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While Windows 7 is shaping up to be something fresh and new, this pre-beta isn’t anything to worry about. To spend the time, bandwidth (especially for Comcast and AT&T users) and electricity downloading this pirated version of the fledgling OS would be cheating yourself, because this pre-beta comes up low on the impressive meter. And plus, we can’t in all good consciousness condone pirating software.
While the accidental release of the build of Windows 7 came through the Pirate Bay and Mininova (in convenient 32-bit and 64-bit formats!), it was originally intended for an unnamed group of developers. The downloads of Microsoft’s OS of tomorrow have been off the charts as well, with one particular copy providing more than 1,000 uploaders, and roughly 7,000 downloaders.
The build that’s being sought so desperately is a notably incomplete version. It’s missing taskbar updates, as well as other large features. According to comment threads on the torrent sites, most users are unimpressed with what they’ve found. But with a pre-beta, what did they expect?
Comments are closed on this article
whiplash55
November 18, 2008 at 12:20am
It works prety well for a pre-beta, the taskbar can be hacked to add some of the new functionality, and you can do a command line hack to extend the trial period long enough to get the first public beta. It is a fairly snappy build I put it on a oldish (core duo) Thinkpad that came with XP, and it runs fine. Supposedly Sinofsky the lead guy, runs his build on a netbook, so I'm sure they intend to spec it to run okay on these things.
BTW nobody gives a shit what you think about politics, we get hammered by our joke of a press, 24-7 for months about politics, this is a tech site, don't defile it with politics.
Aengus
November 14, 2008 at 10:05am
I love that I joined this chat lol. Microsoft has been Beta testing for years. They charge you to be a beta tester whenenever you buy MS Dos 2.0 up to Vista Ultimate. They release a new OS then wait for millions of users to call in with complaints about what doesn't work on thier computers. What doesn't work sir/m'am? How much memory do you have? What processor are you running? haha! Smart company! I think they should give away Vista Basic as a FREE operating system. Come on Microsoft lol say "Merry Christmas!" and give away Vista Basic for FREE. Sucks sooo bad people will buy more expensive computers thinking they need faster processors and more memory when it is the OS that sucks. I love Vista Ultimate. But compare Vista Basic and Ultimate on the same computer and WOW what a difference. Charge for Premium and Ultimate. Why not? So many 32 and 64bit flavors of Linux out there already that smoke it. I use multiple OS and they are all fun : ))
Peace,
Aengus McCallen
Mathewpb
November 12, 2008 at 4:28pm
Does it come with a timebomb? Also this is a computer/technology magazine, stop posting your veiws on politics here and lets talk about something that we all love.
Tekzel
November 06, 2008 at 8:35am
Dave, I can't in all good conscience forego correcting your use of the term "consciousness" in the above post. Tee hee. :)
Seriously though, Windows 7 does look to be nice. Looking forward to its release. I am running Vista Home Premium now, and while it took me a while to make the leap from XP, at this point I am liking it. I am having no problems. Its running very stable and problem free, dispite what the Mac ads try to portray. This might be because my system is built with quality parts, of course. Either way, many of the upcoming Windows 7 features look pretty enticing.
vistageek
November 06, 2008 at 7:30am
Hey guys,
For all of you who were talking about me, I don't consider what I am doing morally wrong as it is a beta version. I bought Vista Ultimate and XP pro and I plan to do the same thing for Windwos 7. I am Quad booting Ubuntu, Vista 64, XP Pro, and Windows 7. I have not had any stability issues with windows 7 and my data is still in tact on the other partitions. Oh, and I bought OS Leopard before I tweaked it so that it would run on my PC. I see that as long as the developer gets paid for every copy running, I can tweak it for my own use as much as I want. When the public beta comes out, you guys will have to try it. You will like it. It is really fast, not like Vista. My game frame rates almost doubled from Vista. It kicks A**! Also, the new taskbar is pretty nice. It makes task switching, quick launching and controls really reasy it get to and use.
s3th
November 15, 2008 at 1:39am
I love how everyone is so sincere, and trys to use perfect grammar, trust me, theirs no scouters at maximumpc looking for people who can type good random 5 sentence essays for jobs.
Your so cute :D
ghot
November 06, 2008 at 12:59am
TO: bcweir
there are only about 30 videos online of him answering, when asked his faith.....muslim..er christian.
