I’ve just installed Windows 7 Beta 64bit on my PC, in a separate partition, as I’m not that stupid to over write my existing windows installation. As I tend to be an early adopter of almost anything new, subject to having the money, I thought I would give Windows 7 a test run.
The idea being that I could check out what would and wouldn’t run (eg. Warhammer), so that when it finally has a retail release, I could decide to buy with confidence that all the programs and hardware I use will work. Unlike Vista which for the first few months was a pain in the arse, although now I think it’s pretty good if a bit bloated.
Well the good news is that Warhammer On-line works just fine, not quite straight out of the box but almost. After initial installation it proceeded to update with no problems, the only problem occurred when I came to play for the first time, as it failed to run, with an error message missing a dll “d3dx9_34.dll”. This was simply resolved by a quick update of DirectX, and hey presto! I was up and running. So far everything is running smooth, and better than under Vista. I will post again if I start to get problems.
The one thing I would say, if you feel like giving the beta a go is don’t install Kaspersky Anti-Virus, it will give you no end of grief. It’s Anti-Haker module (it’s name for a firewall) keeps on poping up requests for permissions that unless you really know your processes and services from your elbow will confuse. Worse still even in training mode it blocked the installation of Windows Live Essentials. Chose one of the other 2 Windows 7 approved anti-virus, although I beleive most Vista anti-virus programs will run.