Are you using any one of Preview editions released by Microsoft for Windows 8?- Developer Preview, Consumer Preview or Released Preview- if your answer is yes! then you should know that they all are set to expire on first month of next year i.e. January 15, 2013, what happens after that?
Your Computer will reboot automatically for every two hours and screen turns to black which keeps asking you to purchase and activate Windows 8 by upgrading to final version which has been released to public on October 26, this year.
If you forgotten about when Windows 8 pre-release versions were released, you don’t need to search on Google, below are the release dates of Windows 8 Previews offered by Microsoft so far.
Windows 8 Developer Preview - Sep 13, 2011
“ Consumer Preview - Feb 29, 2012
“ Release Preview - June 1, 2012
Expiration dates for all of them fall on same date, January 15, 2013, in fact to line with expiration dates of Consumer Preview and Release Preview Microsoft pushed an update KB2671501 to Developer Preview that has extended the date to Jan, 15, 2013.
That KB article says what happens when the Preview version expires : “Additionally, starting 14 days before the expiration date, you may receive the following notification on the desktop and in the Security section of Action Center” .
This pre-release version of Windows will expire soon. Go to Windows Activation to purchase and install a released version of Windows.
You can check the expiry date of Windows 8 Preview you’re using by typing “winver” command in run box.
Are you still using any Windows 8 Preview version? do you have any plans for upgrade? or do you downgrade to Windows 7? share with us in comments.