Amazon UK: Windows 7 is the largest pre-order product ever

Windows 7 has trounced sales of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in the UK, becoming Amazon's biggest pre-order product of all time. According to Amazon's UK branch, Microsoft's new operating system has sold more copies in the first eight hours of being available for purchase than Vista did during its entire pre-order period. Windows 7 has topped expectations all around, and with the official debut slated for the 22, things are only getting started.

Microsoft hopes to sell some 14 million copies of Windows 7 to UK customers next year, or about one for every four people -- quite the ambitious outlook, considering the number of illegitimate beta testers. Redmond says there were about 15 million beta testers, and only 8 million users actually signed up to participate while the rest presumably snagged Windows 7 from a torrent site. No matter the number of systems illegally running Windows 7, it's shaping up to be a very successful product.