Today Steven Sinofsky showed off an early version of Windows 8 (screenshots below).

He later did an interview and one of the questions was why Microsoft decided to show it off now. He responded by saying "We’re at a point in engineering the next release of Windows where we are demonstrating our progress and bringing together an even broader set of partners required to deliver solutions to customers."

To me it seems that Microsoft is ready to start sending out some copies of Windows 8 soon and that can only mean one thing... leaks! I'm guessing that 99.99% of everyone that has signed up so far is simply here for the latest leak news.

So that's my take on it. In about 2 hours Steve Ballmer will make his keynote address and Windows 8 is rumored to be on his list of talking points. I'm hoping we'll have a little more news regarding the next version of Windows, but for now here are some screenshots of an early build of Windows 8.

Originally Posted by myzr

Yep! Include me in that 99.9 waiting for a good leak of Win 8... This is encouraging

It certianly is. My original post was somewhat of an editorial, so it's purely my opinion and shouldn't be taken as fact, but I think we may be close

Hopefully we find out a little more tonight!

Wow I hope there are some leaks I am actually excited. Hopefully it's dramatically different from the screenshots here. If not, I will be sorely disappointed. If that's what they call risky, I'm saddened. I'm looking forward to seeing what they will be doing for tablets and other mobile devices if not expanding on the windows phone 7 design.

Originally Posted by tseven

Wow I hope there are some leaks I am actually excited. Hopefully it's dramatically different from the screenshots here. If not, I will be sorely disappointed. If that's what they call risky, I'm saddened. I'm looking forward to seeing what they will be doing for tablets and other mobile devices if not expanding on the windows phone 7 design.

Im guessing there will be a leak before March, but who knows. The screenshots above are of Windows 8, but it is important to note that it's only Windows 8 under the hood. Ballmer is currently showing off the same stuff in his keynote right now and said that the only changes that we'll see for now are under the hood improvements, no new UI yet.

The chatter surrounding a possible leak is heating up. Apparently Zuko is getting ready to leak "soon". What "soon" really means is unknown unfortunately

I cant wait, I've been running a final build for far too long!!!

I'm still just getting used to Seven, but I won't mind a bit.

8 =