Windows 7 beta 1 download available at last – but only from pirates

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 27 December 2008 18:42

Opinion and Analysis

Microsoft’s long-awaited Windows 7 beta 1 “7000” build ISO torrent is finally available for the world to download, but not officially and clearly not from Microsoft. No, if you want Windows 7 beta 1 right now, the only way to get it is to “break the law” – and thousands seem to be doing just that, unable to wait the few extra days before Microsoft opens the floodgates!

Ah, the Windows 7 beta 1 “7000” series build has leaked at last. As expected, it has happened days before its expected official introduction sometime between the 5th of 13th of January, 2009.

It was only a few days ago that I wrote about how “Windows 7 beta release speculation continues”, then exclaimed that a lot of “Windows 7 beta 1 download mania wants to start”, following it up with a warning to “Watch out for fake Windows 7 beta 1 build 7000 torrents!” - although a "real" torrent, from leaked pirate sources, now seems to be available.

We learnt that the expected ISO name of the leaked Windows 7 beta 1 ISO torrent would be “7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso”, amongst other details.

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

While I won’t give you any direct links to the torrent sites where you can either see the peers and seeds grow and grow, or chance your luck at downloading the 2.43GB file yourself, you’ll find plenty of information on just that at MyDigitalLife and other sites, all of which don’t seem to flinch for a second in giving you direct download links. 

Officially, Microsoft must be very annoyed, but unofficially they likely expected it to happen sooner rather than later, are presumably happy for all the news and buzz, and are already busy getting plenty of new usage data for analysis.

Given the pretty stellar performance of the 6801 and 6956 “pre-betas”, Windows 7 seems to fulfil Steve Ballmer’s promise of being a vastly better Vista, with XP-like performance and memory requirements yet with all the graphical eye candy – and more besides – that Vista promised and only delivered for some.

If only Windows Vista had been like Windows 7 is today, at this still early beta stage, the “wow” truly would have started “now”, which is now over two years ago, when you look at the November 30, 2006 “Vista Business” release, which followed by the general Vista release in late January, 2007.

So, is this beta build meant to be the real beta 1 deal, even though it’s pirated and not yet officially available?

Please read on to page 2 for more!

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