These are the best instructions I’ve found so far for getting a Windows 7 beta product key, courtesy of Windows 7 News:

1. Install the Check4Change Firefox extension.
2. Sign in to Microsoft Technet with your Windows Live account.
3. Go to the Windows 7 beta 32-bit key or Windows 7 beta 64-bit key sites.
4. You’ll see an error page: The site is currently experiencing technical difficulties, please check back in the next business day. Select the error text, right-click on it, select Check4Change, Custom…, Refresh and check every 5 seconds.
5. The page will start refreshing every 5 seconds until the content changes.
6. Go watch a movie or something. Come back in a couple of hours. With luck, the page will have stopped reloading and will be displaying your product key and download link. If not, keep trying.

It took me about an hour of reloading to get the key, but it definitely worked for me. However, yesterday I was able to get as far as registering and confirming my email before Microsoft took down the beta download page, so it’s possible that this won’t work if you didn’t get that far, but it’s worth giving it a shot if you want to try the beta.

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