The 32- and 64-bit versions of the Office 2010 Beta have appeared on several peer-to-peer BitTorrent tracking sites, including Mininova.org, with the first one posted there on Tuesday. As of noon ET, the 32-bit version showed about 300 "seeders" -- the term for a computer that has a complete copy of the torrent file -- and about 150 "leechers," or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent. Approximately 2,800 copies of the 646MB file had been downloaded.

Office 2010's 64-bit edition -- the upcoming suite is the first that Microsoft will produce a version specific for 64-bit versions of Windows -- boasted 150 seeders but fewer than 50 leechers. More than 1,400 copies of the 710MB file had been downloaded by mid-day.

According to Neowin.net, the Office 2010 build is tagged as 14.0.4514.1009, and requires an activation key. Users commenting on Mininova.org confirmed that the leaked beta installs and works, although many complained that they needed a product key to activate the suite so it could be used for longer than 30 days. Several others, however, offered up workarounds to sidestep activation.

Read the entire article in ComputerWorld.