Will '7' be Windows' Lucky Number?

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Testers who were able to successfully download and install what promises to be the largest public beta in Windows’ history – Windows 7 — have hit their share of minor snags so far, with emphasis on the “minor” part.

It’s fair to say that Microsoft’s TechNet forums for Windows 7 beta testers have been busy, with posts by users with problems as well as responses from other users trying to help.

Those problems include mostly minor incompatibilities. Some, while not impacting a lot of users, though, are more serious. For instance, a few users reported problems getting Firefox to run correctly, although most of the posts on that topic were users reporting positive experiences.

Meanwhile, a handful of testers complained on Symantec community forums about problems making the company’s antivirus products work with the beta – although Symantec officially does not support its products on Windows 7 until it exits testing and the final version ships.

In fact, overall, the process appears to be going overall fairly smooth now. The only real rough patch was meeting the demand on Friday.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) servers were so overwhelmed even before the Windows 7 public beta was slated to be posted on Friday. A crush of traffic even before the beta build was released forced Microsoft to deploy more servers than originally planned, which ultimately delayed the program’s start until Saturday.

“I just want to follow up from yesterday to let you know that Windows 7 beta bits are now live,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an e-mail to InternetNews.com on Saturday.

Additionally, Microsoft removed the 2.5 million download limit it had initially set as the upper limit for the beta test, due to the seemingly huge pent up demand for Beta 1.

Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows product management, told InternetNews.com last Thursday that the Windows 7 public beta would be the largest Windows beta test ever.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.