{"id":27841,"date":"2012-08-23T21:15:11","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T19:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onsoftware.en.softonic.com\/?p=27841"},"modified":"2025-07-02T01:45:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:45:54","slug":"microsoft-gives-students-staff-faculty-free-copies-of-windows-8-professional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/microsoft-gives-students-staff-faculty-free-copies-of-windows-8-professional\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft gives students\/staff\/faculty free copies of Windows 8 Professional"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Windows<\/a>Windows 8 hasn’t released yet but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from allowing students<\/strong>, staff<\/strong>, and faculty<\/strong> to download Windows 8 Professional for free. The final version of Windows 8 will ship on October 26th,<\/strong> but it doesn’t look like Microsoft is going to implement any major changes to the operating system before then.<\/p>\n

Microsoft released a full 90 day evaluation copy of Windows 8 Enterprise<\/a><\/strong>, which is technically the release to manufacturer (RTM), also known as the final version that’s being shipped out. Windows 8 is finished and now students, staff, and faculty members have an exclusive opportunity to download Windows 8 Professional completely free<\/strong> from Microsoft’s Dreamspark website, which is a website developed to provide Microsoft software to students and educators for no charge.<\/p>\n

If your university is part of the Dreamspark Premium program<\/strong>, here’s how you can download Windows 8 Pro for free.<\/p>\n

The first thing you want to do is head over to the Dreamspark website<\/a>. From there, you can read up about how Dreamspark works. On the right, you will see a link to create an account<\/strong>. If you already have an account, you can simply sign in.<\/p>\n

\"dreamspark.com<\/p>\n

To create your account, enter your university email address and search for your school<\/strong>. You are required to have a .edu address in order to proceed. There are also options to enter an Activaction Code or ISIC card number<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"create<\/p>\n

Once you’ve registered and logged in, click on this link<\/a><\/strong>, which takes you to the Dreamspark webstore where you can download Windows 8 Professional for free. All you have to do is start the download and wait!<\/p>\n

\"free<\/p>\n

Windows 8 Professional is quite a massive download<\/strong> so it could take a while for it to download. Unfortunately there’s no way to request a physical disc<\/strong> to be sent in mail, for those with slow connections.<\/p>\n

Be sure to check out our handy Windows 8 guides<\/strong><\/a> to get familiar with the new operating system!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Windows 8 hasn’t released yet but that hasn’t stopped Microsoft from allowing students, staff, and faculty to download Windows 8 Professional for free. The final version of Windows 8 will ship on October 26th, but it doesn’t look like Microsoft is going to implement any major changes to the operating system before then. Microsoft released … Continue reading “Microsoft gives students\/staff\/faculty free copies of Windows 8 Professional”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2033,"featured_media":27850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[],"tags":[2564],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-27841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionwindows-8"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2033"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333676,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27841\/revisions\/333676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27841"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=27841"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=27841"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=27841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}