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Windows 8 Release Preview Now Available To Download

Posted by timothy on from the air-conditioning-for-me dept.

MrSeb writes "Microsoft has announced the immediate availability of Windows 8 Release Preview. Unfortunately there isn't a Consumer Preview > Release Preview upgrade path — you'll have to format and perform a clean installation. After downloading the ISO, simply burn Windows 8 RP onto a USB stick or DVD, reboot, and follow the (exceedingly quick and easy) installer. Alternatively, if you don't want to format a partition, ExtremeTech has a guide on virtualizing Windows 8 with VirtualBox. After a lot of fluster on the Building Windows 8 blog, the Release Preview is actually surprisingly similar to the Consumer Preview. Despite being promised a new, flat, Desktop/Explorer UI, Aero is still the default theme in Windows 8 RP. The tutorial that will introduce new users to the brave new Start buttonless Windows 8 world is also missing. Major features that did make the cut are improved multi-monitor support — it's now easier to hit the hot corners on a multi-monitor setup, and Metro apps can be moved between displays — and the Metro version of IE10 now has a built-in Flash plug-in. There will be no further pre-releases of Windows 8: the next build will be the RTM."

3 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Linux on the desktop, now? by busyqth · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm going to buy 10 retail copies of Windows 7 so that I'll have plenty for any future needs.
    That'll show Microsoft they can't jerk me around.

  2. Re:is any desktop user going to be upgrading? by busyqth · · Score: 5, Funny

    I mean, seriously? Starting stuff from the stupid Start screen?

    It was so much better back in the day when you started stuff from the shutdown menu.

  3. Re:What? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, they sure did go out n their own with Zune. And with the WinPhone7. And with Windows, itself. Boy! That Window imaging model introduced with Vista, what a brilliant departure from Quartz!

    I think the use of touch and gestures that was an original in MS labs really schooled Apple on how to make a human interface work - after years of "struggling in the dark" over at Infinite Loop.

    Microsoft's pioneering work on App stores is also not to be overlooked.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."