Microsoft on Thursday announced the availability of its Windows 8 Release Preview. The near-final build is offered in 14 different languages and is the final pre-release before the operating system is sent to manufacturing partners. The Preview includes Internet Explorer 10, support for Adobe Flash and new Windows 8 apps for connecting to Hotmail, SkyDrive and Messenger, among others. “Since our first preview release last September, millions of people now use the pre-release product on a daily basis and millions more have been taking it through its paces, totaling hundreds of millions of hours of testing,” the company wrote on its blog. “We genuinely appreciate the effort that so many have put into pre-release testing, and of course, we appreciate the feedback too. Direct feedback and feedback through usage contributed to hundreds of visible changes in the product and tens of thousands of under-the-hood changes.” Microsoft’s latest operating system is rumored to launch in October in three different versions, Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and the ARM-friendly Windows RT.
Windows 8 Release Preview now available
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