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It's a difficult concept to quantify in any way. In surviving letters, newspaper articles, and correspondence, some people expressed surprise, either pleasantly or unpleasantly. Many others expressed relief or dread, rather than any kind of surprise. On the whole, it may have been unexpected to some degree, but not entirely outside the realm of possibilities, especially to people who had been playing close attention, which would include a large proportion of the U.S. populace.

The background of the proclamation is important. On August 3, 1861, U.S. Congress passed the First Confiscation Act, which ordered the U.S. military to defy the Fugitive Slave Act, and not return enslaved people to disloyal slaveholders, as war contraband.

On August 30, 1861, Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont, heading the Department of the West, issued the "Frémont Emancipation" that declared all enslaved people in Missouri to be free, on the basis of martial law, which was essentially the same basis as the First Confiscation Act. That is, the government had the authority to take possession of the property of traitors against the government to put down the insurrection. The text of Frémont order:

"All persons who shall be taken with arms in their hands within these lines shall be tried by court-martial, and, if found guilty, will be shot. The property, real and personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri who shall take up arms against the United States, and who shall be directly proven to have taken active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared free."

Lincoln immediately rescinded the order, and when Frémont challenged him to do so publicly so Lincoln would have to take the blame, Lincoln did.

On December 3, 1861, Lincoln issued his First Annual Message to Congress (i.e., the State of the Union address), which included language about his desire that the federal government fund a "compensated emancipation" program, and a colonization scheme, either deporting black Americans to Africa by the U.S. government acquiring territory there for such a purpose, or else acquiring territory elsewhere for the purpose.

On March 6, 1862, in a Special Message to Congress, Lincoln made his proposal of "compensated emancipatin" even more explicit. The Special Message recommenced the adoption of a joint resolution of Congress that the pledged that the federal government would be willing to fund a "compensated emancipation" plan in any state that would pass it. This was primarily aimed at the loyal slave states, but was an indication to the Confederate states not only of his intentions toward slavery if the war dragged on, but of his willingness to compromise on the issue, since it went further than he had ever gone publicly before, but in no way was the the plan indicated to be compulsory. The text of Lincoln's proposed joint resolution of Congress was "to be substantially as follows":

"Resolved. That the United States ought to cooperate with any state which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniary aid, to be used by such state, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system."

On April 16, 1862, Congress passed the "District Empancipation", a law that banned slavery in the District of Columbia, and compensated all the slaveholders there. A major goal of the pro-slavery South before the war was to preserve slavery in Washington, D.C., as long as it remained legal in either Maryland or Virginia. With the Republicans dominating Congress, they moved ahead with D.C. abolition, and Lincoln immediately signed it into law.

On May 9, 1862, Union General David Hunter, military commander of the Department of the South, issued "Hunter's General Order No. 11", which was similar to Frémont's Emancipation. The order immediately emancipated all enslaved people in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, once again justifying the action through martial law. And once again, Lincoln rescinded the order immediately, though this time, with his revocation, he reiterated his proposed federal funding of compensated emancipation by any state who would adopt such a measure.

On June 19, 1862, Congress passed a "Law Enacting Emancipation in the Federal Territories" which outlawed slavery in any federal territory that did not currently have it. This defied the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, but no matter, any lawsuit over the matter was moot once the 13th Amendment was ratified.

On July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which freed all enslaved people who escaped from Confederate states and to the Union lines. This strengthened the previous year's Confiscation Act, which just refused to return these people, but these people were still legally considered confiscated property. The new act confiscated them, and then freed them.

All this served to chip away at slavery, and indicated the direction Lincoln was headed. In fact, Lincoln had already begun to draft his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by mid-July. On July 13, he privately read a draft of it to Secretary of State William Seward and Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles. Welles didn't give much feedback, while Seward warned Lincoln it was likely to inflame public opinion in the South against the North, and said if he must do it, he should wait until after a major Union victory so that it didn't come off as looking desperate or vindictive. Lincoln agreed.

On July 22, 1862, Lincoln read the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his whole assembled Cabinet. Their opinions ran the gamut, with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton being very much in favor of it, while others expressed trepidation much as Seward already had.

In the meantime, discussion of Lincoln's reluctance to go full-blown emancipation was getting him public criticism in the Northern press. The most famous such article is the open letter addressed to Lincoln written by Horace Greeley in his New York Tribune newspaper, published under the title "Prayer of Twenty Millions" on August 20, 1862. The gist of Greeley's letter was essentially: many people in the North actively want emancipation because going back to the status quo once a peace is negotiated will only put off the inevitable. The war will just start up again later, and the only way to stop that from happening is to address the cause of the war: slavery. End slavery once and for all, and it will end the North/South conflict once and for all.

This is the letter that Lincoln responded to in his famous "Letter to Horace Greeley", published in the New York Tribune. That letter reiterated Lincoln's primary objective was to preserve the Union, and his Presidential decisions in regards to slavery were all predicated on that purpose, despite his personal feelings to be entirely against slavery.

On September 17, 1862, the major Union victory he had been waiting for at last came. The Union had pushed the Confederates back into Virginia from Maryland at the Battle of Antietam. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln publicly issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.

Given this course of events that played out over more than a year, it's not that surprising that a reaction that it was unexpected was rather muted. Added to everything that actually did happen, even before the war and throughout the Secession Winter, Southerners had accused Lincoln and the Republicans of having secret ambitions of issuing some sort of unconstitutional decree that would end slavery. So neither side was particularly shocked. There was more relief, skepticism, and dread once it finally did happen.

Though to that point, to answer your question: "Had there been a general expectation that even if the Union won the war, the institution of slavery would be preserved in some form?" Maybe at the very outset of the war, but by early 1862, as it became clear that neither side would be willing to give in anytime soon, the public sentiment in the North changed from "Preserve the Union and end this quickly" to "Slavery must be ended to make sure this conflict doesn't start up again later", as exemplified by Greeley's editorial, and the letters of many soldiers and civilians during 1861-62. (More on that later.)

Perhaps a bit unexpectedly, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase recounted in a letter to Francis Carpenter in 1866 that "so little import did any Cabinet meetings in July relating to the proclamation seem to me, that not the slightest trace of such meeting remain in my memory...for there was much talk which required no action and of which, I took no account."

So on the contrary, it may not have at all shocked the people who knew Lincoln well or even the politicians in Washington as a whole, and it was they--not the public--who were a bit shocked that emancipation became such a focal point of public discourse over the following many months.