A Chinese website has leaked a couple of screenshots, which allegedly show the Windows App Store in action. While it is prudent to take any leaked information with a pinch of salt, it’s pretty safe to bet that Windows 8 will include an app store. Back in June 2010, we had stated as much, based on leaked confidential information. The new screenshots are also consistent with the ones leaked (and ridiculed) on the Neowin forums. Moreover, almost every other desktop operating systems of note (Mac and Ubuntu) already has an inbuilt application repository.

To be honest, the Windows 8 app store appears to be a mash up of Windows Media Player and the Mac App Store. It will include free and paid content from a large number of third party developers. What is unclear at this moment is whether automatic update for all applications, which has been a long standing demand of Windows users and developers, will also be included.

The other point of interest is the name of the app store. In the screenshots leaked by Neowin, the software center is titled as “Windows App Store”. If that is indeed that actual name, one can bet that Apple won’t be too pleased about it. Apple believes that it owns the trademark for “App Store”, and is already suing Amazon.

As we get closer and closer to the public beta of Windows 8, expect the volume of leaks to steadily increase. In fact, the Chinese website believes that the app store is almost ready, and will be made available to beta testers soon.

Update: Bad news folks. The leaked screenshots have been confirmed to be fake.