Microsoft today has released a developer preview of Windows 8 to the public for all to download on its site. The developer preview is available in three different versions. A package with developer tools, just the developer preview alone and one that runs on 32-bit computers.
Upgrades from Windows 7 are not supported, only clean installs which further indicates that this is a release not meant for production, as Steven Sinofsky puts it. It is also not a beta release of Windows 8.
Microsoft has posted some minimum requirements for those interested in trying out the new Developer Preview:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (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
Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch
Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch
If you’re going to be installing the DP on a machine running Windows 7 or Vista, you should be able to keep all of your accounts, files and settings, but if you’re loading up the version that comes with developer tools, you can only perform a clean install. Windows XP users can keep accounts and files, but not settings.
You can also sign up for the Live Connect preview that will allow you to test Windows 8′s new single sign-on features with Windows Live accounts and tools like SkyDrive, Hotmail and Messenger.
