Vista RTM Build 6000 Leaked to Usenet

BetaNews has confirmed that a build of Windows Vista giving clear indications that it is the final release-to-manufacturing version of the operating system, appeared in .ISO form on a Usenet binaries newsgroup over the weekend, appeasing the interests of folks who can't wait just a few more days.

However, since the final release of Vista requires online activation, and no such beast exists prior to the product's launch, one can basically think of this leaked DVD image as a 60-day trial version. A crack program was supplied with the image, presumably to retrofit the OS with the "time bomb" from Vista Beta 2, which locks down the system from running sometime in March.

To verify the authenticity of the build, a BetaNews tester installed it into a non-permanent VMware environment. Absent were the usual build numbers that a beta version displays in the lower right corner. The start menu icons, the tester noted, were tweaked a bit, as well as other icons throughout the system. In the computer's Properties page, the build number reads "6000."

But there are indications elsewhere of possibly multiple builds 6000 from Microsoft, in which case, this could very well not be the latest one.

Since our VMware environment does not support sound, we could not test whether the new system sounds were on-board. The new system sounds, which were previewed last week for NPR, are shorter, softer, and feature glassy, electronic instruments as opposed to the full orchestration of Windows XP.