Comments on: How to safely download Windows 7 Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2 via BitTorrent

By: guest

guest — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:45:07 +0000

Microsoft is still funny, and make me laugh. Funny Microsoft guys going to buy more and more servers for clustering…it’s try upload giant traffic from his IIS, it’s so funny!

For example – Novell (and practically all Linux developing companys) use torrents for distribution his SLED,SLES trial versions more what 4 years, and don’t have problem at all.

Seem’s what Microsoft still live in 1999 year, and think what renaming functions and redesign old menu, really need someone…

By: Fr3d

Fr3d — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:31:12 +0000

@Aidan: It makes no differnece. Some apps give it in upper case, and some give it in lower case. They are exactly the same

By: Aidan

Aidan — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:04:02 +0000

I have done the following:

1. Downloaded the Windows 7 64 bit Beta Build 7000
2. Calculated the sha1 hash with HashCalc
3. Compared the calculated SHA1 hash to the SHA1 hash published here.

My questions are these. The calculated SHA1 hash is exactly the same as the SHA1 hash published here but the calculated SHA1 hash has lower case alpha characters while the SHA1 hash published here has upper case alpha characters. Is this significant? Does this mean my download is not completely accurate?

By: epiquestions

epiquestions — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:18:30 +0000

@fr3d

you could try hashtab v2 too (google it) it appears as a tab in the properties (right click on file click properties and go to hashtab tab and see the hashes there)

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:00:25 +0000

SLam, I am also using Vista x64 and I am quite content with it.

Fowl, you are certainly right. SHA1 is secure. It is more likely that a purchased DVD has been tampered.
Jerick70, thanks!

Leonardo, that’s interesting. I hope that they will fix such compatibility issues. In theory, everything that works on Vista should also work on Windows 7.

By: Leonardo

Leonardo — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 19:44:25 +0000

I lack the patience to wait for Microsoft, been running it since Dec 27. Came across several posts containing the correct hash and verified it to be legit.
There are some explorer (both IE and windows) bugs, but that’s expected.
FYI:
It does not like Adobe CS4’s shell and browsers extensions at all. I removed them by hand after install.
Verified to work:
AVG Antivirus.
Slysoft’s Virtual Clonedrive.
Office 2007.
Skype 4.0 beta.
For those with Nvidia cards, 181.00 beta properly recognizes W7 and run fine.

By: Jerick70

Jerick70 — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:27:34 +0000

With all the issue with download of the Windows 7 Beta, I thought I would post where they can be downloaded at.

You can download the isos here

32 bit – http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso

64 bit – http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/3/3/633118BD-6C3D-45A4-B985-F0FDFFE1B021/EN/7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULXFRE_EN_DVD.ISO

ENJOY!

By: Fowl

Fowl — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:46:02 +0000

If you check the hashes there is no risk of getting an altered file. You can even add the Microsoft server as a web seed.

(unless SHA-1 has been cracked, in which case we have bigger problems!)

By: SLam

SLam — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:06:49 +0000

I’m interested, but can certainly wait until the demand drops down, maybe sometime next week before downloading. I’m currently using Vista x64 and can only hope that Windows 7 is better.

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:01:43 +0000

Yes, this is what I meant. You never know who created the torrent. It might have been a good-natured fellow or a botnet entrepreneur.

By: Fr3d

Fr3d — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:18:17 +0000

I couldn’t agree more about the BitTorrent idea, however, can I just correct this bit: You wrote: “The problem with such unofficial downloads is that there is always the risk of getting a manipulated file that contains malware.”
This is quite unlikely, as long as the original .torrent file is created from a legitimate ISO image.
BitTorrent performs hash checks on each “chunk” of data (usually between 256KB and 2MB each) that it it downloads. If the check fails, it discards the whole chunk, and downloads it from a different source.
The only way to infect the ISO with malware would be to create another .torrent file and upload it elsewhere in the hope that people would use the infected one.

Thanks for the link to HashCalc by the way – will save me having to find the command-line md5.exe or sha1.exe each time I download an ISO