The launch on a Friday instead of a Thursday or Sunday is a bit of an odd move, but this is otherwise consistent with Microsoft's previous launches. The only real unknown at this point is when Microsoft will start taking pre-orders - Windows 7 saw fairly early pre-orders as part of a two-week pre-order promotion, but Windows 8's equivalent promotion runs until 2013. Meanwhile Windows 8 is still on track to RTM in the first week of August, which means the OS will actually be finished within a couple of weeks.