I also have been suscriber to max PC since before 2003 and love the mag....I just don't think it looks good to post what torrent sites are hosting this beta windows 7. If you can't deal with others opinions then you have serious issues my friend ;)
bcweir
November 13, 2008 at 5:58am
Is that I, like many, many others, have endured nearly two years of a BARRAGE of media attention for the election as if there were nothing else to talk about in America.
There ARE forums for political discussion all over the web. This isn't one of them. For you, there's Fox News. For the rest of us, there's talk about PC's and technology here. That's where the focus is on this website. I know you've fallen behind on the facts (just like the GOP fell out of touch with voters) but do try to keep up with the rest of America.
The Republicans lost. The election is over, the votes have been counted, the winner decided. Get over it.
Keith E. Whisman
November 06, 2008 at 12:15am
For one thing it has a 30day time bomb built into it. I'm just going to wait and purchase it as I predict that MS will only release a Pro and a Home version and be alot me reasonable with pricing than before. After all they are extremely rich and can afford to be alot more reasonable. I believe that they don't care what they do with their money because they spent untold thousands just patenting the Page up and Page Down keys on keyboards. If they can afford that then they can afford anything including perhaps producing an open source version of Windows for free download.
murixbob
November 05, 2008 at 11:19pm
Now I'm waiting until the public beta to give Windows 7 a try but why, why did Max. PC tell the readers no? By telling us no you are effectively making people download it. Come on doesn't anyone know reverse psych.?
dstevens
November 05, 2008 at 10:48pm
faithful reader for near 10 years now here...so i like to say i know max pc well....
they didnt tell anyone who pirates software where to get it...
did you not see thier numbers? 1k seeders / 7k leechers
and im sure so much more by now.
max PC is a news publication for reporting the latest on technology.
windows 7 being "accidentally" sent to TWO seperate high traffic torrent sites
is completely hilarious!! somthing that they reported on rather quickly and efficently.
kudos max pc keep the hits coming.
jvc08
November 05, 2008 at 9:35pm
if they are so upset about people downloading windows 7. why don't they close down warez?? did you know u can download, vista, xp, macos x, etc.........
Pureoverclocking
November 05, 2008 at 9:35pm
funny thing this is kind of old to me my friend already download it work perfect jaja lol.
ghot
November 05, 2008 at 9:28pm
For once I'm at a loss for words...why would Max PC post this ...with the location of the DL, and why would MS lose track of it in the first place. AND we now have a Muslim for president. Where's Dr. Kavorkian when you need him. Anyone got a spare rope? I feel the need to log off EARTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Caboose
November 05, 2008 at 11:36pm
You're disgusting. Please stop posting!
-= I don't want to be dead, I want to be alive! Or... a cowboy! =-
bcweir
November 05, 2008 at 11:01pm
The fact is that Barack Obama isn't a Muslim or an Arab. This sort of false smear has long since been discredited.
The Republicans lost to the candidate (and a party) who simply ran a superior campaign and did a better job communicating his message to the American people. It's exactly this sort of false-smear and race-baiting that turned off voters like me in the first place.
It's called democracy, and it worked beautifully.
As for the OS, it's a pre-beta. Rome wasn't built in a day. People need to BE PATIENT, tone down their expectations and give the software engineers TIME TO DO THEIR JOBS. My guess is that some overly eager "enthusiast" purposely leaked this onto the peer to peer networks without Microsoft's knowledge or blessing.
How somebody can be smart enough to get on Microsoft's MSDN then do something this STUPID (posting a pre-release beta not meant for public consumption) completely confounds me. I'm guessing the same "genius" who thought American voters would be "instantly turned on" to John McCain by promoting smears about Obama and talking only about who Obama was hanging out with when Obama was 8 years old.
atomaweapon
November 06, 2008 at 10:55am
You're right, Obama won by the beautiful thing called democracy. John Mccain did run a crappy campaign. But I would hardly call highlighting Obamas unsavory pals "smears". I personally don't like the idea of my president having been buddies with a terrorist, sat in a hate church, and called his racist pastor his mentor. That bothers me. The fact he is a peacenik in a time of war, wants to sit and talk with Iran but has a problem sitting down with an interview for fox news, bothers me. It should bother you. But aparently his message of "change" overshadowed his inexperience, his naivety, his horrible associations, etc.
But I won't be a "Obama Hater" as much as possible now that he is president, as others did with Bush. I'll give him a chance, and hopefully he guides the nation on center-right principles and does a good job. Otherwise, republicans will be winning elections for the next 20 years.
