Microsoft execs said last month that enterprise customers would be able to
access the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) to get the Windows 8.1 Enterprise and 8.1 Pro bits, once they were made generally available. They noted at that time that Windows 8.1 (core) would not be available on VLSC.
Those promised Enterprise and Pro bits are available as of today, October 18, in the VLSC, Microsoft officials said. However, I am hearing from some volume license customers that they cannot see any listing for Windows 8.1 in the VLSC and they're being issued trouble tickets.
As Microsoft officials noted in an October 18 Springboard Series blog post,
Windows 8.1 Enterprise cannot be updated via the Windows Store; it must be updated via the media from the VLSC.
Customers can opt to do an in-place update of their existing Windows 8 Enterprise installations by using
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2013 or
System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, or by burning the media to a DVD or copy to a USB key.
As a reminder: Anyone upgrading from Windows 8.1 Preview to Windows 8.1 GA should know that
all applications — Windows Store and desktop/Win32 — need to be reinstalled as part of the update process.
For those who haven't yet checked out Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise, Microsoft also made
free 90-day trials of Windows 8.1 Enterprise .ISOs available today via its TechNet Evaluation Center.