I’ve been curious about getting to experience the “metro” UI in Windows 8, so with the consumer preview now available for download, I didn’t waste any time getting it running in the lab. Now granted it will be the desktop experience through a VM with no touch experience, but alas, isn’t that the point of a unified interface?
Installation from the 64-bit ISO image into VMware Fusion 4.1.1 on MacOS 10.6 was uneventful. After the obligatory interrogation for personal information (including birthdate) and registration with Microsoft (no doubt to primarily power the Store), things went as expected until I arrived at the tiles. After dropping into a full screen experience of Internet Explorer, it took me a second to figure out how to get back (Control-Escape). That and the horizontal scroll were a little disorienting.
I’ll need some more time to write a review of any length, but for now a couple screen shots of note including the home screen (at top), full screen Internet Explorer and the Store <images missing>.