Windows Vista Beta 2 Installation hell

[Saxito Pau]

I  can burn down M$

After spending close 3 days downloading Vista Beta 2  (all of 3.13GB)
Having to repair the drive I d'loaded it on using SpinRite (had bad sectors) after it fail to burn the DVD initially
finalliny burining the DVD

During install I keep getting an Error code 80070241 and the instalation fails. It happens at around 25%.

anyone having similar problems?

Consulting the almighty Google it appears to be a common problem

Suggestions i have found:
- re download and hope the connection don't drop the whole time (yeah right!)
- burn at lowest possible speed (so 4X not slow enough??)
- do an MD5 checksum (which M$ doesn't provide)
- order the DVD (@ US$16 and wait up to a month for it to come....i don't think so!)

P.S if anyone was able to do a successful install, let me know... hook me up with a copy. I want the 32-bit, English.

[Arcmanov]

Why yuh hurtin up yuh head with that in the 1st place?  In the 1st instance, does your PC even satisfy the minimum requirements?
After reading Tom's Hardware review, I'd say its not worth the headache.
That may be the 1st error in a really long list of em.

[frankie]

With the minimum requirements of 1GB RAM and a recommended 2GB RAM. I would agree with Arcman and advise you to forget it.

Unless the price of memory plummets, then by all means....fix yuh mix!

[Spazosaurus]

Wow gdstech u getting a lotta problems with this thing. I downloaded the ISO from Microsoft which took a day and a couple hours. Install took about 30 mins give or take. Im not too sure because i didnt time it and neither did i sit down and watch it.

Why would you want to burn it slower than 4x? Thats usually the speed u burn at if u want as little problems as possible.

It's no problem to give u a copy just reimburse me my blank.

It runs...OK...Its not blazing fast like XP runs (of course, its still a beta) but it works suprisingly good, great even ro my great surprise. It's really pretty I have to give MS that they really worked on the UI a lot. I think most people would be satisfied with it. Of course you have to have a directX 9 card to get the aero glass effects running. I tried playing Half Life Episode 1 using the default LDDM drivers and it works!!!, but the frames go through the floor in certain places where XP doesnt do that. My guess is the drivers aren't optomised for heavy graphics, also the OS itself is not fully completed. I even got it to activate over the net so theres no time limit.

The major problem with this thing is COMPATIBILITY!!! Almost no programs work on beta 2 natively. Alcohol? Forget it. Daemon tools, u have to go look for an old version from 2003 that works when u run it in XP compatibility mode. I cant remember what else works/dont works off hand though.

All in all, if u need to get any serious every day tasks done, dont use this OS. If you just wanna check it out and say ohhhhhh and ahhhhh and test out the new features, yes by all means.

Then again y'all already kinna knew that already since its in beta still.

Specs of my machine? AXP 2500 @ 1.8ghz, 1.25GB ram, Nvidia 6800.

I cant wait to see h ow the final version runs on my machine, although i feel that its not gonna run as fast as XP does. Vista sucks enormous amounts of ram so I might need to increase that. People with non dx9 cards will have to salt unfortunately when it comes to the aero glass, however with the advent of nvidia 7 series cards and the very good possibility that dx10 cards will be out by the time vista final comes out, obtaining a dx9 card should be within everyone's budget.

BTW gds, what connection you have that would cause 3.13GB to take 3 days to download?

[Netizen1]

Hmmm, the Vista Beta in the office, reboots intermitantly (BSOD). Just Saturday, the pc reboot, like 4 times, and it was idle... I wasn't even near it, just keep seeing the POST screen every now and then...

Maybe it's the Spiderman 3 screensaver I loaded on Friday... hmmmm...

[Saxito Pau]

ArcMan and Voyd: My system specs is mediocre to say the least, but enough to run Vista with Aero effects (at least thas what the Vista upgrade advisor says):

Sempron 2800+ (socket A), 128MB Geforce 5900XT, 512MB DDR400, 80+200BG HDD,

and for the record when the FIRST Vista beta was out my pc ran it... MINUS the Geforce!!

