Windows 7 leaks to Web, pirates downloading

Leaked copies of Windows 7 hit the Internet only hours after Microsoft Corp. handed out a preview build to developers last week, according to searches at several BitTorrent tracking sites.

The notorious Pirate Bay site, for example, first noted the 32-bit version of the upcoming operating system on Oct. 29, just one day after Microsoft unveiled Windows 7 to attendees at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. A 64-bit edition was posted the following day.

As of mid-day Sunday, with several copies of Windows 7 available, downloading was brisk. One 32-bit torrent listed on Pirate Bay showed more than 1,400 "seeders," the term for a computer that has a complete copy of the torrent file, and close to 5,300 "leechers," or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent. The 32-bit torrent installs a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, according to users commenting on the site.

Traffic on the 64-bit edition was lighter: Pirate Bay's longest-available torrent showed about 260 seeders and approximately 900 leechers.

BitTorrent sites such as Pirate Bay, Mininova and Seedpeer all listed the 32-bit version of Windows 7 as weighing in at 2.72GB, while the 64-bit edition was tagged as 3.36GB.

Microsoft talked up Windows 7 for the first time in detail last Tuesday , when Steven Sinofsky , who heads Windows development, and other company executives, presented the new OS in a keynote address and multiple technical sessions. Developers, as well as some reviewers and bloggers, were given what Microsoft dubbed "pre-beta" copies of Windows 7 later that day.

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