RTM is out. Has been out for a week actually.
RTM is like when a video game goes gold. It is pretty much retail unless something catastrophic happens (it wont). Every version fits on one DVD. Yes a regular DVD5, no fancy shit dual layer or DVD9 shit. Every fucking version 32bit and 64bit. Winimaging rules.
This is the last version of windows to come in 32 bit flavors. 64 bit still requires signed drivers unless you boot into unsigned driver mode or run a hack for it. This is a good thing and protects the community from hating on 64 bit in general because of asshole developers that put out shitty drivers for their hardware and everyone blames Windows/64bit for the resulting problems. If they did this with 32 bit Vista maybe no one would have hated it.
Why should you choose 64 bit? Eventually, more and more developers will create 64bit support in their applications and they will run faster. Its been slowly happening for over 5 years. Most applications are just seeing their first 64 bit apps come out, like Adobe's CS applications. More importantly, shitty drivers from shitty developers keep Microsoft from ever addressing more than 4Gb of memory on 32bit. Furthermore, 32bit cannot even address all of 4Gb because it has to reserve space in that 4Gb for any RAM that is on other hardware such as your video card. This is why if you have 4 Gb of RAM and a 512Mb video card, you only have 3.5Gb of available memory to windows. 64 bit does not suffer from any of these drawbacks. 4Gb of ram is 4Gb of ram, 16Gb of ram is 16Gb of ram. Also, if you don't do it now, you are doing it the next version of Windows no matter what.
If you are still on XP think of this, you are using a 8 year old operating system. EIGHT FUCKING YEARS. This is the computer industry, that is almost as old as Quakeworld Team Fortress. Think about that. I first installed XP on a PENTIUM 3 laptop that cost TWO GRAND at the time. Shit is ancient. If you are a Vista hater you should know, Vista wasn't that bad and 7 still is Vista with updated Aero, no sidebar, and is less intrusive UAC. Oh and it does it all using less resources and starts faster. It also ships with IE8 and WMP12 and DivX/DVD playback.
You don't need a key to install it. You have 30 days to enter a key and activate it, but you also get 3 "rearms". Rearms are a way to reset the timer when it gets low. See
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/11/06/how-to-rearm-and-extend-free-usage-activation-grace-period-of-windows-7-to-120-days/Update: That link is not to be followed exactly, If you run sysprep /generalize instead of slmgr /rearm you will lose your user directory and profiles. Sysprep is made to take your current windows install and erase all user specific data on it including machineID to make it an image suitable for deployment. You don't run sysprep on a machine unless you know what you are doing. Follow quote below.
1. Install Windows 7 without any product activation key.
2. After installation is completed, use the Windows 7 for 30 days and wait for the remaining days left to activate Windows counting down to 0, or almost zero.
3. When the activation grace period (or evaluation trial period) is almost expired or ended, log on to Windows 7 desktop, and open a Command Prompt window (i.e. type Cmd in Start Search and hit Enter).
4. Type any of the following commands into the command prompt, and then hit Enter:
slmgr /rearm
slmgr.vbs –rearm
rundll32 slc.dll,SLReArmWindows
5. Reboot Windows 7 to enjoy another 30 days of free usage without worrying about activation nor even need to crack Windows 7.
6. When the activation grace period countdown timer almost running down to 0 again, repeat the ‘rearm’ trick to enjoy another 30 days of Windows 7 for free. User can run the rearm command for maximum of 3 times.
So basically if you install it right now you have 120 days to use it before you need to get your retail key. It has already been cracked for activation but you would be stupid for using pre retail cracks when you have 119 more days to worry about that shit. We will not be discussing cracks here (irc).
Other useful shit. Here is how to put it on a USB drive and speed up WinPE (the thing that installs windows) for quick installs
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7vista-from-usb-drive-detailed-100-working-guide/It comes with DivX, but you probably want some other codecs too. Word on the street is this new Shark007 Codec pack is one upping k-lite.
Shark 007:
http://shark007.net/win7codecs.htmlIf you can live without iTunes you can check out a quicktime alternative:
http://www.codecguide.com/qt_lite.htmReal player alternative:
http://www.codecguide.com/download_real.htmXIMers will need this to run the xim software if you choose 64 bit because obviously the XIM guys are not getting Microsoft to ever sign off on their driver.
http://www.blogsdna.com/2775/install-unsigned-drivers-on-windows-7-vista-with-driver-signature-enforcement-overrider.htmDifferences in versions:Starter: Garbage, don't worry about. Maybe for cheaper netbooks. 32 bit only.
Home Basic: Garbage, don't worry about. Maybe for cheaper netbooks. 32bit/64bit.
Home Premium: Think of this as Home, they would have called it Home except that people currently have Vista Home Premium would be offended. Comes with Media Center (not player, they all have player). 32bit/64bit.
Professional: Think of this as Vista Business, its Home Premium with file encryption and backup utilities. 32bit/64bit.
Ultimate: The big dog, this has everything, including full disk encryption with bit locker. 32bit/64bit.
Enterprise: This is Ultimate for Volume Licensing. DO NOT INSTALL THIS. It needs to be activated through a server that resides on your LAN that is authorized directly by Microsoft. Its for bigshot corporations and such. 32bit/64bit.
