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Vista RC1 Build 5728 Publicly Released 317

Posted by Zonk from the new-build-out-the-window dept.
ClausValca writes "Doing some late-night surfing last night and came across a post over at Cybernet News: Limited Time Only: Vista 5728 Available To The Public. Although apparently intended for the TAP and Technical Beta Testers....it is available for download to the public via this Microsoft public download page for Vista 5728. There is a link on that page as well for direct download of the latest 64-bit flavor of that version as well. An Ars Technica post also has some background info on the new release. Techweb is reporting that Microsoft is specifically asking for feedback on this release, so make sure and let them know what you think."
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Vista RC1 Build 5728 Publicly Released More

Vista RC1 Build 5728 Publicly Released

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  • Beta is the new Alpha and RC is the new Beta (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ergo98 ( 9391 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @07:34AM (#16173769) Homepage Journal
    Wasn't there a time when "RC" literally meant release canadidate as in if this works we're burning this exact image on the retail CDs? Nowadays release candidates are really betas, and betas -- which are supposed to be feature complete, almost 100% apps that are only being tested for technical faults, are really alphas, with endless new feature additions and changes.

    • Re:Beta is the new Alpha and RC is the new Beta (Score:4, Interesting)

      by brassman ( 112558 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @08:07AM (#16173935) Homepage
      The explanation given is that they've frozen the API, and you are safe to develop against it. To the extent that is true, the "RC" designation would seem to be justified.

      (In other news, I have this bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, for sale cheap. Paypal accepted!)

      • Freezing the API does NOT mean its a release candidate in anyone's universe except Microsofts'.

        A release candidate should be what the term implies - something that is actually a candidate for release as the final product, not something that you throw over the wall and hope that it stinks a bit less than the previous attempts.

        That they're still beta testing should tell you something about how much their development culture continues to suck.

        So, download it early, download it often, and help artificially inflate those "look at the interest" numbers ... just don't install this trojan:

        In addition, once you install Windows Vista RC1, you cannot roll back to the previous operating system installation--you will either have to acquire and install the final released edition of Windows Vista or reinstall a previous edition of Windows

        Nice way of getting people to forget that XP already does everything they need, and locking them into having to buy an upgrade at retail prices.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Now that even Mozilla's release candidates aren't really expected to become the final release, can you really blame Microsoft for their nomenclature? It's like ergo98 wrote: RC is the new beta, and this time it isn't Microsoft's fault.

        • Re:Beta is the new Alpha and RC is the new Beta (Score:5, Informative)

          by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @09:05AM (#16174159)
          "In addition, once you install Windows Vista RC1, you cannot roll back to the previous operating system installation--you will either have to acquire and install the final released edition of Windows Vista or reinstall a previous edition of Windows"

          That's interesting, considering that Windows XP will let you roll back to the previous operating system.

          • Re:Beta is the new Alpha and RC is the new Beta (Score:4, Insightful)

            by neoform ( 551705 ) <djneoform@gmail.com> on Sunday September 24, 2006 @01:05PM (#16176157) Homepage
            Let's be honest, given how often you have to reinstall windows, does anyone ever really use the "rollback" feature?

            • Re:Beta is the new Alpha and RC is the new Beta (Score:5, Interesting)

              by fotbr ( 855184 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @01:48PM (#16176513) Journal
              Hmm....I've reinstalled XP on this machine how many times in the last 5 years? Thats right. NONE. The ancient 450mhz K6-2 laptop? NONE. And the Win2k machine in the corner? Yup, NONE. How many times have I used the "rollback" feature? NONE -- that was the first thing I turned off.

              Now, the Win95/98/ME line, yeah, those were POS OSs that you had to reinstall every month or so. And I understand Joe-sixpack is more likely to click on random "bad things". But has it occured to you that maybe, just maybe, Windows has improved, and that many (but not all) of the problems aren't from windows, but from the layers of shit that people pile on it (Norton, I'm looking directly at you).

              Because you haven't used windows since Win98, please stop spewing lines that are no longer true.
        • You're not suggesting that this hidden download for developers is a way of getting people to "forget about XP", are you? Does it have some sort of amnesia inducing software or something?

          • Contrary to what the article says, its not a "hidden download" that was somehow leaked. Anyone can download it without having to go through all sorts of hoops to get to the download page, and it downloads fine without Internet Exporer OR Windows.

            Any "leak" is completely intentional.

