14 DAY TRIAL // As we’ve reported to you yesterday, a new series of rumors coming via Russia leaker WZor reveal that Microsoft is planning to release a Windows 9 preview version later this year, before eventually introducing the full package in early 2015.
While this isn’t exactly news, since we already knew that two preview builds of Windows 9 are on their way and Microsoft is considering an April 2015 release launch for the new operating system, something that WZor said in this post is clearly a little bit more interesting.
It appears that Windows 9 is going to be shipped with a completely new activation system, which Microsoft decided to develop after the problems it experienced in China.
As you might have heard, Steve Ballmer, a former Microsoft CEO and currently an NBA team owner-wannabe, said that in China, 9 out of 10 copies of Windows are pirated, which clearly emphasizes that Redmond is well aware of this thing and wants to address it in future Windows versions.
Satya Nadella, the new CEO of the company who replaced Ballmer in February, wants to make Windows 9 tougher to crack, so Microsoft’s engineers are now working on a completely new activation system that would tie a specific license to a certain computer.
While this does sound like a drastic decision, it appears that this is the way Microsoft is choosing for Windows 9, with people close to the matter saying that in addition to this new activation system, the company is also pondering the possibility to offer the new operating system free to Windows 7 Service pack 1 and Windows 8.1 Update 2 users.
On the other hand, WZor also said that work on the new activation system has already started, but due to the number of changes that this new technology would bring to the operating system, development of Windows 9 has been slowed down a little bit.
And still, no delays are likely to occur and Windows 9 will be here at the right time, even though nobody can tell for sure if the rumored April 2015 launch date is indeed accurate or not.
While all the above make sense at some level, do not take these for granted, as everything is just in the rumor stage for now and will stay so until Microsoft breaks the news on Windows 9. According to more speculation, this could happen this month at the Worldwide Partner Conference which kicks off on July 13.