As if I should have expected something else??

I have to admit to being a Vista (64) user on my main PC. I’ve gotten over many of the hurdles associated with Vista (UI, drivers, &^%DJH’ing useless UAC), and it allows me to run all the stuff I want with as much memory as I want. So when I saw that MS was going to be offering an Open Beta of Windows 7 (aka Vista SP2), I figured I’d give it a whirl.

It was supposed to have been downloadable on January 9th to a limited number of users. However, Microsoft’s release and the subsquent downloading didn’t go all that well for most users. If this is a publicity stunt by MS, it’s a bad one, and if not, it’s just plain stupid. Or, as some people think, Microsoft has been so bashed over Vista that they themselves didn’t think anyone would be interested. Anyway, the experience was SO bad that Microsoft had to issue an apology, fix their servers, and offer it for publid downloading again.

Fast forward to this morning. The site is up, and I can log in. I can select the version I want, and get a product key generated. The only thing I CAN’T DO is download the frickin’ software. In Firefox, it does –nothing–, in IE 64, it bombs out (I even tried installing Silverlight… but nooooo…), and in IE 32, I have to install an ActiveX control.  Even after doing so, and trying to download, it was going painfully slow.

As an aside, one good byproduct of this process is that every time you load a new version of the download page, it generates a new key. So, now I have a bunch of ‘em. Email me if you want one. There are 5 keys. For everyone. Hrm… could it be that the Key Generation process was so complex that that’s what was causing the servers to bomb? Must be a .net process!

The Answer? BitTorrent. I’m happily downloading at a great speed right now. I can see how Microsoft would be reluctant to use BitTorrent for standard users, and expose them to the "free warez" underside of the web, but everyone with a technical bent knows about it and uses it on occasion.

TTFN! I’ll probably post about my experience with installation.