Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 8.1 RTM TechNet/MSDN availability

Hi folks,

Microsoft announced today the availability of the RTM build of Windows 8.1, which includes Internet Explorer 11, to TechNet and MSDN developer subscribers [1]. If you're not a subscriber, then you'll need to wait for the General Availability of Windows 8.1 on October 18.

You'll find that this RTM version of Internet Explorer supports unprefixed Pointer Event APIs based on the Candidate Recommendation spec (with the exception being the PointerEvent constructor).

As a design choice (balancing pragmatic engineering, compatibility, and developer experience), we're not fully preserving the old MSPointer* event behavior side by side with pointer* events.  Of note:

-Code registering for MSPointer* events will be silently registered for pointer* events (so event.type will return the unprefixed name) and get the CR spec behavior
-When a given element has both touch-action and -ms-touch-action rules specified, the touch-action rule will always win (regardless of their respective specificities)
-For any major compat issues with the above 2 points (as with the rest of the IE platform), sites may opt in to the IE10 Document Mode to get the full IE10 MSPointer* behavior [2]

We already are and will continue proactively working with early adopters of pointer events to get them to update to the unprefixed APIs and CR behavior. Let me know ASAP if you believe you're seeing issues in the IE11 RTM behavior.

-Jacob

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/stevengu/archive/2013/09/09/download-windows-8-1-rtm-visual-studio-2013-rc-and-windows-server-2012-r2-rtm-today.aspx
[2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj676915(v=vs.85).aspx