drivers for my printer so ill see what happens

[Whiternoise]

This is what annoys me about Vista.. the way that you have to buy the best version to get some of the really simple features..

on the upside, this site is quite interesting http://www.vistabase.co.uk