Mark Your Calendar, Windows 8 Launches October 26th

by Joshua Gulick — Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 09:00 PM EDT

Windows 8 will be available Oct. 26th. Today, Microsoft ended months of speculation about Windows 8's launch date by announcing it at the Microsoft Global Exchange sales conference, shortly before Brandon LeBlanc broke the news to the public via the Windows blog. Microsoft gave fans a general time frame a few weeks ago, but hasn't provided an official date until now. Several news sites predicted that Oct. 25th would be the date, based on the Windows 7 launch, but Microsoft shook things up. A little.

Windows 8 Release Preview

As we noted earlier, you'll be able to upgrade for $39.99. Not every user will be counting the days to the Oct. 26th launch (after all, many people are pretty happy with older Windows versions), but if you're in that camp, be forewarned that you may find yourself needing to upgrade if you intend to move up to Office 2013. The new Office is expected to not support Windows versions older than Windows 7.

Tags: Microsoft, Windows 8, Office 2013

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.

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