Microsoft Vista RC2 Downloads

[chip!]

http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc2/en/download.htm

• Windows Vista RC2, English 32-Bit Edition
• Windows Vista RC2, English 64-Bit Edition


PM me if you are looking for a key.


Signatures of the ISO files:
32-Bit   
    MD5 hash: 83cee5f1642d094670147c5350c57762
    SHA1 hash: 067CA4F94D001DE6276F08F76EF0780592B64BFD
64-Bit
    MD5 hash: 23b213d7342b2e957b3db1d98c0ee3e6
    SHA1 hash: 5D8C4BCEE51F6912801800E534F6DB5A22F654AE

[TheHalf™]

Yea I just received the discs in the mail just a few days ago.

[chip!]

While I was clearly impressed with RC1, I still noticed that I went back to XP every now and then because of a couple bugs and issues with my computer. Also, the overall responsiveness was very good, but I still noticed that XP was quicker when switching tasks, and windows, etc.  But I went ahead and installed RC2 because apparently there were about 1000 bugs fixed between RC's and I have to admit, I am VERY impressed with RC2... I have no reason to ever go back to XP..  the OS is fast and very responsive, much more so than RC1.. 

if you haven't tried out Vista yet, give RC2 a whirl.. if you've got a machine that can handle it, you will not be disappointed.. I'm so glad that we windows users finally have an OS thats worth installing on our computers

[TheHalf™]

With RC-2 when is the termination date before the OS no longer functions? Also anyone have an idea on what the retail price of Vista will be in 2007? Thankx

[chip!]

it'll expire somewhere around June 2007.. which seems more than enough time to test drive a free OS ?

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade - $159

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade - $259 

I would think everyone will be getting a flavor of Vista somewhere between those editions, while there is a $99 Vista Home Basic Upgrade (but it lacks Vista Aero)..  anyway, I guess if I start saving $33 a month for the next 8 months I'll have Vista Ultimate paid for when this RC2 expires.. unless of course some tricks come out by then to extend the expiration date (which im pretty sure will happen since so many people are using RC2)..



ps, I heard that though some academic offerings, you might be able to purchase Vista for as little as $10...

[Quantum]

I'm not going to be buying Vista till they have DirectX 10 on it. I really like Vista but I don't think it is worth as much as it costs at the moment, I'm just installing RC2 as we speak, the previous build (the one after RC1 but before RC2) still had a lot of issues in it that I really didn't like.

I really hope that the final build will be in much better shape but I don't have a lot of confidence just yet. Also I'm used to XP taking up a small % of my hardware capacity, I was planning on building another computer before I get Vista, probabily something with native quad-core, maybe AMDs K8L thing they have hopefully coming out next year, with a bit of luck be able to grab some DDR3 RAM as well.

[chip!]

According to Wikipedia, Direct3D 10 Beta is available as of Windows Vista build 5238.. which would explain why DirectX diag tool reports that my DirectX version is 10, while the DDI version of my display driver reports 9Ex (extended version of Direct3D 9) but is supposed to contain the same management/shared architecture as dx10, allowing for much greater reliability and stability because of the Vista Display Driver Model.. anyway, holding off until dx10 comes out 'officially' seems to be kinda odd since backwards compatibility with dx9 will only be through a layered model, resulting in slower performance, which I would assume would be an issue if the main use of dx10 will be for gaming..  which, i assume again, will take a while until games are actually programmed for dx10? especially since dx10 will require a dx10 card, and there's only 1 of nearing ready for release (GeForce 8800), I imagine it will be a good 6-12 months until dx10 starts to catch on.. i'm sure gamers will upgrade as soon as titles become available with dx10, but what about mainstream..  I for one dont really game anymore, at least not on my pc..

edit side note:   400 watt power supply units will be required for the low-end G80! holy crap, while this card is in fact impressive beyond anything even close, i'm more interested in how long it will take until even a low-end dx10 card is made for the mobile computing market.

regarding RC2 and bugs.. i've still noticed a couple. but its definitely better than RC1 (i didnt test any of the builds between them) but one bug I noticed still in RC2 is that when you right click a file in Explorer that has been hot-tracking highlighted, but does not have 'focus', the context menu for the file will not always appear.  but none the less, I deem this version stable and usable enough to the point that I really don't want to go back to XP

[Quantum]

400 Watts is no big deal, most cheap cases come with a PSU that's 400 watts.

The 8800 is the only card announced so far, but soon ATi will announce their R600 series and when the cards hit the market it won't take long before there all kinds of various versions, the 8600, the 8300, the ones which take GDDR4 and therefore save on power, the dual GPU architectures, the quad-SLi support etc.. etc..

PC gaming is a big thing for me, so is having a fast computer, I from time to time do a lot of heavy mathematics on my computer. In about a year or so I plan to build a new killer computer to replace this one, till then I'm not so sure Vista's extra power required to run and new weird bugs it introduces are really worth the fact I can open apps much faster with searching the start bar and everything looks prettier is quite worth it.

However, when the OS has been running for 6 months or so, Microsoft has quashed all the major initial bugs that people will be giving them bad press to start off with, applications start seriously taking advantage of Vista’s new features, then I’ll probably jump on board with a new computer and all.

[chip!]

Haha... I just had my first BlueScreen crash with Windows Vista..  you'd think after 5 years they would have at least made the bluescreen look pretty   but nope, same old screen..




Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   BlueScreen
  OS Version:   6.0.5744.2.0.0.256.1
  Locale ID:   1033

Additional information about the problem:
  BCCode:   127
  BCP1:   87665000
  BCP2:   00036675
  BCP3:   00000000
  BCP4:   00000000
  OS Version:   6_0_5744
  Service Pack:   0_0
  Product:   256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
  G:\Windows\Minidump\Mini101806-01.dmp
  G:\Users\ninja\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-43812-0.sysdata.xml
  G:\Users\ninja\AppData\Local\Temp\WER941D.tmp.version.txt

Read our privacy statement:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=50163&clcid=0x0409
 

[Quantum]

Haha... I just had my first BlueScreen crash with Windows Vista..  you'd think after 5 years they would have at least made the bluescreen look pretty   but nope, same old screen..

Go to Control Panel, go to Fonts, select "Add new Font", the windows is still the same one from Windows 3.1  (unless they changed that in RC2, but when the bug was filed one Microsofts pathetic attempt to compete with Bugzilla, a devloper just responded "By Design" and locked the bug).

[chip!]

hahah

[esonique]

Hi all!

I am assuming the links for RC-2 above are dead?   Is there anyway to get it like with RC-1?

Thanks!

[chip!]

RC2 is no longer being freely distributed... but if you want... you can grab the RTM (final) version of Vista off a torrent. there is also a crack already for the activation so you'll be a fully legit copy

[grhgoriou5861]

kallo