Having downloaded and installed Windows 7 Beta back in January, I was eager to try the new Release Candidate 1. What a long strange trip it’s been…

Evidently the only way to legitimately download the RC is by using the Akamai Download Manager provided by clicking on the Download button. All well and fine – but on my Intel 975XBX Quad Core machine running XP SP3 with IE8, the download manager never runs and crashes the browser.

Tried clearing the browser cache, disabling pop-ups, removing the Google toolbar, clearing the Java cache, etc.  Nothing worked.  E-mails to Akamai went unanswered. Searches on Google revealed that I’m not the only one experiencing this problem.

Finally found the workaround – went to my trusty Win2K server sitting in the corner, started up IE6 and went through the same download registration sequence and then clicked the download button. Voila – the Download Manager worked, the download started and is progressing as I write this.

I guess I’ll have to keep this older technology around for when the new magic breaks…