Windows 8 to RTM in August, released to consumers in October

Earlier this morning at WPC '12 in Toronto, Tami Reller of Microsoft said that the release of Windows 8 is on-track for an August/October time frame. For enterprise customers and manufacturers, early August is when access will be available. Unfortunately, regular consumers will have to wait until the end of October to get their hands on a final copy of Windows 8. If you're planning on taking advantage of Microsoft's Windows 8 upgrade program, you'll also be required to wait 'till the end of October.

Some other information about Windows 8 was given, including the fact that Windows 8 will support 109 languages at launch in over 230 markets around the world. Windows 7 wasn't left out, as it was announced that "more than 630 million Windows 7 licenses have been sold to date," and is undoubtedly "the bestselling operating system in history."

While this is all great for Microsoft, how about consumers? If you're still on the fence about Windows 8 but haven't given the free release preview a try, you can go ahead and download it here. If you're going to do that, make sure to backup your entire system (should something go wrong). Installing it to a separate drive or partition is recommended. Using the Windows 8 RP as your primary operating system is not.

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