Windows 8.1 Build 9431 Review
This is my review of Windows 8.1 Pro Preview!
Thanks to tailsgame74 for the ISO
32-bit and 64-bit ISO are in the same folder
https://mega.nz/#F!049RBABA!2f3MGPn9H...
Serial:NTTX3-RV7VB-T7X7F-WQYYY-9Y92F
BIOS Date:06/16/2013
This is the client equivalent of Windows Server 2012 R2 Build 6.3.9431.winmain_bluemp.130615-1214
This build was released on 2013-06-26 with the occasion of //BUILD/ 2013 taking place. At first, the ISOs were only avaliable through TechNet & MSDN, while it was possible to download the Store version immediately after //BUILD/ began. The ISOs were made publicly avaliable the day after, on 2013-06-27, when the day 2 keynote started.
There are two ways to install this preview: through an ISO and through the Store. However, if you have a language different than the ones support or you are running Enterprise on your machine, you are forced to use the ISO version. But if you are on an RT machine, the only way of updating is through the store.
The setup doesn't show a local account option by default. There are two ways of creating one during OOBE: Either use some non-existent e-mail adress and password, and then after the setup is unable to check your credentials there should be a local account option OR disconnect your computer from the internet and it will automatically create a local account.
The ISO version is avaliable in both x86 and x64.
On TechNet you can only download English versions. The MSDN & public release is avaliable in 13 languages: Arabic, English (US), Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
On 2013-07-04, Microsoft after lots of complaints finally released the Great Britain (EN-GB) version.
If you are updating through the store, you can also get other variants of the Preview. This way, Rob Jansen managed to get Windows 8.1 Single Language Preview. However, when using the same method on Windows 8 Pro N, only thing you get is "The update is not applicable to your computer" error.
On 2013-07-31, Microsoft released the Enterprise SKU on its TechNet Evaluation Center. It's avaliable in both x86 and x64, in the same 13 languages as the Pro SKU. However, up to this, day it isn't avaliable on neither MSDN nor TechNet subscription downloads.
An RT version was also released, however the only way to install 8.1 on such a machine is through the store. On 2013-06-28 a zh-cn recovery disk was released on xunlei. It's possible to download the ESD files (basically encrypted WIMs) directly from Windows Update servers, however, the URLs have not been published publicly. Some users installed RT without problems, but many others got the infamous "The update is not applicable to your computer" error. Microsoft later noted that this was because the RT 8.1 Preview was limited to a small set of languages, and the preview site had failed to block those in unsupported markets. The error could be worked around by changing the language settings to en-US and downloading and installing the en-US language pack and setting it as default.
On 2013-06-27, Microsoft released Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro Release Preview in its Windows Embedded Pre-Release Programs on Microsoft Connect. It is avaliable in both x86 and x64, and also in many languages.
It's easy to add WMC to Windows 8.1 Preview. Just copy this key MBFBV-W3DP2-2MVKN-PJCQD-KKTF7 (from Windows 8 Release Preview) to the Add features dialog.
Because 9431 was an official preview, it was getting support through Windows Update. Every update has its own gdr buildstring, and JaGoTu and AirportsFan managed to collect most of them