Windows users have a big autumn ahead. Microsoft VP Tami Reller revealed this week that Windows 8’s Release to Manufacturing (RTM) release date is the first week on August, with a retail release date sometime in October. Presenting at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Canada, Reller was pleased to announce that the company is on track to complete Windows 8 with ample time to let manufacturers get comfortable with it well before general availability, when Windows 8 and devices are released in stores.

What’s new in Windows 8?

Here are a few comments from David Pierce’s review of the software back in early June:

Flash

Flash is perhaps the most significant new feature in the Release Preview. Microsoft and Adobe worked together to build a stripped-down version of Flash for IE10, which adds some features (like video playback) while skipping over the pieces that typically cause performance and battery life problems.

Touchability

We were curious to see how Windows 8 does on a device without touch capabilities. We’d primarily used the Consumer Preview on tablets, and spending some time using a mouse and keyboard showed us how much time Microsoft has spent making the OS work well with any input — there are keyboard shortcuts and hot corners everywhere you look.

The gestures can be hard to figure out, though, and using Windows 8 is a little clunky until you know them. So we asked Microsoft reps how the company would help new users figure out Windows 8, and the answer was essentially that they’re working on it. Gabe Aul, a director of program management for Windows, said that the company’s research and testing showed that within an hour, most people (intentionally or otherwise) figured out most of the gestures, and even those that didn’t were able to navigate the OS without any trouble.

Apps

The other frustrating thing about Windows 8 is how often we’re still forced to jump between the Metro interface and the standard Desktop look, because a setting or an app only ran in Desktop mode. The onus for solving that, of course, lies with developers, who will be called upon to build the Metro equivalents of everything from Notepad to Photoshop to Diablo III.