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Rant

Anybody seen the 8.1 download site?

Jun 26, 2013 2:03AM PDT

It's like MS is going well out of its way to bug its users. They said the 8.1 preview would be available today, but nobody's seen it yet. Anybody have a clue when or where to find it? I see a lot of similar questions in the answers.microsoft.com forums, but no answers yet. MS announced this a couple of MONTHS ago and now it's nowhere to be found? I can't believe it. Sad

Discussion is locked

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OK, 8.1 preview is now available - here's the link
Jun 26, 2013 3:30AM PDT

The link to download the 8.1 Preview is
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/download-preview . Bear in mind that this is a test version - the final version will not be available until September. Be sure you have a good full system backup before installing this thing and be aware that you'll need to reinstall all your applications in Sept. when the final version comes out. This version is only for adventuresome computer savvy people and should not be installed on any mission critical computer.

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Are you feeling adventurous?
Jun 26, 2013 5:59AM PDT

I have always installed the preview versions of Windows but I think I will wait until September this time. Installing all of those programs again is not an easy chore; especially concerning Office products. Are you taking the plunge??? Just curious...

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Yep, call me an adventurous one :-)
Jun 26, 2013 6:30AM PDT

I've installed 8.1 on a test computer. The install took about 2 hours, and then 50+ updates took another 1.5 hours, but I've finally gotten through that. Interestingly it reinstalled Office 2007 during the 8.1 install so I had about 3 dozen Office updates to put back on.
I was fortunate enough to have the install go smoothly and everything seems to be working. I have to say that new Start button leaves me wondering where their heads are at MS, but fortunately Classic Start still works the same. When I watch the 8.1 videos where they talk about "all the wonderful new things you can do", I just can't imagine why I'd want to do any of those things, I just want the old Start button back. Thank goodness for the likes of Classic Start and Start8!
MS has set up a new forum at
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1_pr for us adventurous folk. I see there are a number of folks there who haven't been able to get it installed due to some incompatibility with Intel graphics. Fortunately my cheap home built test PC has a Biostar mobo and AMD Athlon-II X3 CPU, and Device Manager says all my devices are OK.
My main desktop and my laptop are running Windows 7, and that's not going to change. I'm also starting to learn about Linux because I've really lost a lot of faith in MS in the last 18 mos. Sad