Operating systems come and go, but Windows has been a mainstay in the computing world for decades - with the release of Windows 8, they're hoping that the OS remains near the top of the heap.
Announced overnight was a developer preview of the x64 build of their latest operating system, which comes with the new 'Metro' theming as well as developer-specific tools to build applications for the new framework.
The 'Metro' interface, as shown in the first 'Building Windows 8' video.
The download totals 4.8GB for the full-fat version, or 3.6GB and 2.8GB for the x64 and x86 builds without the tools.
Microsoft claim: "Windows Developer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows Vista and Windows 7", suggesting that the optimisations claimed for the OS are indeed working some magic.
While the Windows 8 Developer Preview can be installed over a current installation of Windows 7, we'd recommend you throw it on an empty partition or virtualise it, as preview builds are not always 100% stable.
Grab the download from Microsoft's servers [via Engadget]
