{"id":3576,"date":"2013-09-24T12:30:22","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T16:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nccomputertech.com\/?p=3576"},"modified":"2013-09-24T12:30:22","modified_gmt":"2013-09-24T16:30:22","slug":"windows-8-1-offered-early-to-some-businesses-for-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2013\/09\/24\/windows-8-1-offered-early-to-some-businesses-for-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows 8.1 offered early to some businesses for testing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/2049157\/windows-8-1-offered-early-to-some-businesses-for-testing.html\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/missingfromwindows8-1_primary-100044266-gallery.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Businesses with certain Microsoft memberships and service agreements can now download the near-final version of Windows 8.1 to test with an eye toward deployment, the company says.<br \/>\nTechNet and Microsoft Developer Network members as well as businesses with volume licensing and Software Assurance agreements can download the software.<br \/>\nThe purpose of the release is for business customers to plan whether and how they will deploy the new operating system once the final version becomes generally available October 18. It was released last month to hardware vendors.<br \/>\n&#8220;Testing your operating system for compatibility with existing applications and better understanding what needs to be done to migrate your business especially for those organizations still on Windows XP is paramount,&#8221; says Erwin Visser, the general manager of Windows commercial marketing in the Windows for Your Business blog. He also encourages businesses with Windows 7 deployments to start testing, even though support for Windows 7 is not being ended as it is for XP.<br \/>\nMicrosoft has issued deployment tools to help corporate customers upgrading from earlier versions of Windows\u2014Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2013 free\u2014or System Center 2012 R2 Configuration manager. Both tools remove the old operating system, install the new one, reinstall applications and restore data and settings captured from the old operating system, Microsoft says.<br \/>\nNew in Windows 8.1<br \/>\nMicrosoft has pushed upgrades in Windows 8.1 as business-friendly features meant to improve mobile performance, management, virtualization and security demands of businesses.<br \/>\nThese include broadened VPN support, embedded wireless support, mobile hotspot technology, and Windows to Go, which enables carrying a Windows 8 machine around on a USB flash drive to run a corporate Windows 8 image on a separate machine. Remote wipe of business data is enabled as are device encryption, fingerprint authentication and antivirus software.<br \/>\nWindows 8.1 supports granting limited access to corporate resources for devices that are not domain joined while at the same time exerting some governance over them.<br \/>\nTo help decide which edition of Windows 8.1 is appropriate, Microsoft has posted a chart comparing them.<br \/>\nvia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/2049157\/windows-8-1-offered-early-to-some-businesses-for-testing.html\" target=\"_blank\">Windows 8.1 offered early to some businesses for testing | PCWorld<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Businesses with certain Microsoft memberships and service agreements can now download the near-final version of Windows 8.1 to test with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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8.1 finally overtakes Windows 8 in usage share","author":"NCCT","date":"June 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Slowly but surely, Microsoft is getting users to leave Windows 8 behind and move on to Windows 8.1. According to Netmarketshare, usage of Windows 8.1 reached 6.35 percent of the overall operating system market share in May, finally moving ahead of Windows 8, which snagged 6.29 percent. While Windows 8\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5717,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/06\/11\/windows-8-1-users-wont-receive-any-more-patches-unless-spring-update-is-installed\/","url_meta":{"origin":3576,"position":1},"title":"Windows 8.1 users won&#8217;t receive any more patches unless spring update is installed","author":"NCCT","date":"June 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Microsoft is staying true to a promise it delivered all the way back in April: Windows 8.1 users who have yet to install the Windows 8.1 Update released this spring won\u2019t be able to download today\u2019s Patch Tuesday updates\u2014or any future Patch Tuesday updates\u2014until they get around to upgrading their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6418,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/09\/11\/windows-8-1-overtakes-windows-8-worldwide-as-windows-xp-refuses-to-die\/","url_meta":{"origin":3576,"position":2},"title":"Windows 8.1 overtakes Windows 8 worldwide, as Windows XP &#8216;refuses to die&#8217;","author":"NCCT","date":"September 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Microsoft staff will likely be raising a glass or two, thanks to the latest available data. According to new data released by StatCounter on Tuesday, the latest version of Windows 8.1 has overtaken its predecessor Windows 8 for the first time, in terms of internet usage worldwide. The research firm's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/windows8-1-hero-610x343.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/windows8-1-hero-610x343.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/windows8-1-hero-610x343.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8495,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2015\/07\/28\/windows-10-installation-files-already-sneaking-onto-windows-7-and-8-pcs-pcworld\/","url_meta":{"origin":3576,"position":3},"title":"Windows 10 installation files already sneaking onto Windows 7 and 8 PCs","author":"NCCT","date":"July 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight is the night, Windows fans. Starting around midnight Eastern on Wednesday, June 29, 2015 Windows 10 will start rolling out to Windows Insider members. And if you're part of the first wave upgrading to Windows 10, your PC may already be primed for the upgrade. Some Windows Insiders are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3113,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2013\/08\/06\/windows-8-adoption-slows-boost-sought-with-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":3576,"position":4},"title":"Windows 8 adoption slows; boost sought with update","author":"NCCT","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Windows 8's user share growth slowed significantly in July, hinting at further trouble for the struggling operating system, new statistics from an analytics company show. The operating system's user share grew by the smallest month-over-month amount since its launch in October 2012, said Web measurement vendor Net Applications. At the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5545,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/05\/14\/microsoft-extends-windows-8-1-update-deadline\/","url_meta":{"origin":3576,"position":5},"title":"Microsoft extends Windows 8.1 Update deadline","author":"NCCT","date":"May 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"When Microsoft launched Windows 8.1 Update last month, the company noted that current Windows 8.1 users would need to download and install the update by May 13 (tomorrow) in order to be eligible to receive future patches. Unfortunately, a number of Windows 8.1 users ran into issues almost immediately while\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}