Windows 8 RTM

Man oh man.

Windows 8 RTM works one whole HECK of a lot better than RP.

Fast. Slick. Haven’t tried it with touch just yet.

But what is this stupid Bing tile? And where are Music and Videos?

Death of the Metro Brand: Windows 8′s latest flub

Place your votes for the new version of “Metro.”

I like “Wetro” but somehow I don’t think Microsoft will agree.

C’mon over to InfoWorld Tech Watch.

Where we stand with Windows 8 – Update – RTM version HAS leaked

Several people on the Winunleaked blog have asked for periodic updates on where we stand with Windows 8. I’ve been following the blog pretty closely for some time now — it has, by far, the most reliable leaked info about Windows 8 that I know  about– so I figured I’d take some pressure off the admins at Winunleaked by periodically posting a summary of what has been reliably leaked about Windows 8.

Has Windows 8 RTM’d? Yes. Details are on Brandon LeBlanc’s post on the Windows Team Blog. In fact, Build 9200 (the RTM build) was put together on July 25.

Official dates, from Brandon:

August 15th: Developers will be able to download the final version of Windows 8 via your MSDN subscriptions.

August 15th: IT professionals testing Windows 8 in organizations will be able to access the final version of Windows 8 through your TechNet subscriptions.

August 16th: Customers with existing Microsoft Software Assurance for Windows will be able to download Windows 8 Enterprise edition through the Volume License Service Center (VLSC), allowing you to test, pilot and begin adopting Windows 8 Enterprise within your organization.

Does anybody outside MS have a copy of Win8 RTM? Yes. The RTM build has gone out to at least some major hardware manufacturers.

There’s also a leaked, good X64 Win8 Enterprise N copy, compliments of Wzor, which will install without a key, according to Canouna.

NAME: MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.8.ENTERPRISE-N.RTM.X64.VOLUME.ENGLISH.NON-BOOTDVD-SAMOVARWZ

BUILD: 9200.16384.WIN8_RTM.120725-1247

9200.16384.120725-1247_x64fre_enterprisen_en-us_VL_EnterpriseN-NONBOOT_DVD.rar

SIZE: 3,009,678,501 byte 

SHA-1: 06E84C99BB14949443018DC4E6447A7501BD25E4

MD5: B70FE9CDE8B3C5E7E360660F64F8FF58 

The usual admonitions apply: be VERY careful and triple-check anything you download. 

When will we get copies? Most of us are probably best off waiting for the posts on MSDN or TechNet sites. I was surprised to read that VLSC customers will get the bits one day after MSDN and TechNet.

What about keys? Ay, there’s the rub. Win7 and earlier installed without keys, or with 30-day keys. Vista and Win7 could be re-set for up to 120 days of use without a key. Not so Win8: the installer requires you to have a key, or Win8 won’t install – except for the Enterprise version. There are people actively working on cracks, but nobody knows if they’ll succeed, or how the keys will be genned.

Online upgrades? Not even a clue. The RTM build is distributed as an ISO, which may or may not correspond to the System Builder edition of Windows 8. Haven’t heard a thing about online upgrades. Windows RT? You gotta be kidding – nobody outside MS has seen anything resembling Windows RT, except in very short, carefully controlled circumstances.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Windows 8 and Windows RT.

I have a snapshot of the rollout process in the latest Windows Secrets Newsletter.

I’ll update this post as new information comes out. I’d like to thank the people who have asked for a summary of this info — MichelZ, and others, great idea, guys — and hope that this takes some of the pressure off the Winunleaked admins.

I’ll have much more information about the Windows 8 unveiling in Windows Secrets Newsletter this Thursday, and ongoing coverage as real news (as opposed to unattributed speculation!) breaks on InfoWorld Tech Watch. And I’ll update this site as the rumors keep changing.