Windows 7 Beta 1

Today Microsoft opened the floodgates for the common schmo to download the latest beta build of Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows 7--only to have the water trickle ever so slowly out like the leaking toilet I fixed last night.  When I woke up this morning at 7am CST, the Windows blog was up, but the download was not yet available.  When I got to work more than and hour later, the site was down, barfing a 503 error.  So much for a 12pm PST kickoff...

So here I am, doing what any resourceful, impatient geek would do, downloading a copy through (ahem) other means.  I am hoping beyond hope that Microsoft delivers this time, because as much as I love XP, it really is starting to look dated.  I enjoy the fact that things are stable, fast, and improve my productivity, but I can't assume that I'll be able to enjoy all the software (and hardware!) that I do now in the next five years.  So here we go, with bated breath.

UPDATE 09 JAN 17:04

BitTorrent! You have failed me! It's still chugging along, but it look like Microsoft has come back online and my downloads are saying that both the x86 and x64 versions will take about 45-60 min. vs. BitTorrent's 7 hours and 35 min. Lame. Well, at least I'm getting things through 'official' channels. Now, I'm just waiting to be able to get my grubby hands on a set of keys...