Question about retro software.

[pjwtrad67]

I have in one of my many boxes of junk around 50 CD / DVD disks of Windows 2000 and Windows XP that are labelled "Internal Microsoft Build". These would be nearly identical (build wise) to the ones we sent out to the Beta testers, with the exception of a few Windows 2000 Server disks that were unique to the Canyon Park Data Center (we were rushing to upgrade 7000 servers before Y2K and this was pre-release of W2K.) Apart from the Microsoft specific builds of W2K Server, I'm wondering if these are collectable for their very cool labels?

Anyone have any thoughts. Thanks.

 

[NeXT]

I keep a few MSDN binders for the weird beta builds and SDK's because once in a blue moon it's cool to fire up a build or get assess to Visual Studio and these might not be worth much but is a relic of an era when beta testing and development subscriptions meant bi-annual tomes of CD's being shipped to you. Beyond that however it's likely your discs unless they are especially unique will already be archived somewhere in BetaArchive's weird file archive which nobody's allowed to get completely into unless they know the secret handshake, put a red flag in a flower pot and meet a shadowy figure in an underground parking garage several nights later at a set time.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Sometimes the beta copies were sent out with time limitations. I never used one long enough to run into that, but I do have a bunch. I'm trying to recall what Release Candidate turned out to be so awful that the next CD that came out was another Beta...

I suspect that there's little or no market for the stuff, but you never know...

 

[pjwtrad67]

Sometimes the beta copies were sent out with time limitations. I never used one long enough to run into that, but I do have a bunch. I'm trying to recall what Release Candidate turned out to be so awful that the next CD that came out was another Beta...

I suspect that there's little or no market for the stuff, but you never know...

One of the advantages of being a Microsoft FTE (Full Time Employee or "Blue Badge") was your mail slot was regularly stuffed with internal stuff or freebies. I remember finding an Xbox 360 in my mail slot one morning when all the FTE's got a free unit 4 weeks before it was released).

A lot of my disks are internal Microsoft builds or tools not available to anyone outside the company. I suppose the labeled disks I have are more of interest from a historical perspective than for whats on them.

The RC you're thinking of is every other one. I think the record between internal RC releases was 18 hours after the release hosed half the MSN servers that SiteOps had upgraded the night before. It was "Interesting Times" working at Canyon Park that year, lol.