The Windows 8 Consumer Preview version has been out for almost a month now but Microsoft is still busy working on the OS in preparation for its next phase, the Release Candidate version. Now a new report claims that it has a time table on when the RC version will be offered to the public.
The Release Candidate is supposed to be better than the Consumer Preview, due to it being a later build and all. It makes sense to at least try it out before assuming how it will be.
According to some rumors on WinUnleaked.tk, via unnamed sources, the Release Candidate version of Windows 8 will be launched by Microsoft sometime in late May or early June. That would seem to be consistent with the other rumors that Microsoft will launch the final version of Windows 8, for both the x86 and ARM processors, sometime in October.
Windows 8 Release Candidate Changes:
From the User Interface side, some light changement for the Charm bar, Language input menu, Internet Explorer 10 (Desktop version), a bunch of color set, etc.…
It also notes that the Customer Experience Improvement Program feature that allows Windows 8 users to send their opinions about the OS to Microsoft is actually disabled by default. You can see a screenshot of that Improvement Program running in Windows 8 above.
Ok, the multiple colours (green, pink, and black) in the above screenshot looks a bit odd, but we will whenever RC arrives I suppose.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview looks for me like technology preview. Unbelievable that the status going to nearly finished.
As I know, when Microsoft releases a Preview, it is always nearly feature complete. They have never made a substantive change during the preview to RC to RTM cycle.
Windows 8 could just be released for tablets/touch and not for desktops and they'd still accomplish their mission. But the easiest fix is to make Metro optional for desktop installations, like Windows Media Center, etc.
Here is what Windows has done:
Windows 3.0 - not so good (but a good technology showcase)
Windows 3.1 – Good
Windows 3.11 FWG - hard to rate, but improved... but had issues
Windows 95 - Great!
Windows 98 – Buggy
Windows 98 SE - Pretty solid...
Windows ME - Horrible (but good ideas, poorly executed)
Windows XP - Failure till SP1
Windows Vista - Failure till SP2
Windows 7 - Great!
Windows 8 – ?
Although 2000 wasn't considered to be a consumer OS it was the first version that wouldn't take down the whole OS because of an errant app. NT 4 whilst not as flacky as 95/98 in that respect still wasn't great. Which is probably why XP was based on Win2K.
XP was good, but never forget the first 3 years of Windows XP where there were viruses coming out of the woodwork? What about Blaster and Sasser? People seem to forget that because of the security improvements that came with Service Packs and then in Windows Vista.
What ever, there is certainly a group of users that don't like Windows 8 (or just Metro), but the scale of it is quite questionable. also Vista was a good OS, people were just complaining because of changes in UI and refused to adapt and understand the changes. the problem was, that it's been around 5 years between XP and Vista and because of disappointment after so long waiting people could as well switch to the Mac for example (and so some of them did).
Now it's just 3 year difference between good stable OS and a new one with changes that conservative people hate so much. on other hand, it might sell really well with tablets and I think just that alone is good enough with Microsoft for now.
