Windows 8 Developer Preview Available to All

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Microsoft kicked off their Build conference today with a keynote hosted by Steven Sinofsky. Sinofsky showed off a whole lot of Windows 8: apps, hardware, APIs, you name it. If you are interested in watching it yourself, the on-demand stream should be available soon at http://www.buildwindows.com/.

Being a developer conference, it was widely assumed that Microsoft would be handing out a developer preview at the conference, but it was also widely assumed that Microsoft would not be making the developer preview publicly available. As it turns out, Microsoft has decided to invite everyone to the party.

The Windows 8 Developer Preview will be made publicly available starting at 8:00pm Pacific Time (03:00 GMT, 9/14/2011). You can download your ISOs at http://dev.windows.com.

Now I know that this version does not include Media Center, but I am sure that many of you are like me and just generally looking forward to trying out the new bits. Do keep in mind that this is a developer preview. It will have bugs, it will break, and you are pretty much on your own with it.

In other words: Have Fun!

  • Looks like a lot of people

    Looks like a lot of people will be burning the midnight oil tonight!

  • A have a very strong

    A have a very strong suspicion that Media Center will just be an app on the Windows Store instead of being included in Windows 8. That’ll mean it can get updated separate from the OS (perhaps faster development cycles and more features more often than every 3 years!)

  • This is just the sort of

    This is just the sort of thing VMs are for. I’ve got VirtualBox primed and ready.

  • I recently reset my personal

    I recently reset my personal machine and left an extra partition in anticipation.  I’m gonna bleary-eyed tomorrow.

  • Can anyone confirm if WMC is

    Can anyone confirm if WMC is in these builds?

    I downloaded both 32 and 64 bit versions and plan on testing their statement that Win 8 is leaner than 7 and will run on first gen Atom procs.

  • Hmmm, after reading a few

    Hmmm, after reading a few threads it looks like WMC is probalby going to stay the same and MS will push developers to create the apps going ahead. Some good points were made about an app like my movies having tiles that would show last added and such. Brian has always been good about keeping up and I would think he’d have a Windows 8 Metro apptile beta up realtively soon, few months maybe?

     

  • I know there is native ISO

    I know there is native ISO mounting support. I haven’t heard anything about BluRay. Hyper V built in is a nice addition also.

    • Check out richard1980’s post.

      Check out richard1980’s post. It’s the link that you want to follow.

  •  Wait! Did I see native HD

     Wait! Did I see native HD and Blue-Ray support? That would be cool. If so, there would probably an lot more updates for Blu-Ray support than TMT5 and PowerDVD. It would probably make for more stabiliy in playback also, as it would be part of the opperating system without the add ons.

  • From the 30 minutes or so I

    From the 30 minutes or so I spent last night in the Metro interface, I have to say I hate it. I could not find a back button on most of the apps. So it didn’t seem Kinect or mouse friendly. I usually had to click the start button to get out. So this release seems to be strictly for the tablet developers who would have a home or back button to use. I might find use for it on a second display and could monitor the tiles for updated info on weather and RSS feeds i set up.