Microsoft Security Essentials beta is closed, at least temporarily

Man, that was fast.

If you wanted a copy of the Microsoft Security Essentials beta bits, you’re officially too late. MS originally said it would only allow 75,000 downloads and it looks like they hit that number in a day.

A quick visit to the download site brings up this announcement:

Alert!

Thank you for your interest in joining the Microsoft® Security Essentials Beta. We are not accepting additional participants at this time. Please check back at later a date for possible additional availability.

This has all the earmarks of a marketing ploy. We’ll see if MS relents and allows more downloads. In the interim, copies of WSE are available in a zillion places.

UPDATE: Ed Bott advises via Twitter that MSE is still available from Softpedia.