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Windows 7 Preview Proves Popular With Bittorrent Fans

By Scott Gilbertson November 3, 2008 Categories: Operating Systems, Software & Tools

Win7Microsoft gave away copies of a pre-beta version of its coming Windows 7 OS at its recent Professional Developers Conference. Naturally it was only a matter of hours before those copies of Windows 7 began floating around on the Pirate Bay and other bittorrent sites.

While there are plenty of Windows 7 previews out there (see our coverage of the seven best features in Windows 7), clearly nothing is quite as exciting as some hands on experience. Already thousands of Windows fans all of the world are downloading and playing with the new release. Although it is a pre-beta release, and therefore buggy and unstable, judging by comments on the torrent sites people are much happier than they were with Vista.

Aside from some complaints about slow downloads (which does seem odd given that the Pirate Bay lists over 1000 seeders) most of the feedback is cautiously positive. There are a few posts noting that Windows 7 is clearly evolutionary not revolutionary, but that is after all one of Microsoft’s stated goals for this release — fixing and refining Vista.

Bearing in mind that this a pre-beta, the enthusiasm should give Microsoft a ray of hope after the public floundering of Vista.

Of course who knows if Microsoft tracks comments on the Pirate Bay, but we suspect it does to some degree. The software giant had to know that these version of Windows 7 would leak and so far the company hasn’t made any effort to crack down on the torrent sites.

We don’t recommend spending the time to download Win 7 just yet. If nothing else the version provided to Professional Developers Conference attendees lacks the revised taskbar and some of the other more impressive tools shown during the of Windows 7 preview.

For those of you willing to wait for something more legitimate, Microsoft says the first official beta versions of Windows 7 will ship in early 2009.

Still, if you just can’t help yourself and you’ve already grabbed a copy and installed it, be sure to let us know what you think of this early preview version.

[via the Register]

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Tags: Windows 7
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