Windows 7 RC impressions on the Samsung NC10
As you’ve probably heard by now, Windows 7 has finally released the Release Candidate (RC) stage. The official RC will be available to developers on MSDN and TechNet starting on April 30th with a broader public release slated for May 5th. Of course, if you’re adventurous enough and you really can’t wait, you download the release candidate right now (believed to be build 7100) off of many bit-torrent search engines and use your existing beta product key.
Now if you’re wondering what’s changed between the beta release of Windows 7 (build 7000) and the release candidate (build 7100), check out the list of changes here and here over at the Engineering Windows 7 blog site.
In the meantime, I decided to give build 7100 a spin on my Samsung NC10 netbook and here’s a brief overview of my experience – from setup to first few hours of opexration.
Setup and Install
Installing Windows 7 Beta took quite some time on all of our netbook systems – what would the release candidate experience be like? In a word – awesome. The total time from start to finish on the Samsung NC10 – 25 minutes (one would expect this number to be even faster on faster processor systems out there).
Here’s a quick chronology of the setup from last night:
8:26pm – Boot the DVD – see the new splash screen (which has been around over the last several builds since build 7000). Select language of choice, agree to the license terms, choose the drive you want to install Windows 7 on, and you’re off to the races.
8:29pm – The install actually begins:
8:30pm – 10 minutes later, we’re at 74% of the “Expanding Windows Files” section. Very nice.
8:44pm – A reboot, starting some services, and completing installation.
8:47pm – One more reboot.. and now watching Setup preparing the system and checking video performance. The performance checks all have new splash screens too.
8:49pm – Enter your user name and a name for your PC
8:50pm – Time to enter the product key, set the time, and connect to a Wi-Fi- network
8:52pm – Reach the Welcome screen and preparing the desktop
8:54pm – Setup is DONE! The desktop is up and running and everything in the hardware was successfully detected by Windows 7 setup. Running time – 25 minutes from when the setup first began and 28 minutes from when I first booted from the DVD.
Here’s a quick still image of the desktop. (you’ll notice that I shrunk the icons on the task bar down since I’m operating on a netbook display which is limited to 1024 x 600).
Side Note for Samsung NC10 owners
While Build 7100 installed flawlessly on the Samsung NC10, some of the keyboard hotkeys were not working correctly. To get this working, go to the Samsung website and download the display manager software for the NC10.
First Impressions
If you’ve been working with the Beta build for some time now then you might not initially notice differences between the Beta build and the RC build. Many of the changes as listed in the Engineering Windows 7 website are subtle beauty changes and usability enhancement changes. Changes to how Alt-Tab and Aero Peek work; changes to the jump lists; changes to the Device Stage etc etc. If anything, the RC build is clean both on the inside and around the edges. You’ll notice new sound effects, many more themes to choose from, tighter performance, and just an overall sense of polish to the product. We’re close folks – very very close and it’s my opinion that Windows 7 will be awesome for netbooks.
Here are some snapshots of the control panel for anyone interested:
Boot Times
If there’s something noticeable right from the get go – it would have to be the overall boot times and system resumes from hibernation. With Build 7100 running on my Samsung NC10, here are some really quick numbers that I compiled.
| Operation | AC Power | Battery Power |
| Boot Time | 47 seconds | 48 seconds |
| From Hibernate | 22 seconds | 25 seconds |
Under a minute to the desktop? Not bad. Now granted, the OS is still carrying out some operations in the background but it’s entirely usable within 50 seconds of hitting the power button.
Memory Consumption
If you’re coming from a Windows XP-based netbook world loaded with 1GB of RAM, then you’ll definitely want to consider upgrading to 2GB of RAM for Windows 7. Yes, Microsoft should be commended for their memory optimizations in Windows 7 (it does consume less memory than Windows Vista) but it still consumes more memory than Windows XP.
An out of the box install of Windows 7 Ultimate consumes approximately 500MB of memory at boot time. This does settle down a bit to around 420MB of RAM thanks to some paging optimizations but again – you’ll want to upgrade to 2GB if at all possible.
Performance Perceptions
I haven’t had the opportunity to run real world application or system benchmarks as of yet but the overall system under RC1 certainly feels very responsive and peppy – PLUS – we’re talking about Windows 7 Ultimate – not the Starter Edition of 7. Again – Microsoft should be commended for appearing to execute their goals of making all versions of Windows 7 usable on netbooks.
Keep in mind, this is all preliminary at this point. I’ve yet to use the RC build on the NC10 for a prolonged period of time but it’s all very promising to say the least.
To Be Continued
This is certainly only the beginning when it comes to testing Windows 7 RC for netbook systems. We’ll go ahead and install the OS on other netbook systems to see how compatible the OS is with other hardware. We’ll also look into the battery performance under Windows 7. However, all tings are certainly looking up at this point. Windows 7 could finally spell the end of Windows XP on netbooks – assuming Microsoft gets the licensing agreements worked out.
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Articles about Windows 7 as of April 27, 2009 | The Lessnau Lounge — April 27, 2009 @ 10:19 am
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