Windows 8 Release Preview Due in First Week of June
by Andrew Cunningham on April 24, 2012 3:00 PM ESTMicrosoft has announced that the Windows 8 Release Preview, a near-final build of the upcoming operating system, will be available to the public in the first week of June. The announcement, made onstage at Microsoft's Windows 8 Developer Days conference in Japan, confirms that Microsoft is sticking to the schedule it established during the Windows 7 development cycle: a public beta early in the year, a public release candidate in the middle of the year, and a public release in the fall.
How close the build will be to the release version of Windows 8 is unclear, though it's probable that the core OS and most important Metro apps will be more or less finalized by this point - WIndows 7 was actually released to manufacturing in July of 2009 and made available to OEMs and volume license customers not long after that, meaning that final code for Windows 7 was in some customers' hands much earlier than the October public launch. An RTM build won't be far behind the Release Preview, and as such it will be Microsoft's last opportunity to make changes in response to feedback elicited by the Consumer Preview.
We'll continue to deliver new details about Windows 8 as they are made public. In the meantime, be sure to catch up on our extensive coverage of the new operating system and its changes.
Source: Microsoft
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Ichinisan - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
I'll have to find a way to submit feedback ASAP before it's too late...damianrobertjones - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
I hear you... Tell them that they're doing an excellent job and that we love metro!SlyNine - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
I'll tell them to shove the metro crap and allow me to use it as a traditional desktop.Arsynic - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
And they'll tell you to just keep using Windows 7...because no one's forcing you to upgrade. I don't want Windows 7 on a tablet.jabber - Monday, April 30, 2012 - link
I have plenty of use for 98% of Windows 8. It's great.I just think that Metro on a desktop PC is a steaming pile of crap and I have zero use for it.
Tried quite a few of the apps and they are awful. If I could uninstall Metro and keep the rest it would be brilliant and the best Windows OS so far.
BehindEnemyLines - Tuesday, May 1, 2012 - link
I don't find it surprising that apps in the store are awful. I lot of the built-in apps are marked "App Preview." Many other apps are nothing more than alpha or beta.jabber - Tuesday, May 1, 2012 - link
Thing is that 90% of the Metro apps make no sense in a desktop environment.Why would I install different Metro apps for weather/news/finance/email etc. etc. when I can get all that already through my web browser in one place?
Oh and I don't have to swap back and forth either.
If moving from just one application to several lesser apps is the new way forward I must be the only one not taking crazy pills.
rlhunts - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
I wonder if this will upgrade the public beta, or require a fresh install. Given no real start menu or shutdown button, I'm not sure it's worth the effort!Andrew.a.cunningham - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Probably a fresh install is best, though with Win7 there was some trickery you could use to go from Beta to RC to RTM.notposting - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
I upgraded in place with the web installer from the Developer Preview to the Consumer Preview, FWIW.