Windows 8 Public Consumer Preview Beta is Live

From DailyTech: Windows 8 Consumer Preview (a beta build) is now officially live on Microsoft's servers, so get ready for the rush. Travel here to get it.

Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky at the unveil event stated, "We are really excited to be here. This is a day that's been long in coming for the Windows team. I just got a picture of the operations center where they're getting ready for the downloads. They've been up since 3 AM."

Let's hope they're ready -- in 2009 a similar beta of Windows 7 saw so much demand that it crashed Microsoft's servers. It was all for a good cause, though -- the beta process found and fixed 2,000 bugs in Windows 7 and proved a key part of its record-smashing commercial success. Microsoft hopes to recapture that success with Windows 8.

Microsoft has published a guide for business. It suggests how business can put Windows 8 on a USB stick for quick and painless managed boots at remote locations. Given current USB stick capacities have reached 128 GB, it shouldn't be hard to squeeze a managed copy of Windows 8 on there, space-wise.

Microsoft's business guide also brags about SmartScreen Application Reputation, a feature that screens downloads. When you go to open a download, if it is a suspect file type and not from a trusted source a warning is given suggesting the user to abort.

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