Immediately after Microsoft delivered Windows 7 Ultimate, pre-Beta Build 6801 at the Professional Developers Conference in las Vegas, at the end of October 2008, the bits were leaked and made available for download from various sources, including the top worldwide torrent websites. Product keys accompany Windows 7 Milestone 3, and are used to activate the operating system. Multiple keys for Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6801 have been leaked, and are up for grabs in the wild.

Initially, the Windows 7 bits leaked post PDC 2008 failed to offer users any chance of completing the activation process. This happened simply because Microsoft offered product keys only to the conference's participants, along with a package of goodies containing the Milestone 3 of Windows Vista's successor on a 160 GB drive. The Redmond giant served the pair of Windows 7 pre-beta releases on the original 160 GB drive, namely: Windows 7 32-bit - 6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CFRE_EN_DVD.iso and Windows 7 64-bit – 6801.0.080913-2030_Client_en-us_ULTIMATE-ULTIMATE_GB1CXFRE_EN_DVD.iso.

According to reports, the Windows 7 leaked product keys can be used to activate both the 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of the operating system. Furthermore, even though the leak occurred at the end of the past week, the keys are still valid, namely they will indeed activate successfully Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6801. Once activated, Windows 7 M3 will have its time-bomb date pushed back to January 2009.

The users who leaked one of the product keys have revealed that there is no limit to how many development milestones of the operating system can be activated. Furthermore, while there is always the possibility that Microsoft will blacklist the key, for the time being, users that have tried it report that it functions without any issues on Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6801.