            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              by Bing Tsher E ( 943915 )
              it downloads fine without Internet Exporer OR Windows.

              Indeed. I am downloading it on a NetBSD system. Using wget. My .wgetrc has the line 'user-agent=Xlib-4.21' in it. (Also the valuable line 'robots=off' of course)

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ben there... ( 946946 )

          In addition, once you install Windows Vista RC1, you cannot roll back to the previous operating system installation--you will either have to acquire and install the final released edition of Windows Vista or reinstall a previous edition of Windows

          Nice way of getting people to forget that XP already does everything they need, and locking them into having to buy an upgrade at retail prices.

          Unless you install to a different partition/disk. Then it's no problem rolling it back.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by chrpai ( 806494 )
          It says "or reinstall a previous edition of Windows". They aren't locking you into buying Longhorn. They are just saying you can't rollback to a previous persion of Windows without doing a full reload. I just got a new Gateway MX6920 for only $800 and it's running Vista, Aero/3D Flip and my development/fun tools just fine. There is no way in hell I'm going back to Windows XP on this machine.

          • Anyone who got XP pre-installed, and doesn't have their recovery disks (or their recovery disks are b0rked), is shit out of luck. Ditto if they haven't got their disk for their mother board, their video card, etc.

            Same goes for anyone who bought a retail version, or has the original cd, but can no longer read the teeny tiny almost unreadable micro-font that they printed the product key in, so they can't re-activate it. Or its deteriorated with age, because they were stupid enough to put the sticker on the

            • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

              by Bing Tsher E ( 943915 )
              Why do you say that? They can head over to WalMart and buy a new replacement copy of XP Home for only about $100.

              Your concern for these poor people is misplaced, and just posturing on your part. You are not prohibited from copying down the license key number and retaining it at multiple locations. Hell, you can even write down the license key number on a little slip of paper, bring it in to that front area of the WalMart store, pay a few dollars to have in engraved on a metal luggage tag, and wear it aro
        • Freezing the API does NOT mean its a release candidate in anyone's universe except Microsofts'.

          Microsoft's universe is about 95% of the domestic PC market and not much less than that world-wide. In this universe you build for the Windows API.

        • Nice way of getting people to forget that XP already does everything they need, and locking them into having to buy an upgrade at retail prices.

          XP does "everything" anyone needs in the same way that Linux does.

          And MS does a pretty thorough job in telling you "don't install this on anything you can't lose."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kaenneth ( 82978 )
      Depends on your point of view; if you're manufacturing new hardware, writing a device driver, or just making an application, this is pretty much it, the Windows 'Platform'. But if you need new hardware (like CableCards) device drivers (Bluetooth, DirectX 10...), or applications, you may have to wait for them to be done. Microsoft makes referance drivers, it's up to ATI, nVidia, Hauppage, AMD, Intel, etc. to fill those gaps.

      The house is built, now it needs furnishings. You could just move in the old stuff f
      • I like your analogy, MS has made the house and the 3rd party companies fill said house with furniture. The only problem is with this analogy is that MS forgot to build the house with any windows or doors!
    • I disagree. Think of all the release quality applications (e.g. Gmail) that are called beta.

  • Not RC1 (Score:4, Informative)

    by the linux geek ( 799780 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @07:37AM (#16173785)
    This build is not RC1, it's part of the RTM tree. They're currently up to 5731, and this build is about a week old.

  • Direct ISO Download Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by in2mind ( 988476 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @07:38AM (#16173797) Homepage
    http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/rc1/en/x8 6/iso/vista_5728.16387.060917-1430_x86fre_client-l rmcfre_en_dvd.iso [windowsvista.com]

    X86 version.

    File size: 2622MB
    Type: 32-bit
    Name: vista_5728.16387.060917-1430_x86fre_client-lrmcfre _en_dvd.iso
    Build Number: 5728.16387

    Note: Your Beta 2/RC1 product keys will still be valid for this version.

    ************** From TFA *************

  • Feedback (Score:5, Funny)

    by QuantumFTL ( 197300 ) * on Sunday September 24, 2006 @07:50AM (#16173851)
    Techweb is reporting that Microsoft is specifically asking for feedback on this release, so make sure and let them know what you think.

