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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."

4 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Ok, Sherlock, your mystery is not a, uh, mystery. by trifish · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Despite being promised a new, flat, Desktop/Explorer UI, Aero is still the default theme in Windows 8 RP

    All right, only they didn't promise the new UI for pre-release versions. They explicitly said it will be in RTM.

  2. Re:Posting with it now... by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    look, i'm writing this from a machine running a canonical OS, but if you think people are going to view windows 8 as a reason to go to linux, i think you're in a pipe dream. they're going to view windows 8 as a reason to stick with windows 7.

  3. Re:What? by Columcille · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Have you used Win8? Does your opinion differ? I tested the consumer preview and was astonished that Microsoft would consider this a serious OS for most people. They have made a terrible mistake, as most reviewers note.

    I'm not someone to bash Microsoft whenever they come up. They've had good software and bad software, made good moves and bad moves, and Windows 8 strikes me as solidly in the bad move, bad idea column. I keep thinking they must have something else up their sleeve.

    --
    I love my sig.
  4. Re:What? by Entropius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A couple of hours isn't enough time to decide that something is conclusively good, but it is enough time to be convinced that something is crap.