johnhc wrote: WoodyZ, I do get the picture and it does sound pretty harsh especially when it is considered what the OP said in the first post:
Now I tried to install the Windows 8 (64 bits) trial version.
Well whether or not is sounds harsh, to be blunt, I really don't give a damn since I didn't and don't mean it in a harsh way nor am I going to coddle someone when in most cases in forums like this users are having technical issues and much of the time leave some of the most relevant technical information out of the posts. Sometimes you really just have to ignore some of the information that it not verifiable or verified technical information and or facts and nothing personal is meant by it. The bottom line really is it doesn't matter at all if a user is having an issue with any given iso image if they haven't first validated its checksum whether a DLM was used or not. While a DLM is supposed to verify the integrity I've had DLM's say the DL was successfully and the DL still be corrupt. So trust but verify is practical if not prudent use of the technology to avoid unnecessarily wasting time or having issues all because one may be starting with a bad foundation by not verifying and possibly having a corrupt image. Even when a given manufacture doesn't openly post the checksum values nonetheless they are still usually available with a Google search or even looking in the directory containing the iso image when that directory is accessible via http or ftp, etc. Even if one has to ask what the checksum value should be if they can't find it or its not available from the manufacture nonetheless enough users have downloaded it and they can at least say what the checksum is for the same file they downloaded.
When I started testing DL managers, I DLed TCPView (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx) and used it to watch the connections taking place. Using the Whois function, I found that MS uses Akamai for most of its DLs. For example, the MS Download Center uses Akamai for most of its DLs and may be unavoidable often. Enjoy, John.
I've used TCPView for as long as it been available, it a nice utility to have. Even when it looks like the only way is going to be using the Akamai DLM I've usually managed to get the direct download path and as an example for the ISO's Names and checksums I posted I used wget and direct download path to get them bypassing the Akamai DLM at the time I downloaded them.