Windows 7 RC Rush Crashes MSDN, TechNet Pages 186
CWmike writes "Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) and TechNet paid subscribers were supposed to find the 32- and 64-bit editions of Windows 7 RC available for download today. But in a snafu reminiscent of the problems Microsoft had in January when it tried to launch Windows 7 Beta, the download pages for the release candidate were inaccessible, despite numerous attempts over an hour-long span up until about noon Eastern. TechNet and MSDN subscribers were not happy. 'Man, this stinks,' said a user identified as Lyle Pratt, on a TechNet message forum at 10 a.m. ET. 'I can't believe we can still bring MSDN to its knees!' said John Butler, a Microsoft partner. 'Surely, they should be able to deal with this? Not a good advert for Microsoft.' The Windows 7 RC is slated to be available for public download next Tuesday, May 5. Meanwhile, Microsoft said today that the RC would operate until June 2010, for 13 months of free use — a significantly longer time than it did with Vista's previews."
Re:Torrent? (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspected the end user alpha release being "slashdotted" was a lame marketing game but if MSDN goes down, MS can't really maintain it, for real. For obvious reasons, they won't do the logical choice of running light httpd (Unix, God forbid) or similar on download server, they won't even bother calling Akamai.
Nobody can blame them for not offering a torrent though. Thanks to MPAA/RIAA and various ISPs, P2P, especially torrent is an issue for large companies. If Apple used P2P to distribute very large OS updates (e.g. combo ones, XCode), we could blame MS for not using the option. Ask Apple why they don't use.
BTW lets say you find a torrent from 3rd party, did the MS post its checksum (whatever system they use) to the download page or somewhere at site? I mean it doesn't look very right to "pirate" an operating system which has a huge industry abusing it. People torrenting it should either get MD5 from a trusted friend or MS. There are several "trojaned" Windows out there. It is the easiest way to have your own zombie army.
Commercial torrent is CDN (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody can blame them for not offering a torrent though. Thanks to MPAA/RIAA and various ISPs, P2P, especially torrent is an issue for large companies.
Steam uses torrents.
Most large companies do not use torrents because they are a little complex for most users - the equivilent is that they use a CDN to distribute the content across many servers, served locally to the user (I know it's not exactly the same but it has a similar effect of distributing load). I wonder if Microsoft was using a CDN or trying to host everything locally.
Re:Torrent? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft and Akamai have a friendly relationship, but because they want to control the distribution they release everything on their site. That's something you really, truly, cannot do with torrents, because you can write your own torrent that ignores the tracker's rules on DHT.
No matter what your distribution method, you have to remember that they are distributing hundreds of terabytes of data over a tenuous and fragile internet infrastructure. It may not even be Microsoft's links that are failing when you start talking about that much data.
Re:Commercial torrent is CDN (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple could embed libtorrent and use its functionality (just like rtorrent) in Software Update which is a dedicated GUI application. Perhaps they know all kinds of junk will happen to their customers such as throttling, letters and even "cable modem freeze" the day they use that system for such general purpose operating system updates.
It is not simplicity, we have a company which can pack Mach/NeXT/FreeBSD and Carbon, get Unix 03 certificate and sell it as "World's easiest operating system". They sure know how to make things look simple.
Re:Surprise Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this a screw up on their part again? They release a preview of the next os and there is so much interest in it that they can't keep up with demand. That sounds like they did something right to get that kind of attention. Also Vista was released 2 years ago. I know it's fashionable to complain about MS but a 2 year cycle doesn't sound like rushing it out.
Re:Torrent? (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect there is something going on with the packet identification in regard to WoW updates. Large ISPs are running very advanced systems to do such "conspire torrent downloaders" tricks and they could be identifying the WoW updates. Or more basically, ISP could be shutting down "conspire P2P" switch when Blizzard does updates.
I have actually used (via VNC) an American friend's system since I had hard time believing that his connection loses its mind when he runs torrent. It was amazing thing to see and I told him to change his ISP if possible. It was the period when they did the RSET trick.
Re:Surprise Surprise (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Funny way to turn the pirates over to their sid (Score:3, Interesting)
Forget everything, can you believe the lemmings download it from Pirate sites? An operating system?
I downloaded a copy of Vista 64 from a demonoid.com torrent. Already had a legit key from MSDNAA, just didn't have a copy of the x64 version. Microsoft puts the SHA1 sum for the ISO file on their MSDN site, so you can verify that it's an untampered copy. A bit like that cheesy scene (one of many) from the movie Swordfish, where Travolta barks to one of his cronies "Verify this!" and, after a pause, the computer dude says "Verified!". Fuck, that movie was fucking awful.
Or are you suggesting that you can slip in a trojan and still get the SHA1 sum to match, using some collision that nobody else knows about?
Re:Torrent? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would Microsoft PAY to not have this happen? Everybody who wants the RC will get it, in time. And now they have free publicity too.
I am not MS-head, but from what I gather, the MSDN works just fine under normal load.
Re:Funny way to turn the pirates over to their sid (Score:1, Interesting)
The Crystal Ball (Score:2, Interesting)
If there is so much interest for the RC then it seems that Windows 7 will be VERY successful!
Windows 7 can already claim a 0.21% share of the desktop or about 1/5 that of Linux, all flavors. Operating System Market Share [hitslink.com]
Just a tad embarrassing for the geek should the RC overtake Linux over the next thirteen months.
I would like to see an XP VM in all OEM consumer versions of 64 bit Win 7.
That kind of double whammy - have your cake and eat it too - in the home and SOHO markets would be very tough to beat.
Development models don't interest users. Programs interest users.
The Mac-app can have a distinctive identity.
iWorks. iEverything-Else.
The Linux app is The GIMP, "the next best thing" for the guy who can't afford Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro and it has already been ported to Windows.
Windows is the software mega-mall and that counts for more than apt-get.
Re:The OS isn't dead and all your data is intact.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes you can, but they strongly recommended against it. It tried it, and it worked on one out of three machines.
And the machine where it worked on, strange issues have cropped up.
So the recommendation to do a clean reinstall should be taken seriously.