By George Norman - Software News Editor
Added on 03 Nov 2008(4264 Views)
Last week Los Angeles was host to one of the most important events in the IT world, the Professional Developers Convention. During the PDC Microsoft unveiled the upcoming Windows 7 operating system, the OS that will put all other previous versions to shame, or at least that is what Microsoft claims and hopes it will. Not only did Microsoft present Windows 7, it also allowed the media to test it and gave attendees pre-Beta copies of the software.

In the spirit of free information and sharing that information, the pre-Beta Windows 7 OS presented at the PDC has leaked online and is available for download on various BitTorrent sites (my favorites are Mininova and The Pirate Bay). Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions are available for download, each weighing in at about 3GB (a shade below or above the indicated file size).


The pirated Windows 7 pre-Beta software seems to be rather popular with PC users – several thousand seeders were spreading the software while thousands of leechers were downloading it on Mininova as well as The Pirate Bay. To my mind the large number of leechers is due to curiosity – we all want to know what Windows 7 has to offer, we all want to try it out for ourselves. Some of those who already downloaded it and installed in on their machines were not exactly pleased with it, but keep in mind that this is just a pre-Beta.

Although numerous BitTorrent sites are spreading the software, Microsoft has yet to respond. It is piracy, but at the same time it is a rather efficient way of getting people onboard with Windows 7. Surely they must have known that by handing out Windows 7 pre-Beta to so many people, eventually a copy of the software would be pirated. It remains to be seen what the Redmond giant will do. The situation is rather tricky, and making the wrong step now could draw much unwanted publicity on Windows 7.





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Tags: Microsoft, Windows, Windows 7, PDC

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Comments

Joanne - 19 Nov 2009 12:55
This is interesting, you know what, in the Philippines, some merchants are already monetizing on the pirated WIndows 7 version! Here's the details http://bit.ly/Pirated-WIndows7-Philippines
adel - 08 Jan 2009 13:38
i will try
Sergiu - 03 Nov 2008 17:44
So how fast does the pirated Windows 7 pre-Beta version start?

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