Windows 8 To RTM In August, Retail In October
by Ryan Smith on July 9, 2012 9:15 PM ESTOn the heels of last week’s announcement of Microsoft’s promotional Windows 8 upgrade pricing, Microsoft has announced a tentative delivery schedule for Windows 8 today at their Worldwide Partner Conference
As it currently stands Microsoft is on track to have Windows 8 reach Release To Manufacturing (RTM) in the first week of August. Retail availability will follow in turn in late October, in order to give Microsoft time to certify additional language packs and to give OEMs time to prepare Windows 8 systems. Unsurprisingly this roughly parallels Windows 7’s release schedule, which saw it go RTM in late July and hit retail in late October, which ended up working out rather well for Microsoft and their partners.
As for those of you on the inside track looking to test Windows 8, while Microsoft hasn’t announced the complete release plans for MSDN and TechNet, Enterprise Software Assurance customers are being told that they’ll have access as early as August. MSDN, TechNet, and Software Assurance typically receive software at roughly the same time, and the release of Windows 8 is widely expected to be similar.
Source: Microsoft
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
19 Comments
View All Comments
MadAd - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
Just to add to the long list of ways to shutdown your pc, most all bios these days map case keys and will do a windows compliant shutdown if you press the case buttons (one press, not the 5 second kill which also you could do). This behaviour can be controlled from (sorry win7 only) Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\System SettingsB3an - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Hope this is released on MSDN in August. Win 8 performs better than 7 at literally everything i've tested, and it gave my old laptop new life. Even on my hex-core i7 system with SSD's + 32GB RAM it's noticeably faster.SlyNine - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
You keep saying this, my computer is pretty much instant... I've tried Windows8, not impressed. Argument ad-nauseum.powerarmour - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
With a bit of luck, Intel may actually have some Cedar Trail drivers ready this time... :P, otherwise they'll be a lot of disgruntled nettop/netbook and even a few tablet owners, scratching their heads wondering why Metro apps crash.Belard - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Uh oh... I think I threw up.I'm betting only about 10~15% of the user base will like win8.
SlyNine - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
Just in case they take that choice away too.Belard - Tuesday, July 10, 2012 - link
You can count on it... the way MS is shoving Metro down our throats and ripping out code, killing off gadgets (because YOU can see live gadgets in desktop mode! really?)"METRO!! METRO!! METRO!! You are going To LOVE Windows 8 even if we have to spend $1billion to make you love it" - Ballmer
p05esto - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
You should have to research how a UI works, it should be easy enough to pick up at a glance and within just seconds. This ist the whole problem with Win8. Of course that Metro Start screen in front of the desktop that requires you to navigate to every damn time you want to launch an app is crazy. Just horrible, I won't be upgrading, I'm voting with my wallet.p05esto - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
Where's the edit button anandtech? Curse you!