Microsoft Caught off Guard by Windows 7 Beta Popularity

By Greg McNevin

January 12, 2009: The public release of Microsoft’s much-anticipated Windows 7 Beta has undergone a few hiccups, with Microsoft’s servers straining under an unexpectedly large surge in demand.

After suffering an early leak onto the BitTorrent networks, the official Windows 7 Beta became available on January 9th, although only briefly at first. The release was delayed due to Microsoft’s servers being unable to cope with overwhelming demand for the follow up to the much-maligned Vista, and many downloaders were unable to reach the site.

Microsoft delayed the release to add infrastructure to deal with the spike in traffic, noting on the official Windows 7 blog that "[d]ue to an enormous surge in demand, the download experience was not ideal, so we listened and took the necessary steps to ensure a good experience."

While anticipation for the new OS is high, the overwhelming demand for the beta code could at least partially be put down to Microsoft announcing that it was putting a cap of 2.5 million on downloads – a figure it has now relaxed until January 24.

The beta can be downloaded from Microsoft’s Windows 7 page.

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