Windows 9 rumoured to launch in April 2015

It looks like the anticipated 2015 Windows 8 update, code-named 'Threshold' , is actually going to be released as a whole new iteration of the operating system. By calling it Windows 9 it looks like Microsoft are hoping to draw a line under Win8 like they did with Vista.

They'll also be introducing Metro 2.0 or Modern UI 2.0, or whatever else they decide to call it, which will allow Win8 apps to be run in windows on the desktop should you so desire.

What will 'Threshold' / Windows 9 offer? Well, judging by the change of name to become a new iteration of Microsoft's PC operating system we can expect they'll want us to pay for it. If it's big a revolution as some of the rumours and postulation hints at then it could well be worth the upgrade. Microsoft have hinted that they're looking to consolidate their operating systems across PC, phone and possibly even console to create a 'One Microsoft' ideal and Windows 9 could push us ever closer to that. With PCs and the Xbox One sharing both the same hardware and the same software kernels that might not be such a crazy rumour.

Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he's back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.