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June 11, 2006

Windows Vista Beta Available on Bittorent

Michael Arrington

45 comments »

The Windows Vista Beta 2 download weighs in at a whopping 3.2 GB (even the product guide is over 70 mb). You can download the file or order a DVD. Microsoft is strongly pushing the DVD option, noting that their servers are under severe strain from downloads and that many customers are simply unable to obtain the software this way:

Microsoft, of course, has chosen to ignore the most efficient file distribution method in existence - bittorent. Chris Pirillo and Jake Ludington have, without any endorsement from Microsoft, created VistaTorrent with instructions on downloading the file through Bittorent. They also point to the Microsoft site that will generate a key for the software.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 11th, 2006 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  7. b.i.g » Blog Archive » Vista Beta available as BitTorrent Download

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  10. TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Bittorentを使ってWindows Vista Betaの利用が可能に

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  11. Vista Beta 2 Offered via Bit Torrent at Alen3000

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Comments

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  1. Don Wilson

    June 11th, 2006 at 6:20 pm

    They aren’t worried about the legality of this?

  2. Chris Pirillo

    June 11th, 2006 at 6:23 pm

    We have two full seeds right now, and Jake’s running the ISO over to my house so we can add a third. :) If this hits Digg in a big way, we’ll definitely need people to keep that full file open and shared. Thanks for getting the word out, Mike!!!

  3. Michael Arrington

    June 11th, 2006 at 6:26 pm

    That’s the beauty of bittorent - the more people download this the faster it will be for everyone.

  4. Search Engines WEB

    June 11th, 2006 at 6:52 pm

    This did in fact hit Digg TWICE as well as REDDIT

    One of the Two Digg Submissions will probably be on the Digg’s homepage in one hour

    http://digg.com/software/New_V.....e_-_Debuts

    Good Luck with Microsoft :-)

  5. Dave Winer

    June 11th, 2006 at 6:58 pm

    Great idea!

    I’m going to download a copy and seed it here, just to help the community. It’s a perfect illustration of something we want Microsoft to see. Get embraced and extended by the blogosphere, instead of the other way around, and all kinds of goodness follows.

  6. Dave Winer

    June 11th, 2006 at 7:23 pm

    Mike, for the BloggerCon discussion…

    A core value of the Internet is putting back as you take out.

    I summarize this by ripping off JFK’s “Ask not what the Internet can do for you, ask what you can do for the Internet.”

    What these guys did is a perfect illustration, and then what the subsequent downloaders who leave their BT clients running, is “putting back” at the next level.

  7. BloodJunkie

    June 11th, 2006 at 7:43 pm

    Pssst! Mike! I don’t think they get the point of this over on Digg (it’s front-page now by the way)

  8. Michael Griffiths

    June 11th, 2006 at 7:45 pm

    Despite Anthony’s unnecessarily hostile comment, he’s right: Microsoft considered BitTorrent, but decided not to.

    The reasons are unstated, but probably amount to two: (1) now is not the time to test how secure BitTorrent is, and poisoning a file would not be good and (2) BitTorrent is still unproven (and a number of customers don’t have clients), while direct download and DVDs are proven to work.

    It hardly matters either way. People have been leaking builds to BitTorrent for months, and as now that product keys are available it simply becomes another distribution channel. Microsoft doesn’t need to embrace BitTorrent for this - it’s a “democratic” distribution system.

  9. Peter Oliver

    June 11th, 2006 at 7:57 pm

    “(2) BitTorrent is still unproven (and a number of customers don’t have clients), while direct download and DVDs are proven to work.”

    Yeah, you have to be careful about that new fangled technology.

  10. Martey

    June 11th, 2006 at 8:01 pm

    What I want to know is why the MD5 hash I received from the ISO I downloaded from Microsoft (0e733ab1a8e8ff9a8684fd3639332773) is different from their MD5 hash (4B6641731977D390838B24A0C300D1C6). After I downloaded the ISO, I did a Google search to make sure that the checksum was correct and received several results. VistaTorrent’s hash has no Google results.

  11. Starfish

    June 11th, 2006 at 8:18 pm

    Microsoft might have decided not to use BT as a distribution method some users have trouble using it over a NAT connection. Some ISPs and corporate firewalls block BT as well, making it unsuitable for this purpose.

    That being said, Microsoft could have provided BT as an alternate 3rd option in addition to direct download and DVD. Or they may in fact be relying on the tech savvy community to create their own distribution channel. ;)

  12. Jared Rusch

    June 11th, 2006 at 8:29 pm

    Thanks for this.

  13. Diego Barros

    June 11th, 2006 at 8:30 pm

    Plenty of other companies distribute software using BitTorrent. But it’s just not good enough for Microsoft? They probably don’t want to endorse a technology which is not their own. Is Avalanche (http://research.microsoft.com/~pablo/avalanche.aspx) coming soon? :)

  14. Jarod

    June 11th, 2006 at 8:30 pm

    Thought about putting the x64 ISO there as well?

