14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft will finally unveil Windows 8.1 August Update as part of this month’s Update Tuesday rollout, and even though we’re very close to the public launch of this new important update, no builds are available for download via the standard unofficial channels.
Last year, when Microsoft was working on Windows 8.1, tens of development builds of the new OS update reached the web on a regular basis, which allowed us and pretty much everyone else to deploy them and see what was new in the very first major pack of improvements for the core Windows 8.
These days, however, the secrecy surrounding Microsoft’s projects is expanding, and even though the company is said to be preparing two new important releases for the Windows product family, namely the August Update that’s coming out tomorrow and Windows 9 scheduled for early 2015, no such builds can be found on the web.
The reason for this is most likely Microsoft’s efforts to prevent leaks from reaching the Internet, as the company has recently arrested a Windows 8 leaker and won a lawsuit that sent the man to prison for three months.
Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee who left the software giant two years ago, was arrested in March after approximately one year of investigations, with the company claiming that the man worked with a French blogger to publish information on Windows 8, as well as leaked builds, on the web.
Kibkalo’s arrest led to a shake-up of the Windows community, with famous Russian group WZor, that has a very good track on posting information regarding Microsoft’s future projects, removing its website and social media accounts temporarily.
At the same time, reports coming from inside the company have revealed that Microsoft has also made some internal changes in order to prevent leaks from reaching the web, including better security at buildings where developers are working on future Windows versions.
People close to the matter have indicated that Microsoft is now signing every testing build of Windows with a unique code before it’s being sent to OEMs and partners for testing purposes. This way, the company could easily find the name of the person who posted the build online, which would obviously lead to penalties and even more legal actions.
And still, Windows 8.1 August Update is coming out tomorrow, and one of the reasons we don’t have a leaked build so far could also be the reduced number of improvements that are part of this release. August Update doesn’t bring anything too exciting, so why the effort to leak stuff?