According to Microsoft, Windows 7 Beta is officially nothing short of a recently published download. Fact is that, while the public release of the first fully-fledged Beta for Windows 7 is yet to go live, the Beta bits have been offered via MSDN and TechNet since December 2008, and also leaked and made available for download via BitTorrent websites at the end of the past year. Windows 7 Beta is featured under the “Recently Published Downloads” section of TechNet China, which is the proper translation of the section label into English, even though Google Translate interprets the text as “released in the near future to download.”

The Windows 7 Beta mention is only displayed on the Chinese version of the TechNet Evaluation Center (via Neowin), and not on the English version, or on the Chinese and English variants of the MSDN Evaluation Center. However, the Windows 7 Beta reference on TechNet Evaluation Center China is not all that new, but it certainly did not pop up on January 5, 2009.

A search via Google cache reveals that the Chinese TechNet Evaluation Center was advertising the Windows 7 Beta as early as January 1, 2009, and, in this context, there is little connection between the Beta build and the January 5 deadline, when the January 2009 Quarterly Update Kits (which come with Windows 7 Beta as a download) are scheduled to start shipping.

Furthermore, in December 2008, Microsoft offered Windows 7 Beta via MSDN and TechNet to subscribers. The builds were subsequently leaked and made it to torrent websites just in time for Christmas. At this point in time, the leaked Windows 7 Beta Build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400 can be grabbed by any user with a BitTorrent client. It remains to be seen whether Build 7000 will indeed be the Windows 7 Beta, or if Microsoft will deliver a higher build number, since the company has already moved past Build 7000 with version 7004, which reportedly belongs to the Release Candidate branch.

However, at the end of December 2008, Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, hinted that, indeed, Build 7000 was the Windows 7 Beta. “Like many places we’ve spent the past few weeks under quite a bit of snow, which is pretty unusual for Seattle! Most of us on the team took advantage of the snow time to install test builds of Windows 7 on our home machines, as we finalize the beta for early 2009—I know I felt like I installed it on 7000 different machines. We’re definitely looking forward to seeing folks kick the tires on the beta when it is available. For more information on the beta, please stay tuned to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7, which is where we will post information about participation,” Sinofsky stated. (emphasis added)