Microsoft has just tweeted out the news that its Consumer Preview build of Windows 8 has been downloaded one million times within the first day of availability. Although still in its beta form, Windows 8 has attracted attention and sparked imaginations in a very big way, so it's little surprise to see the download counter crossing into seven figures so quickly. In total, the day one downloads tally up to over three and a half petabytes of data, or about 41GB per second. Using the international scale for measuring popularity, we'd say this qualifies as a thoroughly well received launch.
One day later...one million downloads of the consumer preview
— Building Windows 8 (@BuildWindows8) March 1, 2012