  15. Coches España

    June 11th, 2006 at 8:47 pm

    Isn’t that illegal to download it that way? I am just curious

  16. Chris Pirillo

    June 11th, 2006 at 8:53 pm

    Yeah, we’re waiting for more full seeds of the x32 version first.

  17. Andy A

    June 11th, 2006 at 9:13 pm

    Talk about having some balls, hey when you get the cease and desist letter from MS be sure to post it on the site :)

  18. BlackCow

    June 11th, 2006 at 9:16 pm

    “Isn’t that illegal to download it that way? I am just curious”
    Does it matter lol. Im shure its fine if microsoft is already giveing it out for free. Its just a beta and you use their CD key that is only good for a year. Unless someone comes out with a crack (witch they probaly will) but by that time the final build of windows vista will be out.

  19. Paul

    June 11th, 2006 at 9:22 pm

    For installing on Macbook Pro should I download the 32 or 64 bit verision?

  20. tj

    June 11th, 2006 at 9:26 pm

    My understanding of MS licensing is that this is fully legal. They are not redistributing the license for the software in any form, just the media. Allowing people to download the media does not enable them to use the software, they still have to obtain a valid beta license.

  21. Jake Ludington

    June 11th, 2006 at 9:37 pm

    Re: Martey at #10

    The only thing I can figure about why the MD5 is different is if the builds are slightly different in some way. We got the version we’re hosting via direct HTTP download from Microsoft’s servers, bypassing the Microsoft Download Manager (I think the link says use this if you have your own download manager). It could be that to make the Microsoft download manager work, they need some extra bits in the build.

  22. Jake Ludington

    June 11th, 2006 at 9:39 pm

    Re: Jarod at #14

    I’m waiting for more seeds on the 32x version before I’ll consider adding a torrent for the 64x version. As of now there are over 400 downloaders and a mere 9 seeds which means our server is bearing the brunt of the traffic.

  23. iq70

    June 11th, 2006 at 9:40 pm

    This is the lamest thing I have seen being pulled off. Make a torrent of someone elses software, put it up with a lot of Google Ads. Make money!

    I thought you both had some reputation, but you are just trying make money off those Adsense words.

    I sure hope Microsoft serves you with a DMCA notice not because you are distributing their software, but because you are making money off of their work.

  24. mark

    June 11th, 2006 at 10:00 pm

    since when is distributing microsoft software en masse a good thing?

    microsoft is crap. it’s still crap even if you downloaded it from a torrent

  25. NeoGeo

    June 11th, 2006 at 10:09 pm

    pirillo is a loser…

  26. me

    June 11th, 2006 at 10:17 pm

    finshed dling from ms today and seeding here tonight. checked passed

  27. Adam Livesley

    June 11th, 2006 at 11:17 pm

    There is another torrent which is a verified ISO of Windows Vista aviliable at http://www.bittorrent.com it has a lot more seeds, and is generally a faster download!

  28. Lode

    June 11th, 2006 at 11:33 pm

    Re: Marty & Jake:
    I also have 0e733ab1a8e8ff9a8684fd3639332773 as checksum, downloaded it three times on different locations last thursday. Maybe the build has changed slightly since then, or something is wrong with the torrent.
    I downloaded via wget, twice on Windows in Belgium, once on Linux in the US (So from different Akamai servers).

  29. Sascha

    June 12th, 2006 at 12:02 am

    re: paul at #19
    take the 32bit version for the macbook.
    check back with the intel site - but the core duos are only 32bit
    http://www.intel.com/design/mo.....tation.htm

    sascha

  30. Rod Trent

    June 12th, 2006 at 1:34 pm

    The biggest issue, I believe, for MS not using bittorent, or some other method, is that they cannot adequately track the number of downloads? I could be wrong.

    I know the MS bloggers have gone wild with posting about how many times Vista has been downloaded in the last week.

  31. David Thielen

    June 12th, 2006 at 6:38 pm

    You can count bittorrent downloads if you are hosting the torrent server. So if MS was worried about counting downloads they should have put it up on their own bittorrent server.

    ps - please vote on Digg for http://digg.com/software/Free_.....g_software

  32. Jnetty

    June 13th, 2006 at 10:55 am

    Pretty interesting.
    Its funny, i had no problem downloading the .iso on friday afternoon. Installed it this weekend.

  33. 9support

    January 10th, 2007 at 12:04 am

    Microsoft Windows Vista RTM Build6000 Ultimate x86 DVD

    Windows Vista Ultimate is the operating system and development platform delivering the power of the Windows operating system in componentized form to rapidly build reliable and advanced embedded devices.
    Based on the same binaries as Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate enables developers to choose from over 10,000 individual feature components to achieve optimum functionality in a reduced footprint. Versatile embedded-enabling features, such as flexible boot and storage options and headless support.

    Download Link : http://rapidshare.com/files/11.....k_2007.zip
    Password UNzip : http://www.9support.com

  34. andrew

    February 20th, 2007 at 12:48 am

    hi!
    i have a good audio systems on my website http://car-audio.org.md

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