Watch out for fake Windows 7 beta 1 build 7000 torrents!

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 25 December 2008 03:42

Opinion and Analysis

It’s already started happening – fake ISO torrent files are appearing at TorrentReactor.net in an attempt to fool those eager to get their hands on the official beta 1 “7000” build of Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system.

Don’t be fooled – Windows 7 beta 1 ISO torrents supposedly already available from at least one torrent site, “TorrentReactor.net” are completely fake, according to BlogsDNA.

Update: A supposedly real, yet still pirated edition of Windows 7 beta 1 has hit the torrents, please click here for all the details! The original story continues below.

Just as BlogsDNA wondered when this might happen, I did too, given that there’s big demand and some people out there like to have fun with others, messing with their minds and causing them to waste their download limits.

Sometimes there’s a suspicion that commercial software companies put up the fake torrents themselves, to annoy pirates who end up needlessly chewing through hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes of the monthly download limit.

Such a thing was supposed to be happening during music file sharing’s heyday, with “low quality” songs on offer, or a song that simply had the chorus over and over. It’s probably still happening today.

But it need not be a commercial digital media (music/TV/movie/software) company, or one of its agents behind the “fakes”, but simply web users who want the “thrill” of knowing they are the ones responsible for the first “Windows 7 beta 1” fake torrent.

Of course, not only is downloading torrent files of commercial software an illegal act, but these fake files could also contain viruses, Trojans, or other malware. They could be pornography or simply an earlier version of Windows 7, such as the 6801 build instead of the 7000 build.

All that is truly known about the Windows 7 beta 1 “7000” build download is what has already been leaked online.

These details are that the DVD ISO File name for the 7000 build is: 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso

The file size is supposed to be: 2618793984 bytes (2.44 GB) and the MD5 Checksum Hash is supposed to be: f9dce6ebd0a63930b44d8ae802b63825.

No-one has yet been prepared to leak this build, and the wait is on to see if it officially happens before the Jan 5th, 7th or 13th “official” Windows 7 beta 1 release date by Microsoft, which as you can see is also the subject of much speculation!

So, what does James Bond 007 have to do with Windows 7? A license to potentially thrilling (yet largely pulp fiction) answers is on page 2. Read on... if you dare.