RSSVista Beta 2 Offered via BitTorrent
By Nate Mook | Published June 12, 2006, 5:48 PM
With Microsoft struggling to keep up with the demand for Windows Vista Beta 2, tech personality Chris Pirillo has taken the initiative to publish the 3.2-gigabite download using BitTorent. But Microsoft recommends against using a third party to obtain Vista code.
Those eager to try out the first public release of Microsoft's next generation operating system have been met with slow download speeds and timeouts. The Redmond company has even recommended that users place an order for a DVD copy rather than deal with the download wait times.
In turn, Pirillo and Jake Ludington have setup VistaTorrent.com to serve a torrent of Beta 2. Users can take advantage of the decentralized peer-to-peer technology to download at much faster speeds than Microsoft is currently able to offer.
An MD5 hash is also provided to enable users to verify their ISO after it finishes downloading. "This is not a crack, this is not a hack, this is not software piracy - it's unofficial mirroring with official validation," the site says.
"We were told, in a certain amount of words, that they had considered BitTorrent to distribute the ISO, did not, and were likely not going to stop it from happening. Their current situation seems dire from anybody's perspective," Pirillo told BetaNews. "It's been on BitTorrent networks from the beginning."
But Microsoft is wary about Vista coming from any unofficial source. The company did not say, however, whether it would ask Pirillo to take the torrent file offline or cease using its trademarks.
"We are excited by the high demand for Windows Vista beta 2 code. While we understand people may be looking for faster ways to download it due to the high demand, we continue to encourage anyone interested in receiving the code to visit the Web site to either download the beta or order the DVD," Mike Burk, product manager for Windows Client, responded to BetaNews inquiries.
Microsoft product manager Aaron Coldiron said that if the company pushed out the Vista Beta 2 downloads any faster, users would see a measurable impact on Internet performance worldwide, which could affect World Cup viewing and more.
"Every member of the Windows community thought it was an oversight that Microsoft didn't use BitTorrent to distribute such a large file - a belief that was only reinforced after they asked users to get the DVD instead of trying to download it," added Pirillo. "The situation won't get better for them if they ask us to stop trying to help. We'd much rather work with them on this than abandon the idea altogether."
Thank GOD for LINUX!!!! MS, you'll get there one day!
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|I'm special. When I try to visit microsoft.com, it comes up with an error message. I think I'll torrent it. :P
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|Thank the gods! I've been trying to make a torrent for the past week or so, but I haven't been able to access the windows site! I'm glad that others out there had the same idea.
P.S.
To debonair: the torrent may have a "100x worse" download speed, but at least you can connect right away :P. Plus, that 100x is without a bunch of other seeders or peers.
To willthrill: Really? I still never did find a deceint torrent for it before now. That makes me sad. Ya lucky bastid.
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|i downloaded my copy at bittorrent.com. it's been available at BitTorrent since last week and the download speeds were fine.
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|seems to me the site doesn't offer a 64-bit version? Futher more, the torrent is 100x worse than the download speed from the actual website. waste of space with this torrent.
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|Not worth the download time!!!
Over sized alpha not beta!!! The normal shutdown icon now just puts it in sleep mode and you can't do a damn thing on it without 500000000000000 popups in the first 30 seconds! I am running an AMD 64 x2 3800 Asus A8N-SLI Geforce 7900GT and 1gig ram. Vista is not able to install any drivers and askes ten times a minute about the same damn things. Audigy 2 ZS Gamer will not work in Vista 64 at all, no matter what you do! When you change the screen rez, it still puts the popups in the same damn spot as if you hadn't changed the rez.(what would have been the center when at 1600x1200, but is now the bottom right corner of 1200x1024) These are just a first few minutes, and the install time, OMMFG!!! MS you are going way down hill with every product you have released lately!
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|Officiously condoned, i wonder how the "BRAIN"s and other organisations chasing file-listers, not file distributors, can be legally forced to close. it's time for a real courtcase to ascertain if file listers are illegal.....for sure if i type for an "approximate" file at Google, i get a list from them, so how can that in the logic of BRAIN be legal?
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|I had downloaded the .ISO from MS's site. When I saw the torrent and MD5, I went to check my download with MD5 and found it wasn't matching!! So I downloaded the torrent only to find that the file I downloaded from MS is bigger than the one provided by the torrent.
I verified the torrent download with three different MD5 hash calculators and the one recommended by Chris does come up with the correct hash, but the two others came up with a different, though maching hash.
These are two things that don't seem to add up...
(The other two hash calculators used are HashCalc and HashOnClick - which came up with the same result)
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|Try HashTab. It has always been accurate since I've used it.
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|This is just a matter of what Microsoft can legitimately support. They have to promote official means for distribution for the sake of security and all that jazz, but they have a choice... either force him to shut down torrent, or overlook it.
For all the criticism Chris has placed on Vista in his Feedback on Vista blogs, he seems eager to do things right. I think Microsoft will be inclined to ignore it unless a few people just really get a twig up their butts.
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|Even if you get the DVD image from elsewhere, you still have to register on Microsoft's site to get a Product Key which is valid for activation. If you use someone else's key (such as one of the keys accompanying newsgroup releases), you will be able to install it but it won't activate because too many people have already activated it on different hardware. The beta keys are free but I know some people are too paranoid to register. If so, downloading from BT isn't going to help much, unless you only wanted to play with Vista for a few days anyway.
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|Keys are everywhere. I got 3 from them. All folks need to do is ask ona forum. Since they allow 10 installations per Key, I don't think it's a huge issue with them.
