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Well it seems there may be good reason for getting excited about the likely availability today of the Windows 8 Release Preview.  I think in the old days we would have called this either a Release Candidate or a Beta 2 with the Consumer Preview being Beta 1.

According to a blog post that posted well before it’s time on a new Windows Hardware and Driver Developer Blog, as reported by Neowin, the Release Preview of Windows 8 will be out today. 

One other source that is not being quoted as much as the Neowin story is a post by Microsoft guru Paul Thurrott.

Last night he wrote an article titled Apple’s Cook Offers Up More Windows 8 Criticisms in which he talked about the Apple CEO’s commentary about Windows 8 during a big tech conference interview Cook did.

In the first paragraph of that story, Paul refers to yesterday in the first sentence (emphasis mine).

On the eve of the launch of the Windows 8 Release Preview, a near-final look at Microsoft’s next-generation desktop OS

Now I have been following Paul for a long, long time and he has always had pretty good info on Microsoft products and timelines.  I would say his info is accurate a majority of the time. I mean who doesn’t have some misses in the tech world?

So based on the early blog post on the MSDN Windows Hardware and Driver Developer Blog that NeoWin reported on and this tidbit from Paul my money is on the Windows 8 Release Preview being available today.

I would put money on this way before I would on the Facebook IPO!