Windows 7 Beta General Availability Delayed

By  |  Friday, January 9, 2009 at 3:53 pm

windows7-logoStretch your legs, go outside, and get fresh air–the Windows 7 beta is delayed until tomorrow. Windows team blogger Brandon LeBlanc has announced that Windows 7 is such a hot commodity that the company has to shore up its server infrastructure to meet the demand.

Developers who have MSDN or TechNet subscriptions can download Windows 7 Beta today; it will (in theory) become generally available tomorrow at 12 PM PT. Direct download links are live if you want to get the jump on all the people that will spend their Saturdays downloading a beta operating system, but installations without product keys are limited to 30-day trial periods.

As an aside, has anybody told Microsoft about BitTorrent yet? It seems to be a reliable way to distribute big files to lots of people.

If you want to upgrade to the Windows 7 beta from Windows XP, you are out of luck–it doesn’ offer an upgrade path. Upgrade installations are only supported for PCs that are running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1. The company has not yet announcing finalized upgrade paths for Windows 7, a spokesperson wrote in an e-mail. The beta is available in one edition that is roughly equivalent to Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.

It behooves Microsoft to provide an upgrade path from Windows XP Professional. Only about 10 percent of enterprises have deployed Windows Vista as their major OS, Information Technology Intelligence Corp’s principal analyst (and owner) Laura DiDio said yesterday. Windows 7 can’t arrive soon enough.

 
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2 Comments For This Post

  1. Dave Says:
    January 10th, 2009 at 11:28 am

    The beta is already available, if you know where to look. Lifehacker has instructions and links up here: http://lifehacker.com/5128193/how-to-get-your-windows-7-beta-product-key

    I’ve gotten both a 64bit key and a 32bit key, and downloaded both versions of the beta through the direct links, also available on Lifehacker.

    enjoy

  2. Jeff Says:
    January 10th, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    Download it if you dare.

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