    Probably a bit too late to ask for POSIX interoperability, eh?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Random BedHead Ed ( 602081 )
      Not at all. I just dropped them an e-mail and asked them to ditch Explorer.exe in favor of KDE, and they said that would be fine and I should see it in the next RC. The FSF has convinced them to include Bash in place of cmd.exe, so that will be a nice improvement, too. I understand their shift from using the NT Kernel32 to Linux might not appear until the final release.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 0racle ( 667029 )
      I suppose you could if you like asking for already [microsoft.com] included [microsoft.com] features [microsoft.com]

    • Re:Feedback (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheNetAvenger ( 624455 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @12:17PM (#16175681)
      Probably a bit too late to ask for POSIX interoperability, eh?

      Ya, considering they have been POSIX compliant since NT was built in 1992...

      http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=896c9688-601b-44f1-81a4-02878ff11778&Displa yLang=en [microsoft.com]

      BTW Vista and Longhorn Server ship with a full BSD *nix subsystem (minus an XServer.)

      Nothing new to see here, move along...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by KarmaMB84 ( 743001 )
        NT's POSIX compliance has always been (except SFU which isn't really part of the OS, SUA and whatever Vista Enterprise will have) the bare minimum for POSIX compliance as of 1992. SFU was an addon for 32-bit Windows only and SUA is Win2k3 and Vista Enterprise (unless they've changed that) only. Oddly enough, Windows XP x64, which is based on the Windows 2003 Server x64 codebase, does not have either SFU or SUA. Here's hoping they'll throw us poor bastards who adopted their red headed stepchild OS a bone and

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by flithm ( 756019 )
        Ya, considering they have been POSIX compliant since NT was built in 1992...

        Useless link posted: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa [microsoft.com] milyID=896c9688-601b-44f1-81a4-02878ff11778&Displa yLang=en

        BTW Vista and Longhorn Server ship with a full BSD *nix subsystem (minus an XServer.)

        Uhh... no it hasn't. First of all the link you pasted doesn't even mention POSIX once. Usually when you post a link to corroborate a claim, it's supposed to actually do that.

        Do you even know what POSIX means? Ob

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by TheNetAvenger ( 624455 )
          As for your claim that vista server will ship with a full BSD subsystem, I would really like to see some evidence to back this up. I've never heard this, and a few searches with google didn't turn anything up. Not only is it an unsubstantiated claim, but it makes no sense. What purpose would it serve, why would they do that?

          Ok, you really went off on a rant... Calm down, this really isn't this important, even if it bends what you thought was reality.

          First to answer your questions, you could actually look th

  • How to get a valid license key (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24, 2006 @07:54AM (#16173867)
    Over here: http://ctrinity.wordpress.com/2006/09/14/how-to-ge t-your-vista-rc1-product-key/ [wordpress.com]

  • Are Microsoft still nuking everything in their path, or do they play nice with the MBR now?

    I think we're beyond blaming incompetence if they don't play nice...

    • Re:Plays nice with boot loaders? (Score:4, Informative)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... m ['son' in gap]> on Sunday September 24, 2006 @08:06AM (#16173923) Journal

      Short answer - it doesn't even play nicely with other versins of windows.

      In addition, once you install Windows Vista RC1, you cannot roll back to the previous operating system installation--you will either have to acquire and install the final released edition of Windows Vista or reinstall a previous edition of Windows

      This is their way of getting people to nuke their current XP installs, then having to buy the final version of Vista by July 1st.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tim C ( 15259 )
        Well, I can't find the text you quote, but I did install Beta 2 and it most certainly did not nuke my XP install. I suspect (but can't prove, obviously) that the text refers to "upgrading" your XP install - ie installing Vista over the top of it. What they're saying is that if you do that, you can't then uninstall/roll back and return to your previous install, which is fair enough.

        This is their way of getting people to nuke their current XP installs, then having to buy the final version of Vista by July 1st

        • You just have to click on the "Additional instructions can be found on the Customer Preview Program website" linky on . http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/pr e view.mspx [microsoft.com]

          Of course, most people are just going to download it and install it. Their WTF Moment(TM) is next June.

          Installation limitations
          There are three installation scenarios for Windows Vista RC1:

          1. You can do a clean installation. This process will overwrite any data that you have on your hard disk or on your installation partition
      • Short answer - it doesn't even play nicely with other versins of windows.

        Yeah, it upgrades it when you pick upgrade, just like it always has.

        Unless you install to a different partition/disk, then it just adds another entry in boot.ini for you to select when it starts up, like it always has.

        • That "WHOOSH" noise you just heard was the Original Poster's question flying right over your head.

