Windows 7 Beta Available Friday 9th Jan, 2009
The beta of Windows 7 will be available world wide on Friday, the 9th of Jan, 2009.
Update: Jan 9th – Direct download links ( courtesy neowin ) -
Download: Windows 7 x86 (32bit) and x64 (64 bit). Microsoft was overwhelmed by traffic and delayed downloads from the official windows7 site – however these download links still work.
For TechEd and MSDN customers – available right now i.e. Wednesday 7th Jan. This is really good news – I wish it was available right now, instead of having to wait two more days.
Anyways, here are some more updates on how to get the Windows 7 Beta 1 -
- It’ll be made available sometime on Friday 9th Jan afternoon. Probably EST or PST. So if you’re in Australia or Europe adjust times accordingly.
- There will be only 2.5 million copies available. You’ll have to register to get an activation key.
- Only Upgrades from Vista SP1, and fresh installs will be possible.
- There’ll be an iso image made available so you’ll have to create a DVD and then run it.
- The Beta will expire on August 1st, 2009.
- Languages available include English, Hindi, German, Japanese, and Arabic.
More details at the Windows Team Blog and their post on the Win7 Beta. Which, btw, does not work for me. I’m guessing tomorrow is going to be a similar fiasco.
Finally, a little note on how to get the beta to work for 30+120 days if you miss out on the 2.5 million activation keys (courtesy My Digital Life) -
Microsoft won’t pull the download after the 2.5 million, it will just stop handing out keys.
Minus a key, you can still download and install the beta, then run it for 30 days before it quits on you. And by using the same “slmgr -rearm” command that gained notoriety after Windows Vista’s debut, you can extend that trial period to 120 days.
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Filed under: Windows 7 News Updates
Its January 9th 9am is Australia ?