Read original post by Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet
Microsoft has been working for the past few years to convince users, especially business users, they don't need to wait until the first service pack to deploy a new Windows release.
With Windows 8, Microsoft officials believe they've gotten a step closer, by rolling out via Windows Update on October 9 the “Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 General Availability Cumulative Update.” This update provides post-RTM (release to manufacturing) updates around performance, power management and battery efficiency, media playback, and compatibility, according to an October 9 post on the Building Windows 8 blog. Windows 8 was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012.