          Look at the wording in the subject heading - boot loaders - plural. NOT just the Microsoft boot loader.

          ... in other words, it replaces any existing boot-loader with its own brain-dead one, and if you have other operating systems installed, you have to reinstall a proper multi-boot-loader (not a Microsoft-only one).

          So no, it doesn't play nice with boot loaders.

          • Yeah but I wasn't replying to him, I was replying to you. Nothing in your post mentioned anything about other OSes bootloaders, just Windows.

            And I'm not that surprised that it doesn't play nicely with other systems' bootloaders. If you type grub-install it doesn't play nicely with MS's either. Nor would Apple's if you ran linux on a Mac.

            It would be nice if it did. But there was no WHOOSH. I was replying to what you said, not what you meant to say.

            • Perhaps you don't remember how Windows used to offer to "help" by "offering" removing OS/2 or other boot loaders (Win 3.0/3.1 days) rather than silently overwriting the mbr?

              You had the option then of not disturbing your original boot-loader, which you could then update yourself to add Windows to the list of bootable OSes.

              Somehow or other Microsoft "lost" this capability ... intentionally.

      • The parent was asking about overwritten MBR's, not overwritten operating systems. Doing an OS upgrade has never allowed you to "roll back" in the way you describe; it would just be a way too complex operation. The answer to the parent's question is however still a no, the Vista MBR still ovewrites other ones at install.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gkhan1 ( 886823 )

      BTW, if people are having problems with this, you can easily back the MBR up in linux using the dd command.
      dd if=/dev/xxx of=mbr.backup bs=446 count=1
      Note that this isn't the entire MBR, just the first 446 bytes of it (its 512 bytes long). This backups only the booting-code and not the partition-table (which you may have changed during install). Then pop in a LiveCD, mount your drive and execute
      dd if=mbr.backup of=/dev/xxx bs=446 count=1
      And you have your old nice bootloader back. In both examples, r

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bmo ( 77928 )
      "or do they play nice with the MBR now?"

      Ha ha ha ha ha ha

      Troll? Funny? Interesting? There are so many ways for you to be modded.

      "I think we're beyond blaming incompetence"

      It's been over 10 years since they started nuking OS/2 MBRs. There's nothing to think about anymore.

      --
      BMO

  • "... let them know what you think." (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24, 2006 @08:02AM (#16173899)
    I think I don't need it. I would have to buy new computers to use it and I don't see any benefit to justify the expense. In past, I've upgraded when there was some benefit to be gained. For instance, I went to Windows (3.1) in the first place so I could run CorelDraw. I could do stuff that previously had been available only to Mac users. The choice was clear cut and I was delighted to switch.

    Microsoft alienated me with the first commercial release of XP. You couldn't change anything about your computer without calling them for a new authorization number. There were also the rumors that XP was 'calling home' with information about what was on your hard drive. I vowed that XP would never enter my house and never sully my work computer. I switched to Linux. It does everything I need done. Why would I switch.

    My wife's computer runs Win98. If it weren't for OpenOffice, she would have to switch to be able to read files that her customers send her. As it is, OpenOffice reads all those files just fine, so she doesn't have to switch either.

    Microsoft is going to have trouble selling Vista. They are also having legal trouble in Europe. Their response is to say that the economy will be boosted if everyone switches to Vista. http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000097 [linuxjournal.com] They're nothing if not creative. But no thanks anyway Bill.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 )

      Doesn't mean you shouldn't download it ... and download it often. Help artificially inflate all those future numbers projections, AND run up their bandwidth bills with akamai.

      Another reason to download it multiple times even if you're running linux - since you'll have multiple legit copies of the fonts, codecs and other dlls, you can use them on multiple linux boxes.

      Hard disk space is cheap - if you've got an old drive hanging around, stuff the multiple images there, and put it on a shelf for "future r

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by theCoder ( 23772 )
      Sadly, Microsoft won't have much trouble at all selling Vista. I'm sure every OEM out there will begin putting it on all their computers as soon as MS relases it. The exact same way with XP. And in five years time, Vista will be the dominent OS, simply by people getting new machines. Sure, there won't be a mad rush to go buy Vista like there was for Windows 95, but really there hasn't been a rush like that since Windows 95. Microsoft is in a very good position. I know I'd like to get $40-$100 for ever

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Klaidas ( 981300 )
      Microsoft is going to have trouble selling Vista.
      Umm, no. When there's no other supported and availible to buy version of Windows on the market, and Vista's preloaded on 98% of PCs... How can selling Vista be a problem?..
      It's just like, in the days of Win95, saying that selling Win98 would be a problem.
      or in the days of Win98, saying that no one will ever buy XP.
  • Has anybody been able to get this to install in VMware yet? (I have tried a few of the previous builds, but alas it wouldn't boot in VMWare.)

