[Sleepylazy49ers]

I sure hope this Beta will be used to fix any current problems with the OS before it becomes final. I have high hopes that Windows 7 will be better than Windows Vista. Oh and please M$ change the name of Windows 7 to a cooler name, while Windows Vista sounded like a cool name it wasn't a very good browser. I sure hope they change the name and have a good reliable browser this time around.

[SkateNY]

"Overwhelming demand?" How about Microsoft manufactured a breakdown in the service of giving the perception of "overwhelming demand?" How about Microsoft, a multibillion-dollar multinational corporation has no excuse not to be prepared for -- oh my God! -- a download of a "new" OS that's intended to fumigate the stench left by the previous failed OS, Microsoft Vista? What boggles the mind is that so many people are so eager to give Microsoft a pass every time they raise the bar for incompetence.

[number6]

Maybe they figured there are so many MS haters that there wouldn't be more than 2.5 million people that would want it.

[ivorycruncher]

The beta downloads are working again. I wasn't able to access the site at any point yesterday, but tonight I checked and had no problem at all registering and starting the downloads. Oh, btw, if you keep refreshing the page that gives you a product key and the download link, you can get at least five unique product keys for each version (32-bit and 64-bit) to work with. I got 5 each for 32-bit and 64-bit, but didn't try anymore beyond that because I obviously have no need to do so. I'm going to be putting this beta on boxes at home and work ASAP to see just how well this thing runs, and my expectations are fairly high at this moment.

I'm willing to bet that Microsoft allocated more resources than usual for the beta downloads, but obviously they still fell short in comprehending just how huge the demand for a cleaned-up version of Vista there is. Just fyi, I run Vista Ultimate at home on my quad core box and Vista Business at work on an old P4 2.8GHz hyperthreaded box. It's a bit on the sluggish side on the latter, but overall it runs well, and I have very few compatibility or functionality issues to speak of. However, it really shouldn't be as memory-hoggy as it is, and Windows 7 appears to address this well.

[DaBash]

A little conspiracy theory-ish.... don't you think? No they just made the mistake of trying to contract mac's terminal illness of a uber-gui that allows no work. There was no manufactured bla bla bla.... it was an oops and they paid for it, and now they are fixing it. Mac is the one that manufactured the "overwhelming hate" for m$.... and that is a figment of their imagination.