Microsoft’s Build conference is not too far away. At this conference, which takes place later this month, Microsoft will release a public preview of its upcoming Windows update called Windows 8.1. Since last week the company has started sharing details about this update. The company has now shared how they’ll be rolling out the public preview and final Windows 8.1 update to users> They’ve already confirmed that current Windows 8 and Windows RT users will get this update for free.
Senior Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, Michael Niehaus, said that when Windows 8.1 preview becomes available, Windows RT and Windows 8 users will be sent a Windows Update notification. That update will cause new information to come up in Windows Store, there users will be able to read descriptions and decide to either install or not install the public preview. When the final Windows 8.1 update is released, after release to manufacturing or RTM build, users who had downloaded the preview will get the same update notification once again. All data and accounts will be preserved, but users will have to re-install their apps when they install the final Windows 8.1 update. If testers decide to roll back to Windows 8 after installing the 8.1 preview, they’ll have to re-install apps when upgrading to Windows 8.1 RTM. Microsoft has offered a detailed first look of this upcoming update, which also comes with native fingerprint reader support.
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