Windows 8 Release Preview build 8400 leak causes headaches for many

Ron

With the official Windows 8 Release Preview build being released in the next few days, those who got their hands on the leaked Chinese build hit an unexpected bump on the road. Those who attempted to download and install it found out that it was a lot harder than usual.

For those who are just tuning in, Windows 8 Release Preview build 8400 was leaked this morning in Chinese. For several users, including me, it took four hours to download. Thinking that reading the Chinese would be the hardest part, I was wrong. When I started installing the build, the thought of many users complaing about image expansion errors during the install crossed my mind numerous times. I thought that people who were fortunate enough to snag this leaked build may have had a bad iso or something similar. I put the key in and it worked for me. After that, I hit the same problem. According to those in the know, the fix to this problem to just recompile the image using ImageX. The ISO then showed up on different torrent sites shortly after, but this one acted a lot different. It did not accept any of the keys released. It was also genuine, but was found on a different site and the installation utility is messed up. There were reports that it was malicious but that was just a joke. All this headache over a leaked build. Now we are hearing reports of another leak later tonight or possibly tomorrow, which really makes no sense considering that the official build will be released in a matter of days by Microsoft. Stay tuned to WinBeta as we provide late breaking coverage on Windows 8 news.

A user going by the name of ‘Pwned’ has successfully been able to install the Windows 8 Release Preview in Chinese by fiddling around with the settings. While right now, we do not know the extent of what he did, we will follow up on how to install the build tomorrow.