Microsoft releases a Windows 8 developer preview

SOFTWARE REDEVELOPER Microsoft's Windows 8 Developer Preview is now available to download from the Windows Dev Centre, the company's Windows division VP Steven Sinofsky said at its Build conference yesterday.

According to The INQUIRER's sister IT news web site V3.co.uk, Sinofsky said it will be easy for coders to create software for Windows 8.

The developer preview consists of the Windows 8 code plus a copy of Visual Studio 11 Express, Expression Blend 5, an SDK and a selection of sample Metro-style apps to showcase the development possibilities of the new operating system.

Sinofsky said during his keynote speech that the developer preview release is still early code, and he would not give a projected shipping date for the finished Windows 8 release.

"We're going to be driven by quality and not by a date," he said, adding that a beta release will be the next milestone, followed by a release candidate and then release to manufacturing.

Microsoft has also confirmed that it will launch an online applications store to complement Windows 8. It claims that this will offer a safe way to download new applications while making it easier for developers to bring their apps to market.

The Windows Store will "represent a place we can get applications with confidence and feel safe about letting those apps onto our machines", Windows Engineer Aleš Holeček said at the Build conference.

There will be an automated checking procedure that applies security and technical compliance tests when developers upload applications.

The Windows 8 applications store also includes a flexible licensing policy system that allows developers to specify the price they want and whether they wish to offer a fixed-term free trial.

Statistics on the number of downloads, how many lead to purchases, and application use rates will also be available, as well as uploaded telemetry on exceptions, or crashes, so that developers can see what is going wrong and improve their code.

Sinofsky revealed that the sample applications were actually developed from scratch by Microsoft interns during the summer to illustrate how simple the company believes it will be to create software using its Metro-style platform tools.

According to V3, developers at the Build conference have greeted Microsoft's Windows 8 news with enthusiasm. If this reflects the attitude of Windows developers in general then it seems that Microsoft won't be short of application support when it eventually ships Windows 8. µ