Microsoft promised to launch Windows 10 in the summer, and now the company is revealing an exact date: July 29th. The official date comes weeks after AMD CEO Lisa Su revealed that Microsoft would launch Windows 10 in late July. Microsoft’s aggressive timing means that the company will be looking to finalize its features for Windows 10 very soon. Recent preview builds of the operating system continue to include many changes to features, and a number of issues and bugs.

Microsoft now has less than two months to fix all these issues and bugs before it launches Windows 10 to the world. That’s slightly concerning given the state of the operating system right now, but recent preview builds have started to look and feel more final, indicating that Microsoft is making progress. A lot of Windows 10’s new features are part of universal Windows Apps, and the software company can easily update these even before many consumers buy new machines with Windows 10. Microsoft also has the option of releasing direct operating system patches up to and after general availability. Windows 8 launched with a big update available on the first day, and many separate app updates. Windows 10 looks set to continue that trend.

A screenshot of the Windows 10 notification appearing in the system tray. (Microsoft)

To get the word out about Windows 10, which is available as a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8.1 users, Microsoft is also dropping a notification into users' task bars. Clicking on the pop-up brings up a slideshow explaining the benefits of Windows 10 (such as the return of the Start menu, a new browser, and the inclusion of Cortana) before giving users the option of entering their email address to reserve their copy. However, while the free upgrade is certainly generous, some users have complained that the notification is "intrusive," while others say its unexpected appearance made them think they'd been infected with malware. ("I just about went defcon 1 over this," commented one Reddit user.) Still, Apple delivers notifications about its own free upgrades to OS X in the same way, and pop-ups seem a fair trade for not paying to upgrade your operating system.

Verge Video: Hands-on with Windows 10