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Windows 7 RC Rush Crashes MSDN, TechNet Pages

CWmike writes "Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) and TechNet paid subscribers were supposed to find the 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows 7 RC available for download today. But in a snafu reminiscent of the problems Microsoft had in January when it tried to launch Windows 7 Beta, the download pages for the release candidate were inaccessible, despite numerous attempts over an hour-long span up until about noon Eastern. TechNet and MSDN subscribers were not happy. 'Man, this stinks,' said a user identified as Lyle Pratt, on a TechNet message forum at 10 a.m. ET. 'I can't believe we can still bring MSDN to its knees!' said John Butler, a Microsoft partner. 'Surely, they should be able to deal with this? Not a good advert for Microsoft.' The Windows 7 RC is slated to be available for public download next Tuesday, May 5. Meanwhile, Microsoft said today that the RC would operate until June 2010, for 13 months of free use — a significantly longer time than it did with Vista's previews."

17 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Torrent? by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Torrent links anyone?

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    1. Re:Torrent? by Ilgaz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I suspected the end user alpha release being "slashdotted" was a lame marketing game but if MSDN goes down, MS can't really maintain it, for real. For obvious reasons, they won't do the logical choice of running light httpd (Unix, God forbid) or similar on download server, they won't even bother calling Akamai.

      Nobody can blame them for not offering a torrent though. Thanks to MPAA/RIAA and various ISPs, P2P, especially torrent is an issue for large companies. If Apple used P2P to distribute very large OS updates (e.g. combo ones, XCode), we could blame MS for not using the option. Ask Apple why they don't use.

      BTW lets say you find a torrent from 3rd party, did the MS post its checksum (whatever system they use) to the download page or somewhere at site? I mean it doesn't look very right to "pirate" an operating system which has a huge industry abusing it. People torrenting it should either get MD5 from a trusted friend or MS. There are several "trojaned" Windows out there. It is the easiest way to have your own zombie army.

  2. Not thinking by Joe+U · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft releases Vista/2008 SP2 AND Windows 7 RC AND Windows 2008 R2 RC AND Virtual PC RC AND the Windows 7 SDK on the same day and they don't expect to have bandwidth problems?

    Geez, what were they thinking? SP2 should have come out on RTM day, that would at least cut a few hundred mb downloads out of the picture.

    1. Re:Not thinking by Malc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's called Content Delivery Network, and in this case, Microsoft are using Akamai. Bandwidth shouldn't be a problem. I'm downloading Win 7 right now. People need to get a life... so what if they can't download at this very moment an RC of an unreleased OS? This isn't story isn't news; move on.

    2. Re:Not thinking by Malc · · Score: 4, Informative

      Microsoft are using Akamai. Don't speculate, look at the URL in the Download Manager file that comes from the MSDN site, or look at the connections Download Manager has open during the download.

  3. Zomg have to have it the first day! by Knara · · Score: 4, Funny

    Buncha consumerist lemmings :)

  4. Re:WTF? by Joe+U · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because it's what 80% of the world will be running in about a year?

  5. They should have provided a torrent by Matt+Perry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No joke. They should have provided a torrent. This type of distribution is what bittorrent excels at. It would have provided everyone with a better experience and saved MS some bandwidth.

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  6. Patience is a virtue by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    East Coast developer tries to download the ISO during his lunch break. It ain't gonna happen.

  7. Funny way to turn the pirates over to their side. by DavidKlemke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems Microsoft might be trying to make the best of a bad situation when it comes to people pirating their software, but turning them into beta testers. Sure you have to give them something for free but in the end you'll get a whole lot of people who would just pirate your software anyway doing a whole lot of free QA for you. Pretty smart move if you ask me.

    Funnily enough I didn't hear anything about Microsoft pursuing the Pirate Bay for hosting the torrent of their latest builds, which seems to support this theory. Anyone seen anything?

  8. The brownouts have started! by Kelson · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like this story was right!

    Except my computer hasn't started to freeze and jitter. What's up with that?

  9. Re:Surprise Surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How is this a screw up on their part again? They release a preview of the next os and there is so much interest in it that they can't keep up with demand. That sounds like they did something right to get that kind of attention. Also Vista was released 2 years ago. I know it's fashionable to complain about MS but a 2 year cycle doesn't sound like rushing it out.

  10. The OS isn't dead and all your data is intact... by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Funny

    Which part of "insert credit card to continue" is confusing you?

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  11. Re:Commercial torrent is CDN by Chabo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Steam uses a CDN, not torrents.

    WoW uses bittorrent for the weekly patches though.

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  12. Re:Windows 7 will be successful by MaggieL · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can often count on MSFT to sell you a partial solution to a problem they sold you.

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    -=Maggie Leber=-
  13. Re:WTF? by JackieBrown · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But that was the point of Vista: to make whatever came next look revolutionary.

  14. Typical /. by W2k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course, if this had happened during an RC release of a major Linux distro, the comments would be more along the lines of "zomgwtfbbq, Linux is so popular now the masses can't get hold of it fast enough" whereas since it's a Windows RC being released, people are taking the opportunity to flame like idiots instead.

    Doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the FOSS community.

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