In any case tis my duty as a PC techie to fiddle with this kinda thing..

The Unknown -  the blank is no scene.. i have a stack of the white RiData blanks. sometime before Thursday we could organise to meet by GATT HQ in the afternoon and organise.. i'll PM yuh

and the downoad take 3 days cause on the first atempt using opera..opera eff it up ..
then i use the akami download manager... and had to endure 3 days of setting the download, going out for half day or more and coming back home to see the connection drop and a prompt asking me to resume. and/or resume it, leave it overnight... same prompt greets me in the morning (I have TSTT DSL)

[Arcmanov]

Well, I would say yuh 'kinda' scrape through the door with them specs, but the RAM might be an issue.  It might
actually be the cause of the error you encountered. 

The minimum specs are called 'minimum' for a reason.  It means that if your hardware does not at least meet it, it cannot be guaranteed that the installation/running will proceed without problems.  What you may need to do is find out if users with similar hardware are having the same problem, or borrow a 512 Mb from somebody who could spare it, and go through hard.

Just because the 1st beta installed fine may not necessarily 'greenlight' the next beta.

Let us know what develops.

[Spazosaurus]

Yeah gds Thursday is no seen. 512MB ram will definately bite u in the nuts so be warned! Sure the upgrade advisor will state that it will run on your system...it will run on pretty much any system, but HOW it will run is another story. Also, i'm kinna surprised to hear TSTT DSL giving so many problems. I've got the same service and have had no dropped connections with constant bandwidth for quite a while!

[W1nTry]

What is funny to me is that the whole world+dog of windows users are going to be 'wowed' by vista's UI but ANYONE who's seen Apple OS X will have the ALL too familiar... oh they can do that now? after wha....2-4 yrs? oh ok effect. I do hope for increased security and better compatibility with ALL devices across the board that Apple users have enjoyed for well... almost forever now (yeah I was mac man once... was forced to PC route after time). Aero from everything i've read is a RIP OFF of OS X but not quite as pretty yet and based on the way the requirements for Vista haven't gone down substantially yet, i'd have to say they come at QUITE the price point. Imagine the last revision of OS X the hardware requirements went DOWN? and yet in Windows they just keep going UP... For MS sake, I hope this ever so VERY delayed OS is all it's cracked up to be, cause it'd be disappointing (YET AGAIN) is Vista turns out like all their prior OSes (Win95, Win98, Win2000, WinXP ALL BSODed at some launch or the other... HECK the Xbox 360 I believe BSODed too).

[Spazosaurus]

Hmmm nice point about MS being several years late with the nice UI. But on a personal note, I could take it and I could leave it. pretty UI means almost nothing to me. Functional on the other hand is vital and to me, XP gets my work and play done very nicely. Hell, if i could have gotten Windows Media Player 10 to install on Windows 2000 to synchronise my MP3 player, I would be running ole 2k right now. Although their UI and security arent so hot, I get everything done with MS. NB!!!!!! please pple this is not a MS fanboyism rant, just a mostly satisfied "customer" talking. Apple is the bomb from all reports i've heard and would definately get one as soon as the budget allows.

[Saxito Pau]

true true....the points raised are very good. check this article:

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2780


I personally never start using windows XP as my full-time OS until probably late 2004. Windows 2000 did the job for me..

and when XP finally seemed bug-free (figure of speech) i made the change...

XP works function-wise.... if i wanted to pretty it up, a bad background and styleXP go cut it... hell i often use teh classic theme.


It go be probably anohter 3 years AFTER vista finally launch till i use vista full-time


and Unknown is a bonus for you if you get the apple... dual boot XP/OSX

[W1nTry]

