REDMOND, Wash. — May 31, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the Windows 8 Release Preview, the next milestone of the highly anticipated Windows 8 operating system. Available for download today in 14 languages at http://preview.windows.com, the Windows 8 Release Preview delivers a fast and fluid experience, along with a new user interface that responds equally well to touch as it does to keyboard and mouse. Since the February release of Windows 8 Consumer Preview, which

Microsoft appears to be taking steps to remove legacy code from its Windows 8 operating system that will prevent modifications and hacks to re-enable the Start button and Start Menu. Windows watcher Paul Thurrott reports that the company has been "furiously ripping out" legacy code in Windows 8 recently that lets third parties bring back the Start button, Start Menu, and other legacy parts of the desktop interface. Thurrott claims that several well-known UI hacks that enabled the Start Button in

yesterday Neowin blogged about a post that was made on the MSDN blogs about the release of Windows 8 Release Preview today, May 31st.     In anticipation of the availability of those files later today, i'm posting the download links here:   Windows 8 Release Preview: Download here Windows 8 Driver Kit: Download here Visual Studio 2012 Professional: Download here   cheers niall

Summary: There are more than 300 new features coming in Windows Server 2012. One worth noting is Hyper-V Replica. Here’s why. I’m taking a couple weeks off before the busiest part of Microsoft’s 2012 kicks into full gear. But never fear: The Microsoft watching will go on while I’m gone. I’ve asked a few illustrious members of the worldwide Microsoft community to share their insights via guest posts on a variety of topics — from Windows Phone, to Hyper-V. Today’s entry is all about Hyper-V Repli

Trends that influenced the design of Windows 8   As we started planning the user experience of Windows 8 in mid-2009, just around the time of Windows 7 RTM, we looked around and took note of some of the trends playing out around us. This was a pre-iPad world, a world before the recent proliferation of new form factors and device types. And although more than 93% of PCs run some version of Windows today, it was clear even then that the world we lived in and people’s expectations of computing d

Summary: Microsoft’s decision to remove support for playing DVD movies in Windows 8 has caused some confusion. If the VLC media player can provide DVD support for free, why can’t Microsoft? For starters, Microsoft isn’t French. Microsoft announced this week that Windows 8 will not support playback of DVD movies unless you explicitly add software that supports that feature. The economic reasons for doing so are compelling (see Microsoft’s follow-up FAQ for details), but it’s also a potentially

While it's technically a regression, and while it will surely make those of us who remember having to install DVD support on Linux from third-party repositories smile, it's still a major change and a sign of things to come: Windows 8 will ship without support for DVD and Blu-ray playback.   Back in the day, you had to manually enable DVD playback after installing Linux. Distributions based out of the US were unable to include the required libdvdcss (or libdvdcss2), so users had to manually ins

System Center 2012 was released was released yesterday and as a result all System Center 2012 products are available now! You can read more about the Microsoft Private Cloud here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/new.aspx and you can download the Microsoft Private cloud Evaluation software form the TechNet Evaluation Center: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh505660.aspx     Microsoft also created a System Center 2012 track on Microsoft Virtual Academy. Currently the