Beta tests. Typically buggy, incomplete software. People excited to get it, boasting about it. Dedicating good, high-end computer hardware. It’s not something I look forward to, but I did it anyway with Windows 7.

Getting the Windows 7 beta involves an endless series of steps, a technical process you must complete before you can do the boasting and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageously incomplete code.

Your journey starts here, where you read a lot of junk and eventually find a link that takes to you to the page where you can download the software.

But wait!

You must have a Windows Live ID to continue. I don’t know why. Anyone remember the old Microsoft Passport? I wrote about it, and not kindly. That’s because I thought the universal password model was exceedingly insecure, not to mention dumb.

I have long forgotten my old Windows Passport, so sighing deeply, I signed up for a Windows Live ID, which involved my waiting for an e-mail message to reply to, convincing Microsoft that I’m a real person. (And possibly opening the door on more Microsoft spam in the future.)

Eventually, after getting my Windows Live ID (which I’ve now forgotten), I was able to log in and then get access to the very page where I could download the beta.

But wait!

That big Download Now button has lots of text before it. Part of that text is the Windows 7 Beta Product ID Key, which means you must print the page to keep the key and (eventually) use it to register the product. So, I had to turn on my printer, wait for it to warm up, then print the page so that I could lose it — I mean, use it later.

Then I clicked the big, happy Download Now button.

But wait!

You can’t just download the beta, you must download an ActiveX control that yields the Download Manager. I can’t figure this one out. In the entire universe, there are no other web sites that have you download a “download manager”; instead, you just download the dang file!. Then you run it. Simple. Microsoft is not about simple.

After downloading the ActiveX controller, which involved four extra security steps and warnings, I saw the file coming my way. Thanks to a fast Internet connection, the 2.2GB download took under an hour. I was ready to install.

But wait!

The file you download is an ISO image. On the Mac, you can mount an ISO image directly or burn it to a DVD. In Windows, you can’t do squat with an ISO image. Instead, you must use special software to burn an ISO to a DVD, which is a required step for the Windows 7 beta installation.

Being bold, I opened the ISO image and . . . the Roxio CD Creator program opened. Because it was the first time I’ve ever used that program, I had to register it. That was painless, but took time. Eventually, the ISO image was burned to a DVD.

Finally, at long last, I had my Windows 7 beta installation DVD. Next post, I’ll discuss installing the beta, which is just more “But wait” type of high tech drama.