    • It doesn't recognize the hard drive for Vmware 29996.
      Vmware support for Vista is "experimental"
      I have been able to run all Vistas up to and including 5600.
      When I go to install 57XX I get a prompt to install a disk driver.
      Microsoft had to go out of it's way to delete the driver or prevent it from
      working with vmware.
      Perhaps they want real error reports from bare metal installs.

  • The kind of feedback they're looking for (Score:3, Funny)

    by justinkim ( 513188 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @08:44AM (#16174079)
    And just so everyone is clear, 'Replace this steaming pile with Ubuntu" is probably *not* the kind of feedback Microsoft is looking for ;)
  • Vista RC1 b5728 [torrentspy.com]

    Has anyone tried downloading by the bittorrent yet?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hitzroth ( 60178 )
      It's maxing out my connection and MS is paying for the bandwidth so why would I want to use a torrent?
  • One thing that is keeping me from letting Vista any where near my computer is the fear of excess DRM and lack of OpenGL support. Can anyone, who has used the new system, tell me how founded those fears are? Is the DRM in enough quantitities to cause issue and are you able to run any programs that run OpenGL? I am only interested in reports from people who have tried, not from a friend of a friend of a reporter of some company.

    • Re:DRM and OpenGL? (Score:4, Informative)

      by baadger ( 764884 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @10:16AM (#16174481)
      nVidia's latest driver's for Vista [nvidia.com] include an "OpenGL driver for compatibility testing.". OpenGL won't be a problem, it'll be provided by third party drivers like it always has been, there just won't be any software fallback provided by MS (OpenGL in software is useless anyway).

      As for DRM, well. Nothing in Vista itself is going to prevent you from copying DVD's, software or music or any other such thing. Windows Media files will still be protected of course, and HDCP will HAVE to be built into all HD-DVD/Blu-ray drives and decoders (read: the hardware) for you to watch this material.

      The DRM issue with respect to Vista is all mythic. The only true rights taken away from you in Vista compared to XP are in the 64bit (x64) edition, under which, you cannot install unsigned drivers (unless you add an option to the Vista bootloader which isn't that difficult).
      • The option to disable driver signing protection permanently will not be in the final version of Vista. The only option to disable it will be pressing F8 every time you boot the system and select that option.

        There is something called "test signing", but this is a pain to enable. Also, if either test signing is enabled or driver signature checking is disabled, Windows Media Player refuses to play protected songs and movies. Protection against rootkits my ass.

        Melissa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dnaumov ( 453672 )
      One thing that is keeping me from letting Vista any where near my computer is the fear of excess DRM and lack of OpenGL support.

      I cannot believe this FUD hasn't died down yet. In case you haven't noticed, no version of Windows provides hardware-accelerated OpenGL support out of the box. This includes Windows 2000 and XP. Such support has always been added by drivers supplied by hardware manufacturers. Why would Vista be any different?
  • I'm puzzled as to why MS would be offering a RC for public download from a site that is not part of microsoft.com. Surely MS isn't short on server capacity or bandwidth :)

    Seriously though, why is this not part of the microsoft.com domain?

  • My thoughts on RC1 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BSonline ( 989394 )
    Well, it is more stable and a bit faster than the pre-RC1.
    It's still pretty.
    Explorer likes to hang when transfering files.
    IAC is still annoying, and over done.
    If Vista doesn't specifically recognize that you own a file, it's read only. This means you have to either download a file, or have it in your directory. Deleting or moving something on any secondary drives (I have 3 other hard drives) is a serious pain. This means usually manually changing ownership, changing read writes, and then repeating thi
  • The installer is on a DVD .iso and weighs in at 2.5GB
    Using FireFox MS requires you to allow a Java download utility to maintain the download. Prepair for screen resizings.

    Looks like Microsoft is using Akamai for distribution, so it should be fast globaly.

  • Gah!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Klaidas ( 981300 ) on Sunday September 24, 2006 @12:46PM (#16175993)
    So, I'm half way there downloading Vista's RC1, and a new release gets, um... released?!

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