17 downloads you may have missed this week

Another week, another slew of software releases and app updates. The undoubted headline stealer is the release of the Developer Preview of Windows 8, however there have been plenty of other releases worthy of investigation for anyone not interested in Microsoft's up-coming operating system. Available in both 32- and 64-bit varieties, the Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Preview is freely available for anyone to install, not just developers -- though there is as well a version available that includes developer tools.

While the successor to Windows 7 is showing great signs of promise, it's probably not a good idea to use it as your main operating system or use it for handling any mission critical data. Nevertheless for seasoned users and anyone keep to keep on the cutting edge of software development, the preview gives you a chance to try out the Metro interface and a redesigned Explorer interface.

Dual boot system to test drive Windows 8

While you could set up a dual boot system to test drive Windows 8, you could as well turn to VMware Workstation 4 or VMware Fusion 4 to install the operating system in a virtual environment. VMware Workstation 4 is a virtual machine manager for Windows and this latest release includes support for up to 64GB of RAM, HD audio and USB 3.0. There have been a number of visual chances to the program interface, with a new machine library replacing the old favorites sidebar and an update fullscreen toolbar provides access to more options than previously.

Mac users need look no furthermore than VMware Fusion 4 to cater for their virtualization requirements. The program can be used to host Linux and Windows operating systems so you can run software in other words not available for OS X. The latest version of the virtualization tool brings Lion support that enables you to add Windows apps to Launchpad, and there is enhanced general and graphics performance. VMware Fusion 4 can as well be used to host virtual copies of Lion, Snow Leopard and Leopard.

Windows users with safety in mind will have been heartened by the release of Paragon Backup & Recovery 11 Home which makes it easy to backup selected folders of your data or create an image of drives in their entirety. Having created a backup, should you find that your computer is rendered unbootable, a bootable restoration disc is available to help get your data back where it should be.