Microsoft Build: Windows 8 preview now available

ANAHEIM: Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky received an enthusiastic reception from the developer audience at the Build conference as he announced a preview release of Windows 8 and detailed how easily coders will be able to create software for the new platform.

The Windows 8 Developer Preview is now available to download from the new Windows Dev Center, and Microsoft provided each attendee at the conference with the software pre-loaded on a Samsung tablet to aid with development work.

Sinofsky said during his keynote speech that the developer preview release is still early code, and declined to name a date for when the finished Windows 8 may eventually ship.

"We're going to be driven by quality and not by a date," he said, adding that a beta release will be the next milestone, followed by a release candidate and release to manufacturing.

The developer preview consists of the Windows 8 code plus a copy of Visual Studio 11 Express, Expression Blend 5, an SDK, and a selection of sample Metro-style apps to showcase the development possibilities of the new platform.

Sinofsky revealed that the sample apps were actually developed from scratch by Microsoft interns during the summer, to illustrate how simple the company believes it will be to create software using the new Metro-style platform tools.

The audience of about 5,000 developers reacted well to Microsoft's announcement that the new WinRT APIs enable code to be written in HTML5/JavaScript, C/C++, and/or C#/XAML, all of which are given equal footing in Windows 8.

A demonstration by Windows Web Services vice president Antoine Leblond of how to create a simple doodling application also drew applause, as did his illustration of how a few changes to some existing Silverlight code enabled it to be quickly ported into a Metro-style application taking full advantage of all the new capabilities of Windows 8.

"The bold bet we made to bring these web technologies to the platform will bring lots more web developers onboard with Windows 8," he said.

The developers also indicated vocal approval when Microsoft detailed how the new Windows Store will make it easy to get applications online and visible to all users of Windows 8, with built-in licensing controls.

If this event is anything to go by, Microsoft will have no shortage of application support for Windows 8 once the platform finally ships.