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Re: [News] Windows Vista CD's Up for Grabs (Free*), Most Bloated O/S Ever?


"Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1742998.VcUgi4tvH8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Windows Vista for Guinness World Records 2006

,----[ Quote ]
| The final retail version of Windows Vista is nowhere in sight yet but
| the beta version of Window Vista has already set a world-record on the
| internet.
|
| Windows Vista Beta 2 Installer, which is an ISO file of about 3.5 GB,
| has become the largest downloaded software in the history of Internet.
`----

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/06/windows-vista-for-guinness-world.html

The above link goes to a blog, who then links to Guinness. At the guinness page linked to, I didn't see any reference to largest downloaded software. I was hoping to find one because Guinness typically tries to formally define exactly what they're measuring.


The phrasing makes it sound like they are measuring the size of the software itself, in which case Vista certainly is not the biggest. I'd have to do some research to find out what the biggest I've ever seen was, but I'm pretty sure I have some games at home which take up 2 single layer DVDs (a single layer DVD holds 4.7GB of data, so obviously the game must take at least that much, or else they would have just put it on one DVD).

A very quick torrent search showsme that the ISO file for "Final Fantays VII: Dirge of Cerberus" for the PS2 is listed as 3.51GB, which may or may not be bigger than Vista, due to insufficient precision.

I suspect instead, they're measuring something like "size of software times number of downloads" or "number of bits actually transferred through the wire due to a user wanting to download the software, but minus any overhead due to the protocol being used to download the software" or "number of bits the Microsoft servers report as having sent" or something like that.

If they're trying to approximiate "How much of the Internet's bandwidth is being clogged up", surely they should take into account the duration of the time period over which the downloads are taking place, and perhaps the "inflation" of bandwidth over time (i.e. there are more highspeed users now than 5 years ago).

- Oliver


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