While it has been known publicly for a while now that Windows 8 will be released at some point in October, there has been no official date – until now, that is. Steven Sinofsky from Microsoft announced in a sales meeting that it would be available to customers on October 26th.
If you upgrade from an older version of Windows it will cost you $40. Upgrading from a brand new computer running Windows 7 (purchased after June 2nd) will cost $15. If you’re not upgrading and get the disk, it’s definitely going to cost a lot more. Currently Windows 8 is in beta and available as a free download.