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|Ever heard of an activation crack?! Should try it...
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|windows vista beta 2 sucks!! It has too much prompt to do every action you do! even transfering files
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|Start - Control Panel - User Accounts - Change Security Settings.
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|You are logged in as an Admin, why should you have to change the settings for security that fast? It was poorly written!
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|you can disable this function
run->msconfig->disable UAC ->launch
restart your computer
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|What ever happened to the whole Bittorrent is bad, it's only used for piracy. Now Microsoft is using it. ;-)lol
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|Read the friggen article ...
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|You might want to try a metalink. It can contain torrent & mirror info.
http://www.metalinker.org/
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|awwwww
now MS can't keep tabs you -oops- i mean...it...
lol
:-p
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|with Firefox I downloaded the 64bit version in
12h and the 32bit in 10h, meanwhile it was not
possible with IE7.
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|Being that neither IE or FF support torrents, I would love to know how you did this. Try sticking to what the article is talking about.
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|haha
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|it is relevent to the article. its obvious he was saying that by downloading straight from the source using firefox it took an awful lot of time. therefore demostrating that microsoft is slammed with people downloading it from their servers. which means that presumably using bittorrent could save you an awful lot of time and help reduce the strain on microsofts servers. apparently you didnt notice this is what the article is about.
how about you stick to constructive comments?
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|what I mean: normal download with the Akamai
downloader at maximum speed for my connection
(80% of 1Mb); didn't work with IE but works with Firefox. Perhaps while IE servers are overfull and those from Firefox not?
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|I imported my Vista ISO and am now seeding. :D
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|and you think that bittorrenting it wont have the same affect (if its as popular) as microsoft allowing higher speeds?
their "measurable impact on internet performance worldwide" is a load of bollocks
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|Ahh...backbone providers. There's always a bottleneck somewhere. Telus (Canada) for example, has a 1.2tbit network. But what about the connections to Europe, America, etc.? We're probably all bottlenecked into some 200gbit thing that 500 ISPs have to share.
I can understand why MS isn't using all the bandwidth they can offer, but that's why Bittorrent is great as well. It takes pieces from different locations, so you get more global bandwidth usage, but more averaged out.
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|MS Download seems fine.. x32 1.7MB/s x64 1.0GB/s Whats the fuss.
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|ummm,
don't think so
MB/s = megabyte per second
GB/s = gigabyte per second
1.0 GB/s isn't even possible for your hard drive
i could see 1.7 Mb/s (megabit per second) -edit-
don't know what the hell you meant by GB/s though. even 1 Gb/s (gigabit per second) would be ridiculous.
could you maybe give us the real figures
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|Did you mean 1.0MB/s?
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|Maybe he's tapped into a datacenter line and is abusing his I-RAM? :P
Or...more likely he wrote the wrong letters.
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|x64 is coming, Mark... :) We had to get x32 properly seeded first, otherwise this wouldn't have worked. Stay tuned.
Oh, and rijp - if you wanna wait a few weeks and pay for the DVD shipping, go ahead. Some geeks want to play with beta code yesterday. ;)
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|It doesn't take several weeks, its only like 2, besides it's BETA it isn't the end of the world.
You aren't going to lose sleep over it, when it gets there, it gets there.
*Some geeks want to play with beta code yesterday. ;)*
Yeah, that's the problem with you impatient people... Are you the same guy that runs that site, lockergnome?
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|rijp, you are on BETAnews, remember...
Besides, you're likely going to see this sort of thing as a "legitimizer" for BT.
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|only x86 version, no x64......
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|You aren't looking in the right place.
Just use Newsgroups! I do all my downloads from there. I found x64 when I didn't WANT x64, so I *know* it exists.
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|rjjp we're talking legitimate downloads... stay with us! ;)
I'm sure you can find a x64 torrent easily enough, just make sure it's the current build... 5384.
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|I can get x64 from MSDN Subscriber Downloads, but it's slow. Only an idiot would risk a torrent/download from usenet..
I was merely pointing out the semi-official torrent download is for 32bit only.
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|Why torrent?
Newsgroups are generally *much* faster than *any* torrent I've ever joined.
The Vista (or Office, Or Visual Studio, etc) Betas are usually there the day after the MSDN testers get them.
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|Only an idiot would risk a torrent/download from usenet..
Nice.
Let's see, you're download from MSDN is slow....
Mine from my News Server is ~400KB/sec.
Who's the idiot? Care to explain?
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|My MSDN version is gaurenteed to be original. Can you say the same about your warez copy?
I think that explains it pretty well.
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|Torrents are guarenteed to be original. MD5 sigs and the intelligent downloading tech make sure that you get the file the first seeder intended. The only question is whether you trust that seeder.
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|Or something similar to the official betas, perhaps a few tweak to some files, some spyware thrown in for good measure...
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|Oh for crying out loud.. just be patient. You can always order the DVD its like 6 bucks to ship. My god!
newsgroups, there are plenty of mirror sites, if you look for it, you can find it..
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|Some of us have a life and don't want to waste time weeding through newsgroups rjjp.
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|Click search.
Type Vista 5384 x86. Check the "par" box.
Get nifty list of PAR files. Choose one and click 'PARviewer'.
Click Check all but PAR, click Zip, and downlload.
Yeah....torrents are *so* much easier...lmao.
(steps outline getting Vista 5384 x86 via the Easynews Global Search / PARViewer / Zip Manager. Http://www.easynews.com)
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