The executive vice president of marketing at Microsoft, Tami Reller, announced during the keynote at the Intel Developer Forum today that Windows 8.1 RTM build has been downloaded over two million times in just 24 hours. Only yesterday Microsoft announced that it was going to release the build to TechNet and MSDN subscribers, after initially deciding that the subscribers would get it at the same day as the public release, October 18th. This decision was criticized a lot by developers, Microsoft said that it had heard the criticism and seen the demand so it decided to roll out a pre-release build for them.
It was back in August when Microsoft announced that Windows 8.1 RTM build was complete, the build was leaked soon after that, initially only with Chinese language packs. Even though the build was complete, Microsoft didn’t release it to TechNet and MSDN subscribers, instead it told them to wait until general availability launch on October 18th. Since the official release yesterday, Reller says that Windows 8.1 RTM is “definitely getting a bit of chatter out there in the market place.” Developers now have ample time to work with the pre-release build before Microsoft releases the much awaited Windows update to the public.