Microsoft had planned to release the Windows 8.1 directly to users and after the preview the RTM was cancelled. But after a lot of criticism from developers, Microsoft has stepped back and announced the plans to release the Core and Pro RTM builds for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 for TechNet and MSDN subscribers.
In August, Microsoft announced that the RTM builds for Windows 8.1 and Window Server 2012 R2 are ready but they won’t offer those builds ahead of the launch date. Software developers were furious on this decision, the only reason they need it early was to make sure their Apps are ready ahead of the official release. This will make sure they can create and update their apps to work with the new version without any issue. But Microsoft did not release the RTM based on developer’s outcry. As Microsoft says, there are some final changes to be done to Windows 8.1 before it reaches its general availability stage. These changes would make it more stable.
Microsoft today announced, they will actually be releasing the Windows 8.1 RTM before the launch date but the reason they did not do it at first was because there are some final changes to be done which would make it more stable. As Microsoft says the RTM builds are for testing purposes only, and there would be a few changes done to the OS prior to release. So developers still would need to do some tweaking even after the final/official launch.
