Gone are the days when Microsoft’s deadlines were often slipped. Over the past year, Microsoft is hard at work on their next version of Windows and releasing consecutive previews to deliver the best Windows PC experience ever.

The Release Preview of Windows 8 is the next major release that was scheduled to first week of June 2012. But a badly timed blog post on the Windows Hardware and Driver Developer blog has revealed that Microsoft is releasing Windows 8 Release Preview today i.e. May 31, 2012.

The blog post (taken down for now) was authored by Chuck Chan, Corporate Vice President on the Windows Development team. But some sources have confirmed that it’s true and legit.

We’re very excited to make available today the Windows 8 Release Preview on the Windows Dev Center, wrote Chan. And then signs the date and his name at the end of the post as “Chuck Chan, May 31st.”

He also mentioned the download links that will be made active later today.

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

As of now the above links are redirecting to the Consumer Preview. The Release Preview of Windows 8 follows the Consumer Preview or beta was released back in late February 2012. And it would be the last public release before the product hit the market in late October 2012.