Windows 8 Release Preview Due May 31: Report

Microsoft plans to make the Release Preview of Windows 8 and a preview of the newly named Visual Studio 2012 available May 31.

Apparently, Microsoft let loose with a poorly timed blog post May 30 that gave details on the release, only it went out a day early and the software giant had to pull it, according to Neowin.net, which grabbed an image of the untimely post before Microsoft took it down.

Microsoft initially said the Windows 8 Release Preview would be available the first week of June, when Microsoft Windows president Steven Sinofsky tweeted as much from a Windows Developer Days event in Japan in late April. However, the now-phantom post on the Windows Hardware and Driver Developer Blog said the release date would be May 31. According to an image of the Microsoft post on Neowin, it was written by Chuck Chan, corporate vice president of the Windows Development team.

€œWe designed the Windows 8 platform and tools to help you create high-quality drivers and Metro-style device apps using an integrated, modern toolset,€ the post said. 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.€

Chan€™s post also encouraged developers to download Windows 8 Release preview, the Windows Driver Kit 8 and Visual Studio Professional 2012. The Windows 8 software development kit (SDK) is included with Visual Studio. Until this leaked blog post, Microsoft generally referred to the next version of Visual Studio as Visual Studio 11 as it is to be the 11th version of the company€™s flagship app development tool suite. The leaked post confirms the product will be known as Visual Studio 2012.

In addition, Chan said the Windows Development team will post to the new blog once every week or two until the release of Windows 8. Windows 8 is expected to RTM, or release to manufacturing, this summer and officially launch for commercial use in October.