Member Avatar for Samerases

Hello!

What is the mean and different between Windows 8.1 blue & Windows 8.1 preview?

blue & preview?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks>>>>>>>>

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Quick plain-English summary (for ): “Blue” was Microsoft’s internal project name for the update that became Windows 8.1; the public “Preview” was an early, pre‑release build shipped for testing at the Build conference on June 26, 2013. The final build went to OEM partners (RTM) later and was made generally available through the Windows Store in mid‑October 2013. Windows 8.1 Preview at Build 2013 — RTM/GA notes. (news.microsoft.com)

What that means in practice: the Preview is for testing — it’s not the finished product. Microsoft’s guidance at the time said moving from the Preview to the final release will usually preserve personal files but will require you to reinstall apps and may lose some settings; the exact behavior depends on whether the Preview was installed via the Windows Store or by booting from ISO, and activation/keys can be a factor. See community Q&A and Microsoft guidance on upgrading from the Preview for details. (superuser.com)

If the goal is to try 8.1 without pain, do this first:

If you already installed the Preview and want to revert, the supported route is recovery media or a clean reinstall — uninstalling the Preview in place isn’t a simple one‑click rollback. Backups and recovery media are the safety net. (eightforums.com)

Practical takeaway: ’s codename point is correct and ’s caution is sound — don’t install Preview on a primary machine without backups. Use a VM or dedicated test hardware, back everything up, and keep installers/keys handy.

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Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

Probably just bug fixes.

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Blue is simply the codename for Windows 8.1.

Member Avatar for Samerases

So what's the difference between them???

I do not understand!!!!!

Member Avatar for JorgeM

When Microsoft develops a new product, they assign a code name for the product. They begin to release dev versions prior to their final release. "Preview" is their early release. As bugs get reported they will fix them and continue to release updated versions. Until the final version is ready early this fall.

Member Avatar for caperjack

well said JorgeM
and from the looks of it there are a lot of bugs to fix in 8.1 prieview

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

Don't install preview on top of Windows 8 on a computer that you intend to use for other than development purposes -- you can't restore it back to Windows 8 without losing all the data and registery settings. If you want to look at Windows 8.1 Preview then install it on another partition so that you can easily remove it later.

Edited by Ancient Dragon
Member Avatar for JorgeM

install it on another partition so that you can easily remove it later.

An alternate recommendation would be to install anything you are demo'ing on a dedicated guest VM. Take a look at VMWare and/or VirtualBox. Removing VMs is a lot easier than having to deal with partitions and boot managers, in my opinion.

Member Avatar for CimmerianX

I second that. I always use a VirtualBox virtual machine to look at new OS installs instead of loading to physical HW or messing with partitions.

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