今天Windows研发团队副总裁Chuck Chan在微软官方博客上突然发表了一篇博文，宣称Windows Dev Center已发布了Windows 8 Release Preview，不过随即便被撤下，因为文章的时间为5月31日（美国现在仍是5月30日）。

不管这是Chuck Chan的失误，还是微软公司的有意为之，至少我们已经知道今天晚些时候会发布Windows 8 Release Preview。虽然现在文章中给出的链接仍是当前的版本，不过到时应该可以下载最新版本的Windows 8。

Windows 8 Release Preview主要是给开发者使用，文中还提供了Windows Driver Kit 8和Visual Studio Professional 2012供开发者下载。而且这篇博文是发表在微软新建立Windows Hardware and Driver Developer Blog专属博客上，该博客可以让开发者更好的参与到Windows软件工具的开发过程中来。

下面是文章全文（英文）：

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

文章转载自36氪

作者leo