Windows 7 RTM

[Splash]

makes you wonder, is it the employers of MS who crack it? how can it be THAT easy to crack a software??

The only crack I've read about is simply using a leaked OEM key (and I'm guessing a BIOS loader) - nothing too complex in that. As this happened before RTM I see no reason that Microsoft couldn't simply revoke the key - after all, the vendor in question can't possibly have had machines ready to roll off shelves until the RTM build was signed off. Sure, it's a pain in the ass for Lenovo but it might teach them to safeguard that kind of data a little better.

Or is there another crack doing the rounds? I've not been searching too hard (in fact not searched at all, just saw the story on Hexus and Neowin) so I may well have missed something more canny.

[cheesemp]

Running and typing on it now. Went with x32 as my Acer laptop has some unique hardware and I've only got 4gb of RAM. Seems quicker than the RC for some reason - no idea why as it shouldn't have changed much code wise.

Edit2: Had to find drivers for IR and Fingerprint reader - everything else just worked!

[Singh400]

Or is there another crack doing the rounds? I've not been searching too hard (in fact not searched at all, just saw the story on Hexus and Neowin) so I may well have missed something more canny.

No, no new crack doing the rounds at all

[j.o.s.h.1408]

No, no new crack doing the rounds at all

LOL im not talking about the RC release, the actual RTM ie the real deal has been cracked.

[Singh400]

LOL im not talking about the RC release, the actual RTM ie the real deal has been cracked.

It hasn't been "cracked" at all. It was a OEM BIOS loader and an OEM PK. That's all.

This topic is going off topic already, if you want to discuss the crack, we already have an eight page topic floating about somewhere.

[Barry]

Just grabbed a copy of the 64bit from Technet

[Stringent]

Installing 64bit from MSDN, however its been stuck at expanding files 62% for ages now!

[Barry]

A few have had that issue, burning at a slower speed seems to fix it.

[pp05]

I foubnd installing previous build of Win7 from USB gave me some hassle - it just would not find drivers for my SATA ports at all, despite them being there and having worked previously. I went back to a DVD install and it all worked fine...

Weird I know, but there you go.

Win XP had some problems with sata drivers too. I hope win7 doesn't. Hard finding a floppy disk lying around these days.

[Terbinator]

Back from my Band trip lulz. Mine has been stable since installation !

[Splash]

Win XP had some problems with sata drivers too. I hope win7 doesn't. Hard finding a floppy disk lying around these days.

Extra drivers can be added during install from USB key, CDROM and (I believe) network share since Vista, so floppy drives are no longer an issue. That said, Win7 picked up all my hardware during install, so this wasn't an issue for me.

[shaithis]

Fresh install of x64 here, haven't noticed anything major over the RC and subseqent betas.

Did a fresh install and used migwiz.exe to move my setting over.

I do have a new problem that I haven't bothered investigating too closely yet though.......going to sleep causes a BSOD. Very odd as the betas and RCs were the only time I have EVER managed to get this PC to sleep properly :S

[Singh400]

There is a fantastic blog post by the Windows 7 Engineering Team here, detailing what they do when they get a bug report, using the latest not-so-"showstopper" CHKDSK feature

It's a huge blog post, well worth reading...

...

Because some were saying the machines were non-responsive we also looked for that in manual tests and didn’t see anything. We also broadened this to request globally to Microsoft folks to try things out (we have quite a few unique configs when you think of all of our offices around the world) and so we had several hundred more test runs going. We also had reports of the crash happening when running without any virtual memory—that could be the case, but that would not be an issue with this utility as any program that requests more memory than physically available would cause things to tip over and this configuration is not recommended for general purpose use (and this appears to be the common thread on the small number of non-reproducible crashes). Folks interested might read Mark’s blog on the topic of pagefiles in general. While we did not identify anything of note, that does not rule out the possibility of a problem but at this point the chances of any broad issue are extremely small.

...

[s_kinton]

I can strongly recommend making a bootable USB stick instead of burning DVDs - install time went down from ~35 minutes to ~15 minutes for me, plus you get to scratch & add contents much more easily.

I'm guessing to do this, you need to open the iso and then extract all the files/folders to the USB drives root directory?

[TheAnimus]

see this guide:
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-in...working-guide/

[Agent]

I'm guessing to do this, you need to open the iso and then extract all the files/folders to the USB drives root directory?

Bit more complicated than that, but perfectly doable by most people
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-in...working-guide/

I don't mind installing from DVD too much as I don't have a 4gig(ish) pendrive that I can keep a Windows 7 on fulltime, in case the recovery tools or other stuff is needed.

edit - some sites are saying format it FAT32, others NTFS. I believe FAT32 is more suited to pendrives for a number of reasons, but YMMV

edit 2 - just found a GUI for this at http://wintoflash.com/home/en/
Not used it though