Download Windows 8 Free Consumer Preview (Public Beta)

It’s not been a long time when Microsoft released a free Developer Preview build of its upcoming OS “Windows 8” to public. We all were pretty much excited to give it a test drive. Some of us liked it but some of us got disappointed with it.

There are many things which have been changed or added in Windows 8 such as new “Start Screen” which has replaced the good old Start Menu in Windows 8, Microsoft Office 2010 like Ribbon UI in Windows Explorer and many other things.

Today Microsoft has released a free Consumer Preview build of Windows 8 to public. You may consider it as a public Beta build, Microsoft has decided to call it as Consumer Preview build.

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Windows 8 Consumer Preview is available in English, Chinese (Simplified), French, German, and Japanese.

Windows_8_New_Logo.png

Since its a beta build, you should get better performance and lesser bugs compared to the previous Developer Preview build.

There are many noticeable changes in this Consumer Preview build such as removal of Start button, a little bit modified Ribbon UI in Windows Explorer, new login screen, better Start Screen, etc.

Interested people can download Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Beta) build using following download link:

The first download link contains Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup which includes an optimized download and built-in tools for creating an ISO or bootable flash drive. Alternatively, you can download the ISO image using second link. Third link contains direct download links for all available editions of Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

The Consumer Preview of Windows 8 will expire on January 15th, 2013 so you can enjoy it for approx. one year.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup will check to see if your PC can run Windows 8 Consumer Preview and select the right download. Setup also features a compatibility report and upgrade assistance. Built-in tools for creating an ISO or bootable flash drive are available for some previous versions of Windows (excluding Windows XP and earlier).

One more thing, you can upgrade to Windows 8 Consumer Preview from Windows 8 Developer Preview, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP, but you might not be able to keep all of your files, programs, and settings.

If Windows 8 Consumer Preview setup asks for a product key at the time of installation, you can type any of following keys:

NF32V-Q9P3W-7DR7Y-JGWRW-JFCK8
DNJXJ-7XBW8-2378T-X22TX-BKG7J

You can also download following interesting stuff about Windows 8:

Download Windows 8 Consumer Preview Product Guide

Download Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Windows 8 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Published in: Windows 8

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. Just downloading – slooowly…

    Windows 8 is Microsoft’s last roll of the dice – let’s hope Consumer Preview includes a way to permanently disable Metro on PCs/laptops

  2. Thanks, VG 🙂

    Installation was fairly painless (except for the serial part). I have most of apps I frequently used installed, drivers, and so on.

    This is on a desktop PC. One thing that I miss–there’s no Flip 3D! 🙁 Odd since there’s a video showing it working on a tablet … go figure. Obviously not a big deal, but weird nonetheless,

  3. Wow!
    You’re the best. Thanks, VG!!!
    Gonna try this on….
    Goodbye Windows 8 Developer Preview and say hello to the new one!

  4. Also there is new right-click menu when you right click on lower-left corner.
    i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss283/Technic_Squad/Windows%208%20Stuff/Right-Click.png

  5. billi gate is in center of ocean in a small boat and doesn’t know his way. And giving urine in water as windows 8.
    WINDOWS 8 @WORST TECH PRODUCT

  6. I’ll wait for Ubuntu 12.04 – I’ll wait for elementaryOS Luna – I’ll wait for Windows 8!
    2012 is an awesome year!

  7. Okay, I have a bigger problem now. I partitioned my hard drive using Aomei Partition Assistant, and then It couldn’t access windows. I installed windows 8, but it says the product key is invalid, so I can’t access the internet. Now, I have windows 8 and 7, but it says that 7 can’t be accessed. There is my old partition under D:OS, and the new, 10 gb partition under C:. I need to fix this ASAP, but I don’t know how.

  8. ^^ It seems when you partitioned using the software, you somehow modified or deleted boot partition which contains boot loader files, thats why you are unable to boot into Windows 7.

    You can boot using Windows 7 setup disk and choose System repair option.

  9. Thanks! I actually changed the active partitions, then booted again using Windows 8 Repair, which fixed both Operating Systems.

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