Windows 8 Gets 500,000 Downloads

It's likely to be months, if not more than a year, before Windows 8 goes on sale to the general public. But according to Microsoft, a preview copy of the system has already had more than 500,000 downloads.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been making several public appearances this week to coincide with the formal public unveiling of the new system at BUILD, Microsoft's conference for hardware and software developers.

Ballmer said that although there's a lot of work to do, the core of the system is finished. He said one of the main goals was to make sure that Microsoft's other services -- such as its mobile operating system, online tools such as search engine Bing, and the "cloud" edition of Office -- are smoothly integrated with Windows 8 right from the beginning.

Windows 8 Download Gets Off To Fast Start

Ballmer also revealed that a developer preview that went live for public download this week was downloaded more than half a million times in the first 12 hours of availability. It's the same version of the software that was installed on the Samsung tablet devices given to people attending the conference. (Source: slashgear.com)

Although it's publicly available, this version of Windows is really for professionals only and is designed mainly for testing how both existing and in-development applications will work on it.

The developer preview of Windows is considered a pre-beta edition, which means it's not even considered a complete operating system, let alone one that could be put on sale. It's almost certain to contain many bugs and therefore isn't suitable for everyday use.

Microsoft Warns of Windows 8 Counterfeit Copies

Anyone who decides to go ahead with the Windows 8 download is advised to only get it from the Microsoft website rather than less official sources on the web. Unofficial websites claiming to host a copy of Windows 8 may already be outdated (with more bugs), or outright bogus. Bogus copies would likely contain hidden malware (Trojans / backdoors), and thus be a major security risk.

Ballmer has also spoken to stock market analysts about the business side of Windows 8. He says that Windows will remain "front and center" in the company's attempts to grow.

According to Ballmer, not only will the new system help Microsoft catch up lost ground with portable devices, but the aim is to reverse a recent slowdown in sales of traditional desktop and laptop computers. (Source: nzherald.co.nz)