14 DAY TRIAL // Following a series of Windows 8 details and screenshots making their way into the wild, it now appears that the actual bits of the operating system have also been leaked.
Those users ready to jump the gun when it comes down to testing the next major iteration of the Windows client will reportedly get the chance to do exactly that later today. (via Brad Sams)
At the time of this article the leaked copy of Windows 8 was available only to a select group of users.
However, the promise is that the leak will make its way to all usual sources of illegal downloads, including torrent trackers later today, so that any user with a BitTorrent client and knowledge of where to find the leak can download it.
Reports indicate that the full Build string of the leaked Windows 8 copy is 6.1.7850.0.winmain_win8m1.100922-1508.
Looking at the full build string, it’s obvious that this particular release of Windows 8 belongs to the Milestone 1 development stage, a phase that Microsoft has wrapped up long ago, in September 2010.
In fact, this is the final Windows 8 M1 Build, which was compiled on September 22nd, 2010.
As of the end of February 2011, the Redmond company started the coding work on Windows 8 Milestone 3, although no official confirmation of this was provided by the software giant.
The last compiled Build of Windows 8 is 6.2.7980.0.winmain.110407-1832, namely a Milestone 3 release.
Just as with the evolution from Windows Vista to Windows 7, the actual Windows version jumped only from 6.0 to 6.1, so the introduction of Windows 8 will bring with it Windows 6.2.
However, version 6.1 was used for all Windows 8 M1 Builds, with the platform moving to version 6.2 as of the first M2 releases.