They announced the public Windows 7 Beta wuld be up for download today with "only" 2.5 million download slots in total. But they didn't specify a time. The sheer amount of people wanting to get in has completely destroyed microsoft.com, and because people don't know they time they continually refresh which makes the problem about 10x worse.

Microsoft has made a mistake by doing this Beta, IMO... I think something that has been in development for only.. what... 2-2.5 years is very raw... people might get turned off.

Yea, shouldn't they have waited like another year before doing this beta?

From what I've read, it's actually more stable than Vista. This is because it doesn't actually add any big features - it's Vista with bugfixes. At full price of course.

I think all microsoft OS's are just bug fixes and visual updates. I dont think they have ever had a product fully finished before it was released for purchase.

Mac OS X and Linux are just as bad in many respects. Look at all of those Leopard updates in rapid succession to fix last-minute bugs. Look at the large number of Ubuntu SRUs released after a major release. Building an OS is hard and there are always delays and unfinished features. Microsoft's OSs may be badly designed compared to others, but the huge amount of Vista-bashing after its release based on UAC and driver bugs weren't well founded. The poor performance was, though.

I have heard a lot of positive news about Windows 7 already, which is great for me as I have always and still hate Vista. Ubuntu is great but with the amount of work I have to do from home and the VPN connectivity issues Ubuntu has had for me, the next version of Windows is basically the only solution for me, so I am very excited.

ya. a downlaod limit on the site... what stops torrents?

I wasnt bashimg MS I always purchase thier new OS's completed or not. I use Visata on every machine I have at home + Work, I also have this on both laptops. MS will always get my money for an OS.

I'll probably just wait till Windows 7 before moving on from XP because I love the number 7. I hope they don't change the name.