Apart from Apple's Boot camp which will allow the dual boot, apparently the big thing everyone is talking about is Parallel. It's akin to VMware for OS X. So you can run Windows on top of OS X and sure you won't be playing games as it's emulation, but I hear it's pretty decent for your everyday tasks in the office so it's another alternative on the Mac platform. What I hope to see in Vista is the ease of use as the Aqua OS X interface has. What is interesting to me is that on a Mac you have ONE stinking button (Thats not to say you couldn't just plug in ur 2 button USB mouse in an apple and it will recognise it off the bat and WORK) but because Apple was SO hellbent on the 1 button mouse as their standard (they DO sell 2 button versions as a higher end mouse as I recall, but its really up to ur discretion and necessities). In OS X with 1 button you can do EVERYTHING you need to do, plus would you believe multitasking is EASIER with 1 button on OS X? the ingenious and aesthetically simple buy gorgeous interface for multitasking on the apple platform is FAR superior to that of MS win. Before I start sounding like a apple fanatic (which I am NOT btw) let me say that it's true they REALLY need to do something about the game dept and with the increased popularity I predict they're gonna end up in a similar situation as MS did when security came under fire, so that whole more secure motive for switching will soon no longer be there (read a 200% increase in vulnerabilities over the last 6 months). I still think apple pwnz as far as innovative, good looking, space saving, EASY TO USE goes.

[TriniXaeno]

It's the same thing with Apple always.

Sleek, easy to use and gorgeous. Attainable because they are proprietary and run by one shop.

vs the PC's versatility.

Over time the PC has made strides in the ease of use and beauty department but because there are thousands of PC makers, there is no consistency. So it is hard to compare the two.

As far as windows goes, it beats mac os x in versatility but loses in ease of use and beauty.

I welcome Vista for that reason, to level the playing field for John Doe consumer that will be sold on the share gorgeousness of the UI vs the complicated inner workings of the OS that they just simply do not care to understand.

Remember, John Doe = majority. Techies = minority.

So for the sake of our industry, we need to give the people what they want.

Not just sit behind a square beige box running Win 98/ Win2k on Mirc, playing MUDs. lol

[Saxito Pau]

OK Update:

I finally get the DVD from The_Unknown  (much thanks!)

Wednesday night (after a f***ed day of frying 2 AsRock socket 754 motherboards in the same day - doh even ask!!!) I decide to ease my frustration by trying the Vista DVD...

The install reach as far as 41% this time but I end up with the same error.

So. I think I gonna do some hardware swapping: changin or adding RAM first and the like.... more updates while i try to maintain my sanity

[Spazosaurus]

Yeah no sceen. Yeah dred u hadda look at the hardware u running cuz that dvd is 100% working. RAM might be the problem in truth.

[disciple]

Microsoft UK .NET platform product manager Ian Moulster wrote in a post to his personal Web log that the company will cut access to Windows Vista Beta 2 on Friday, as the company has reached the number of testers it was looking to give access to through its Customer Preview Program.

Moulster gave some tips to those who want to beat the cutoff and ensure they have access to a copy of the Vista beta and Release Candidate builds. Users should start their downloads today, as Microsoft plans to maintain download servers until July 14, which means the download could be stopped and restarted later.

guess the barn door is closingfor all those who want to test it,and haven't yet

so if you havent got your grubby paws on vista yet, the time's ticking away
http://www.betanews.com/article/Want_to_Test_Vista_Better_Act_Fast/1151608172

[richjob]

Anybody look at XGL effects on Linux as yet?

Unbelieveable stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl
http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/

[Saxito Pau]

Just to update the concerned:

I manage to get my hands on some spare RAM (plus 2 other board+cpu) to toy with....

In between watching the final 2 world cup game i'll let you know what transpires...

[disciple]

new beta out

Microsoft has just released the latest installment of the Windows Vista pre-RC1 builds, with Vista Build 5472.5 making its way to TAP and Tech Beta tester today, and for once, MSDN Subscribers too.

Build 5472.5 is a standard FRE Staged build, only available in English at the moment, though Arabic, Japanese, and German builds may follow. At this point all the builds we are seeing seem to undergoing severe stages of heavy optimization: although faster code normally comes at the expense of larger files as a rule of thumb, this build of Windows Vista packs a punch performance-wise, but is only a 100 MB larger than its predecessor

[Saxito Pau]

Thanks for the heads up... I go download that over 3 more days... and try yet again: FAILURE is not an option!!

as for my last attempt around world Cup final... same friggin error... and one board was a socket 754, even change the RAM