Windows 8 Consumer Preview, official beta of Windows 8 is ready for download. Anyone can try to install the new OS for free and you can find out what the next generation of operating system from Microsoft Windows will offer you.
Windows 8 is the first version of Windows designed for laptop systems and traditional PC with mouse and keyboard, adding to the list of supported devices and tablet category, while enhancing system functionality on any PC equipped with touchscreen.
The classical interface in Windows 7 is available on Windows 8, but is now on the second plan, leaving the place for a new modern interface inspired by the theme of Windows Phone 7. The new interface is called Metro and is designed to specific touch screen tablets, but can be covered fairly successfully using an ordinary mouse and keyboard.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview is the almost complete version of Windows 8. Basic functionality, structure and appearance of the new Windows interface have reached an advanced stage of development, which leaves room only for performance optimizations and bug fixes, but without significant changes in the set of facilities available. We can say therefore that Windows 8 Consumer Preview is representative for how the final Windows 8 will look like.
Before proceeding with installation, you better check if your PC meet the system requirements for Windows 8:
- 1 GHz processor
- 1 GB of RAM memory (for 32 bit version) and 2 GB (for 64 bit version)
- at least 16 GB capacity for your hard disk
- video card compatible with DirectX 9 API and WDDM 1.0 specifications
