It mightn't be official, but Windows 7 is out there on torrent feeds.
It is rather unsurprising that China, that great bastion for “liberated software”, would generate this sort of event: an attendee at WinHEC China snuck away with the VHD image (Virtual PC 2004 Virtual Hard Drive) file of Windows 7’s 6956 build and promptly uploaded it to a torrent site.
As expected world+dog are on the case, having a go at it. Unfortunately, the VHD isn’t a bootable disk, but some users have fiddled enough with the virtual disk image and the 6801 build install to create a fully installable ISO.
Torrent chat is reporting users have overcome the non-boot disk issue by using the installer for the 6801 build, and the jury-rigged ISOs are replacing the original VHD on torrent sites as we speak.
We can’t imagine a better deal for Microsoft. You know... having someone leak the build and dozens of torrent sites picking up on it so thousands of new machines are populated with your latest OS.
We still don’t know what the fuss is about, though. Once you’ve overcome the ISO hurdle, jumped over the activation timer and ran through the WGA protection gate, you get Windows 7 Beta 1 out in two weeks time reinstall... quite frankly, why bother?
Apparently Chinese bragging rights are in order.