Keith E. Whisman
November 05, 2008 at 9:24pm
Hey there is a fixed version that has the super taskbar. That is on Demonoid I would never ever download it though.
hammerfell
November 05, 2008 at 9:03pm
i love how the guy saying I GOT WINDOWS 7 AND IT'S AWESOME! EVEN IN BETA STAGES!! has the name vista geek..... i'm guessing he likes microsoft haha
oh well i think 7 looks good. lets hope it works......
FusilliJerry82
November 05, 2008 at 8:12pm
pizzaguy,
Don't be the nerd who reminded teacher that she didn't give out homework.
They don't need any ideas.
pizzaguy
November 07, 2008 at 9:10pm
im sorry im one of the few people in this country that doesnt mind paying for things that your supposed to pay for.
NAYRhyno
November 05, 2008 at 7:47pm
This is a free beta given to hundreds of developers... I don't think they care if MORE people test their software for them, and I wouldn't called it stealing.
It is suprisingly stable, and seems to be nearly feature complete. The new taskbar can be enabled in the PDC build. Also, the new Windows Live downloadable apps are very cool. The Windows 7 team blog states that the public beta will be out in Dec. or Jan., althopugh this most likely means MSDN subscribers. Also, Vista Beta keys work to activate it. At this poin, aside from some expected bugs for this early of a build, it is a great OS. Gaming is great, file I/O is much improved, even faster than XP, and all my hardware and drivers from Vista work fine.
b_boy_69_00
November 05, 2008 at 7:49pm
I wonder what they will do to screw it up in the end? Don't get me wrong, I'm a MS guy through and through but I remember getting ahold of a early version of longhorn and thinking how great it was, and now look at Vista. Things are much better since SP1, but they messed up so much between longhorn beta's and Vista.
vistageek
November 05, 2008 at 6:28pm
I was running the beta before this post and I must say it is pretty awesome. It is UBAR fast. I downloaded the new taskbar hack which enables the taskbar that even the people wo got the beta were supposed to get. All you have to is copy some files and run a .bat. It is even cooler. Windwos 7 is going to rock!!!
nekollx
November 05, 2008 at 6:50pm
you are aware you just admited to piracy and that your running a operating system that doesnt even have 3rd party beta drivers.
May god have mercy on your hard drive if you run into instability and loose everything.
soccer1105
November 05, 2008 at 8:45pm
Oh, the ignorant comments of someone who doesn’t know what their talking about. So cute.
First, there are no 3rd party pre-beta drivers. Windows 7 is going to use vista drivers. That’s how it was designed.
Second, he’s probably duel booting. So if he does run into instability, the most he’ll lose is his Windows 7 install, and I doubt he would be dumb enough to keep all of his valuable files on the same partition as a pre-beta build.
Third, and finally, I don’t think most people would consider it pirating. Microsoft always releases a pre-beta build to developers, then a public beta to MSDN members, then a few release candidates to just about anyone who wants it. All for free. You can’t pirate something that’s free…doesn’t make sense. He (and a few thousand other people) just got a version that was supposed to be for developers only, but it’s not really pirated.
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, or if you’re not sure, don’t make comments like that. Makes you look dumb.
Digital-Storm
November 05, 2008 at 10:52pm
Since when did the operating system prevent the hard drive read/write head from going over specific areas on the hard drive platter.
soccer1105
November 05, 2008 at 11:18pm
So your saying that windows 7 could flip out SO BAD that it would actually start corrupting data on different partitions? It’s an OS, not a virus. Do you really think that would (could) happen? Unless your talking about the head actually crashing onto the platters. Which would have nothing to do with software.
Deanjo
November 06, 2008 at 12:22am
That scenario is very plausible. Windows 7 is undergoing some pretty significant changes on the IO front to better handle SSD drives. As well the version of NTFS is a newer version which as of yet not been extensively tested. You also have to contend with the possiblity of system controller drivers not being enhanced/fixed to accomodate those changes and the "blacklist" for some drive features may not be all there yet. This has happened before on even a finalized released version of OS's where the drivers were not updated soon enough resulting in data loss. These chances get even higher when you start adding raids and features such as NCQ to the mix. The danger of data loss is very, very, very real.
pizzaguy
November 05, 2008 at 6:09pm
this makes me think companies should put virus like files in their betas that will not infect specific computers but any others will be...
