Windows 8 launch in London

Windows 8 officially went on sale at one minute past midnight on Friday morning at an event in central London. Several hundred people queued around the block at the Currys/PC World store on Tottenham Court Road to be the first official owners of the new operating system software, which is spearheading Microsoft's assault on the new touch screen and mobile computer world.

Eager fans waited to get their hands on heavily discounted Windows 8 hardware from HP, as well as offers of free Beats headphones for the first 300 customers.

The new product was officially launched yesterday at an event in New York. Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer described the Windows 8 experience as "magical... All of your photos will just appear, all of your documents will be available on SkyDrive. It will all be there. Everything and everybody you care about."

He described the product as "perfect for touch... a re-imagined software experience that shatters perceptions of what a PC really is".