8.1 preview

As many users are well aware, made available for download last weeka public customer preview of 8.1.But what about those wanting/needing 8.1 Enterprise, the version of 8.1 that -- like its 8 predecessor -- will be available to those with enterprise volume licensing agreements with ?The 8.1 Enterprise Preview isn't available to testers yet. officials are saying that it will be"in the coming weeks."Once the Enterprise preview is available, users running 8 Pro, 8 Pro with Media Center and 8 Enterprise will be able to move to it, according toan article on TechNet.As officials disclosed previously, RT and 8 users who opt to test the 8.1 preview should expect theywill have to reinstall their appliions (both Metro-Style and Win32 ones) when moving to the final build of 8.1later this summer/fall once it has been relsed to manufacturing. Here's 's reminder, from a posting on the Springboard Series blog, about that fact:

also relsed late last week someother enterprise-focused tools that may help those installing the 8.1 preview: Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for 8.1 Preview, which includes new versions of PE, the User State Migration Tool, the Appliion Compatibility Toolkit, and many other core deployment tools. Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2013 Preview, the tool allowing enterprises to automate the crtion and deployment of 8.1 and rlier OSes.System Center 2012 Configuration Manager R2 Preview, which adds support for 8.1 OS deployment, software distribution, and more.Beta availability of two Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) products that will support the 8.1 preview:User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) 2.0 and Appliion Virtualization (App-V) 5.0 SP2.In other public preview news, alsomade available recentlya preview of its Server 2012 R2 Essentials small-business serverand the Server Essentials Experience server role for the Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter edition. (The new server role runs in a virtual machine on Azure.) TheServer 2012 R2 Essentials server can be downloaded here.