David Flynn26 April 2009, 11:37 AM
Ahead of this week’s expected debut for the Windows 7 ‘release candidate’, it seems that the RC1 edition – labelled Build 7100 – has already hit the BitTorrent network
Windows 7 is entering the home stretch, with Microsoft due to jump the codebase out of Beta 1 and straight into the near-final Release Candidate cycle this week.
Subscribers to Microsoft’s MSDN and TechNet developer programs are due to get the code on Thursday April 30. But a milestone build known as 7100 and tagged as Release Candidate 1, reportedly been issued to key platform partners during the past week, has already been set loose onto BitTorrent.
When APCmag checked popular BitTorrent hub
MiniNova on the weekend we sighted a score of Torrent links purporting to be the same RC1 7.7100 code.
BitTorrent hubs are now hosting dozens of links to what is allegedly the fresh-baked Windows 7 Release Candidate 1
While almost half of these were hosted by private members-only sites, there were still some 5,000 seeds sharing the work-in-progress OS with anyone who cared to click the link. The 32-bit or ‘x86’ build weights in at 2.2GB, with the 64-bit edition at a slightly heftier 2.85GB.
If this is indeed the real deal, it’s a repeat of last year’s BitTorrent leaks of both the pre-beta Build 6801 and the Beta 1 editions ahead of their respective debuts at Microsoft’s PDC conference in Los
Angeles and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
It’s also a sign that Microsoft is well on track to deliver Windows 7 into the hands of its hardware partners by Q3 so that it can be loaded onto new desktops, notebooks and netbooks in readiness for Christmas.
Of course, it should go without saying that APC does not condone piracy or the use of the BitTorrent network to illegally obtain and install software.