Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Steve Ballmer Signature Edition Retail Kit

[Olin Coles]

Benchmark Reviews has officially started testing with Microsoft Windows 7. I received the Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Steve Ballmer Signature Edition Retail Kit yesterday, and so far I'm pleased with the finished product.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/articles/2009_Editors_Choice_Awards/microsoft_windows_7_ultimate_steve_ballmer_signatu re_edition_retail.jpg

[XJnine]

I haven't installed mine yet, trying to figure out if there's a difference between the signature edition and the regular edition of Win7 Ultimate.

Any idea?

[Olin Coles]

There isn't any difference in DVD media, since the part numbers we have match the retail product. Only the packaging is different, for marketing reasons.

[Olle P]

Will you do the testing using an Ultimate installation, or will it be the mainstream Home Premium?
(There's no viable reason for any typical computer user to spend the extra money on an Ultimate license instead of Home Premium or Enterprise.)

Cheers
Olle

[XJnine]

You never know, there could be a decent number of home users that would have a use for the new XP Mode offered to Ultimate and Pro users.

I'm already using XP mode on my Win7 RC to access some DICOM viewers I need.

[Olle P]

You never know, there could be a decent number of home users that would have a use for the new XP Mode ...I used to think that way too, only to find that there are several better (and cheaper) options than XP Mode if XP is required.
- XP Mode runs an XP emulation within Win7 which use up far more resources than running XP alone.
- If you still want XP within Win7 there are other emulators that do the job as well or better, and cost less than the price difference between Ultimate and Home Premium.
(I myself will have XP installed separately on another drive.)

Cheers
Olle

[panther063]

I've heard of an Advanced Entertainment Pack (AEP) for W7, this is primarily for HTPC use to enable the use of more than four tv tuners. Anybody have any details on this or is it just another rumour?

[David Ramsey]

The retail version has, for me, fixed on very annoying problem with version 7100: when playing some games, the system would pause and show a dialog saying that it had detected "slow performance" and would I like to change my scheme to Windows 7 Basic?

This little gotcha has gotten me virtually killed a number of times. It's especially frustrating because if a 4gHz QX9770 processor and two 280GTX cards in SLI aren't fast enough, what the heck is?

The retail version simply immediately switches to the Basic scheme when I start the game. Doesn't ask, just does it. I still have no idea what's going on here or why it matters, but at least I'm not getting killed. As often.

One question I do have: as I recall, there was only one DVD for Vista (well, one for the 32 bit and one for the 64 bit); the version you actually got depended on the activation code you entered. I wonder if Windows 7 is the same...

[Daryl Greene]

I have a question. With Win7 RC, when playing UT3, my entire 20" wide screen wasn't being utilized. There were black blocks, like the "letterbox" thing you get on your TV watching a wide screen formatted movie, just on the left and right of the screen instead of top and bottom. Anyone else experienced this? Anyone know how to correct that?

Before you start, there is no wide screen settings in UT3 that I have found and I didn't need to do something like that plating on XP. :P

[Olle P]

... when playing UT3, my entire 20" wide screen wasn't being utilized. There were black blocks, like the "letterbox" thing you get on your TV watching a wide screen formatted movie, just on the left and right of the screen instead of top and bottom. Anyone else experienced this?I get it as a normal feature when the resolution isn't set to a wide screen format but for example 800x600 or 1280x1024.
So just check the resolution set within UT3.

Cheers
Olle

[David Ramsey]

I have a question. With Win7 RC, when playing UT3, my entire 20" wide screen wasn't being utilized. There were black blocks, like the "letterbox" thing you get on your TV watching a wide screen formatted movie, just on the left and right of the screen instead of top and bottom. Anyone else experienced this? Anyone know how to correct that?

Before you start, there is no wide screen settings in UT3 that I have found and I didn't need to do something like that plating on XP. :P

A lot of games don't have wide-screen settings. Some, like Valve's various "Half-Life" games (Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and Episode 2) allow you to specify wide-screen resolutions on the command line. UT3 supports some wide-screen formats like 1680x1050 and 1920x1200, but not others, and there doesn't seem to be a way to force resolutions not on the menu...

[Daryl Greene]

My point is, that with XP, UT3 plays on the entire screen automatically. With Win7 it won't. I just want to know if there's a solution or do I have to just deal with the stupidity the way it is? If I have to deal with it like that I'll certainly be sticking with XP for a lot longer. I didn't buy this monitor to play games with that screwed up look because they won't utilize the whole screen.

[XJnine]

What kind of video card do you have? If you have an Nvidia card you should check this setting:

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/zz17/xjnine/scaling.jpg

[Daryl Greene]

Well, It is set that way in XP, maybe that needed to be done in Win7. I'll have to give that a try when I next install win7 RC. Thanks for that advice XJ.

Next question. What is the best way to uninstall win7 in a dual boot set-up? Well, probably the only other question.