Windows 8 Release Preview–Early?

It appears that the the Windows 8 Release Preview may be being released earlier than announced.  Microsoft has previously announced that the Release Preview would be released in the first week of June.  According to a blog post on an new blog, the Windows 8 Hardware blog, it looks like it is going to be released today, May 31st.  The blog post looks like it was released on May 30th, released prematurely and has since been removed.  You can see screen shots of it on numerous web sites:

• Sources confirm Windows 8 Release Preview coming May 31st, includes Flash in Metro browser
• Windows 8 Release Preview expected to arrive today
• and many others just search for Windows 8 Hardware blog

Most of the links in the blog are dead end or point to the current release.  The blog also points out that Visual Studio 11 is going to be called Visual Studio 2012. Most news sites that are reporting the leaked blog have the full text of the blog posted.  I was able to get it in Google Reader  by subscribing to the RSS feed.  Here is the full text:

Welcome To The Windows 8 Hardware Blog

from Windows Hardware and Driver Developer Blog by WindowsHardwareBlog

Welcome to the Windows 8 Hardware blog! I’m Chuck Chan, Corporate Vice President on the Windows Development team. We’re very excited to make available today the Windows 8 Release Preview on the Windows Dev Center. Windows 8 represents a leap forward for the Windows platform, the development tool set, and the device experiences you can build for Windows. We’re launching this blog to give you some insight into how we designed and built Windows 8, and to explore the best practices for developing great hardware and drivers, as you enter the new world of Windows 8 development.

The people contributing to this blog are the engineers building Windows 8 and the tools and kits that support it. Our goal is to help you get started by focusing on the “why” and “how” of building amazing PCs and device experiences for Windows 8. Each blog post will present a development
topic and tie together information from the Dev Center, Forums, MSDN Library, and where it makes sense, samples from the Windows Hardware Code Gallery.

We designed the Windows 8 platform and tools to help you create high-quality drivers and Metro style device apps using an integrated, modern tool set. Using the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) and Visual Studio, you can
write, build, sign package, deploy, test, and debug your drivers and apps
directly from Visual Studio. With the new Windows Hardware Certification Kit, you can ensure the compatibility and reliability of your devices, and provide a great overall user experience.

To get started, download and install Windows 8 Release Preview, the Windows Driver Kit 8, and Visual Studio Professional 2012. The Windows 8 SDK is also included with Visual Studio. As you begin using Windows 8, you’ll notice that we’ve added new features and improved existing ones. In addition to providing a modern tool set, we’ve also been hard at work improving power management and refining the way you provide a great user experience for devices with Metro style device apps. We’ll share more
details in future posts.

The Windows Development team will post to this blog once every one to two weeks until the release of Windows 8. Commenting is encouraged, and we are looking forward to a lively conversation. Please apply common courtesy and stay on topic with your comments. The Windows Hardware Community Forum is also a great place for hardware-related questions and discussion about Windows 8.

We can’t wait to see the amazing devices and experiences you’re building for Windows 8 come to life!

Chuck Chan, May 31 2012

It just goes to show you that nothing is truly erased from the internet!