Windows 9 has been leaked, and seems to show a backing away from the aggressively touch-focused Windows 8, with a mini start menu and dropping of the Charms bar, but we’ll get a better look September 30, according to the Verge. The blog reports Microsoft is planning an official unveiling of what’s next for its desktop OS for that date, with a technology preview available for early adopters following quickly after that.

The upcoming Windows 9 release is codenamed ‘Threshold,’ and expectations are that we’ll see it arrive for the general public as a stable release sometime early next year. Previously, we covered what might be happening with the new release, which suggests that the desktop might be getting a return to glory in the new version – think more Windows 7 in your Windows 8 experience. Expectations are that Modern Windows (aka Metro) will still exist in the next generation, but it’ll be more closely integrated with the desktop side, with apps running in windowed mode instead of requiring you to switch between the two environments.

As a fairly frequent Windows user, but mostly on a desktop gaming PC, I’m excited about the new (old) direction Microsoft’s OS is apparently headed in – let’s hope they don’t go in a different direction what they actually unveil in late September.