If you have been keeping tabs at what Microsoft has to offer these days you will know that aside from working with Windows Phone on their mobile division, the software giant is also hard at work with the preparing their latest operating system which is Windows 8. If you have been eager to get your hands on Windows 8 and give it a spin, now is a good time because Microsoft has just officially released the Consumer Preview build of Windows 8.
So what can you expect from this new preview build of Windows 8? One of the most noteworthy enhancement includes the OS-wide spell check, a feature that is requested by many people for years now. The Start button is now replaced with something that's called "Start preview thumbnail" which shows a preview of your start screen atop an interface that enables you to cycle through your apps.
But before you download the Consumer Preview build of Windows 8, be sure that you have met the hardware requirements:
- 1 GHz or faster processor
- 1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
- 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
- DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
- 1024 x 768 minimum screen resolution
Keep in mind that you can only perform a full upgrade if you are currently running Windows 7, meaning you won’t lose your files, accounts and Windows settings. If you are running Windows XP and choose to update, you will be able to keep your files and accounts but not your Windows settings. So it might be a good idea to use dual boot or perhaps a virtual machine such as VMWare instead. Download links for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview are below.
Download Links:
Download Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO 64-bit (x64)Download Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO 32-bit (x86)
