October 26 will see the official release and fully features of Microsoft Windows 8

The official release date and fully features of Microsoft Windows 8 have long been one of the most important anticipations this year. Microsoft has released several different versions of Windows 8 as testing versions for the final official release, like the Windows 8 Release Preview. Now the official release date of Microsoft Windows 8 has been finally confirmed to be October 26^th. Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft's Windows division, made the announcement during the company's annual sales meeting, according to the Windows Team Blog. The availability of Windows 8 is also given to be late October by the company.

The release date applies to new Windows 8 PCs and to upgrades, which will cost $40 through January 31 for users running Windows XP or later. No specific launch day of hardware was mentioned, but Microsoft's Surface Windows RT tablet should be available around that time.

As the release date of Windows 8 has been officially confirmed, what remain to be unknown are the features of Windows 8. Of course, the full features of Windows 8 OS would be unveiled the day it’s released. But for curiosity, we may want to know some key features of Windows 8 beforehand, right? Here I have collected some wonderful features of Windows 8 that you may love.

Speedy Boot Time: The load and boot up speed has improved significantly over Windows’ predecessors. This is partly due to the better resource allocations to applications and the system. When compared to Windows 7 desktop CPU, Windows 8 has an even speedier boot time.

Innovative & Dynamic Desktop: The tiles-based interface, or the Metro UI, will be the first thing you see upon logging in to Windows 8. At first glance, the UI seems to go intuitively with touchscreen devices like tablets and smartphones. Indeed, in such devices, you tap on those apps to open them. The grid layout seems to facilitate such interactions. Needless to say, you can customize your grid by adding and arranging applications.

Improved Search Function: Windows 8 has no search box at the bottom of the Start menu. Heck, it doesn’t even have the trademark Start menu! That doesn’t mean that there’s no convenient search function available. All you need to do is to type anything, and a search box will appear from the right and give you the results. The search capability is even stronger this time, displaying all the matching apps and files instantaneously.

Windows To Go: Of the entire list here, this is one feature that offers the most convenience to users. Windows To Go allows users to make a copy of their OS complete with their settings, wallpapers, files and even apps, into a USB thumb drive. Plugged it into another computer with Windows 8 already installed, and you can boot up the PC and make it look exactly alike the OS you normally use, with all settings intact.

Windows Live Syncing: Similar to Windows To Go, the new Windows 8 will provide Windows Live syncing, such that users can login on any Windows 8 PC with ‘Live ID’ and get back their own personalized settings on it. The desktop will look the same every time the user login on a PC with their Windows Live account. Migrating to a new PC is probably made easier when the user has all the essential settings synced.