Microsoft are making the Windows 8 developer preview available to everyone, today. After being teased with demo’s during the Build Conference keynote, you probably want to try out the preview release. The good news is, there’s no keys or activation to deal with, effectively its open slather.
Expect activations later in the development cycle, usually around the beta stage. Given this is an early developer preview, clearly the goal is to get developers to write for it, so making it freely available makes a lot of sense.
The downside is that the current build doesn’t support upgrading from Windows 7, so you’ll need a clean install. This results in a better experience when going between OS’s as a general rule, so not entirely a bad thing.
Starting later tonight you can download the Windows 8 Developer Preview. This includes a 64-bit (x64) build with development tools to build apps, and a 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) build without development tools. The releases also include a suite of sample applications (please note these are merely illustrations of potential apps, not apps that we intend to ship with Windows 8).
The later tonight is obviously a reference to US time, this translates to around 4pm for those of us on AEST (GMT +10) time.
Update
The downloads have gone live early. Get the bits (ISOs) from http://dev.windows.com.