What to Expect from Windows 7 Testing Windows 7 - No Benchmarks Please Andy Patrizio
But once Microsoft gives out that code next week, there's nothing it can do, and somewhere along the line, Web sites will get their hands on it and will start testing it. Cherry is critical of this habit of evaluating beta code, especially performance of that code.
"I just don't think it's appropriate to be looking at the size of the code or the performance of the code at this stage of the development," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if this software will have its own end-user license agreement and it wouldn't surprise me if it says you can't benchmark it."
Thurrott said he won't be doing any such benchmarks. "I don't think it's fair to do actual benchmark tests, but it is fair game to make off the cuff remarks about performance. [Microsoft] has been talking in their own blogs about things like boot time, so people are going to look at performance. There's no way to prevent that."
Scott Fulton, managing editor of BetaNews, said his site will not publish test results of private betas either. "The secrecy of the private beta process is something we respect; if we didn't, we wouldn't get the opportunities we get to learn as much as we do," he said in an e-mail to InternetNews.com.
Other PDC News
Two other OS-related items could be the subject of discussion at PDC: Windows Server 2008 R2, which would be a release somewhere between an official update and a service pack in terms of significance of code, and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (Vista SP2). Yep, Microsoft is sticking with the Vista name, Apple commercials be damned.
Windows Server 2008 R2 was set for a 2009 release, according to Microsoft at last year's WinHEC show. However, the Windows Server page at Microsoft states it will come in 2010. R2 would, among other things, feature improved authentication and be 64-bit only.
