evaluation W7 vs. regular W7?

was just wondering if there's any difference in the Windows 7 evaluation version than that of the Windows 7 regular version..

If by evaluation version you mean the Release Candidate or Beta from last year, then those have technically expired. You can still run at the least the RC but it'll nag you to buy Windows, and probably start shutting down every couple of hours soon - if it isn't at that stage already.

There's an evaluation (trial) version of the Enterprise edition. It should be fully functional for a few months.

If you're wondering if a trial version lacks something that a full version has, the features are the same; the trial just has an expiration date on it, doesn't have technical support, and is really intended just for evaluation purposes and not for production use.

The evaluation versions were a lower release number than the RTM of 7600.

Don't worry about it and just install the RTM or Gold release of Windows 7, you won't regret it.

OK, I have the Evaluation version of Windows 7 Pro that I won in a Giveaway a few months back..Is it worth the trouble of partitioning my hard drive and dual boot Windows 7 Pro with Vista??

Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just for evaluation software that will expire sooner or later. You could run it in a virtual machine, if you just want to see what the interface is like. Whether anything's worth the trouble depends entirely what your goal is.

I don't know why someone or group would have a "giveaway" of Windows 7 Pro evaluation version when you could have downloaded it for free!

They weren't giving you anything special, you could have downloaded it yourself.

To answer your question about partitioning the hard drive. If you want to dabble with Windows 7 and try it, then sure why not? You can always change it later if you want.

I would put it on a dedicated partition so that if you decide to get rid of Windows 7 later you can by eliminating the partition.

Thanks for all the info..Now my only question is, How do I run Windows 7 in Virtual machine?? I wouldn't mind doing that if it won't mess up my hard drive just to see what it's like..WH

See this page for an example of how to do it.

Setting up and running a VM is a piece of cake, once you are used to doing it. A really user friendly VM can be found at File Hippo. Go all the way to the lower left corner, there you will see Developer Tools. The latest edition of VM Player is there. You install it like any other program, and uninstall it the same way. As far as the OS within it, you have options at the top of the VM screen. A simple click deletes the OS and all of it's updates and programs. That is one of the advantages of a VM over dualbooting. When you want to evaluate an OS, try it through a VM, that way you don't have to partition your disc or even burn a CD or DVD to load your OS with. Your VM will find your disc image, you just have to select the image, it does the rest.

did the Vmware thing and it works like a charm..now i'd like to know if this is the real thing or not..do i go ahead and register it or wait to see if it runs out in june or starts cutting off or whatever it does..i've been on it for around 4 hours now and it hasn't showed me any message or anything..and will my antivirus program on my computer cover this VM too?? sorry for all the questions..but..i'd like to know and don't know where else to go to ask..WH