Windows 7 Beta 1

OK, in the techy world of beta testing. Microsoft announced that it was letting loose the next Version of Windows, names imaginatively Windows 7.  Better than giving it a name like vista, which quite frankly was daft. Anyway, MS announced that they will be releasing Beta 1 of Windows 7 at 20:00GMT to the world, but they said that they would only allow 2.5million CD keys. So, yours truly was there, waiting for the server gates to open, so that I could get a CD Key. Wow, were Microsoft so unprepared?!

Firstly by saying that they would only allow 2.5 million keys, they were bound to get a rush on their servers. SO, what happens? yep the party is over.

Due to very heavy traffic we’re seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to the Microsoft.com properties before we post the public beta. We want to ensure customers have the best possible experience when downloading the beta, and I’ll be posting here again soon once the beta goes live. Stay tuned! We are excited that you are excited!
Source

I know, this may sound silly, but why didn't MS predict this? It might have been a good idea to use Torrents, rather than try and have 2.5 million users trying to download from a server farm, But that's Micorsoft for you. Torrents for them always = bad stuff. But it is the most efficient way to send a high volume of very large files.

The 32Bit version downloads as a 2.5G file, the 64bit version runs at 3.2GB file. Yep, Torrents are a lot quicker.

Now need to hang around to get that CD Key!

Update: Website to download a beta copy of windows 7 is open again.. find it here. You will be able to download both the 64bit and 32 bit versions and their CD keys.