You just name it right: Rumours! That's why I would wait till avaibility to see what really will come out and will not give any cent for those infos which are published and posted till then.
OH yes, you are right, the doomsday comet was about 65 million years ago, give or take a few million years.
Windows 8 was available to MSDN and.....MDL with some time before public RTM.I believe that history is going to repeat now with 8.1...
There would only be a month between the preview and general availability if Thurrott's date is correct, not much time for msdn releases! That's one of the reasons I'm skeptical about his date.
I don't believe there is a month, when 8.1 RTM's, they need to make the upgrade part, it should be able to recognize the host win8, cross-checking with each other, performs the upgrade - it takes time to do that and to test too, for win7SP1: build tag: 7601.17514.101119-1850 release to OEM: mid Jan 2011 release to MSDN: mid-Feb. GA: late Feb. I don't know about the other stuffs, but you could still open a local account thru MMC.
Your source isn't really well informed, is he? I'm not sure about the preview, but the RTM can definitely be downloaded from the store, I'll see if I can find out more about the preview. I'm pretty sure Microsoft won't do that, you're just basing that on that one OOBE screenshot that was leaked some time ago, aren't you?
win8.1 is a whole new OS, I think presently there is only about 5% users with win8, and MS wishes all the rest to use win8.1 too, it would be quite absurd if they tell these 95% to try out win8.1 that they need to first install win8 then upgrade to 8.1. Yes, you could only open a MS account user account on installation(if on-line). But that's a possibility that it only applies to the internal test builds, guess we'll find out shortly.
They didn't say that there would be isos, but they didn't say that there wouldn't be! msdn customers need isos, and MS will most likely sell 8.1 to non-windows 8 customers like they did with windows 7 SP1, so they need isos. Also, in the TechEd session about enterprise deployment they mentioned that upgrading enterprises from windows 7 could be done using the traditional methods, they require isos too, right? I'm sure there will be isos, don't worry about it.
Nobody did ever mention the word "only". We know we will get the notification through the store, that is clear, but we don't know the way this is going to be installed and, as i said, we don't know if that is going to be the only way. So, as far as we know... we know nothing, yet.
Once again, we pretty much know the way this is going to be installed through the store, we just don't know if it is the only way.
U will be able to install the preview withut lose ur programs or files, however when u upgrade FROM the preview to the RTM u will have to reinstall all ur apps (modern apps) and also ur programs (the "desktop" ones). Upgrading from 8 to 8.1 RTM won't need any program reinstallation. Ur files are safe in any case.
Exactly, although I don't know if you can keep desktop software when upgrading from 8 RTM to 8.1 RTM (because, now that I think about it, I never actually performed an upgrade, I always did clean installs)
In the past, like with W7 > W7Sp1, I can say that I did both upgrading and clean installs. As far as I recall, all apps were kept and worked after the upgrade. Only can speak about my apps. Maybe there were situations without luck on someone's machine
You are absolutely right but you missed the very first words of my post..."So Far" that means until this very minute we only know Officially that it will come via store. Of course MS can (and will) announce that Iso's will be available but that will be in future, as of present MS didn't said that. And i hope you are now also cleared of word "only" as this word applies to this moment only not the future.
I've upgraded like that before, I was talking about for example W7>W8. That's the problem with W8.1 it's not a new OS, but it's not really a SP either, it's difficult to predict how it will behave.
Hopefully it'll act like the Vista > 7 transition,in the sense that it brings some much needed refinements for both the UI and the OS itself,while still giving the user a choice on his upgrade path - be it in-line upgrade(I'm not sure about you gents,but in my case that went without any problems) or a clean install using offline media,instead of requiring a Win 8 install,then (presumably) a 60 to 90 minute period to install the required updates before FINALLY allowing the end-user to install 8.1 :|