With the launch of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, we finally get a look at the Windows Store—Microsoft's answer to Apple's iOS and Mac App Stores. In its present form, the Windows Store only offers free software. All you need is a Windows Live ID to acquire the Metro-style apps in the store (you get one when you sign up for Hotmail or Windows Live Messenger account). The store doesn't work with Windows 8 Developer preview, so you'll have to update to Consumer to see it in action.

Organization

Apps are well categorized into groups like Social, Entertainment, Photos, Music & Videos, Books and reference, News, Food, Shopping, and so on. And it's easy to swipe back and forth through them.  There's also a Spotlight section, along with tiles for Top Paid, Top Free, New releases, and All Stars. Most sections also have smaller, square Top Paid and Top Free tiles to show the most popular titles in the section. One of the store's larger tiles, titled "Got Apps" shows all the pre-installed apps like Weather, Maps, Music, and Photos.

When you click into an app category, for some you'll see dropdowns for subcategories—Games had 15 subcategories, including Action, Casino, Kids, Puzzle, Role Playing, Shooter, and Strategy. Several of the sections had no representative apps yet, but it's good to see that the store is well-though-out enough to plan for these genres. In the app category view, you can also filter by free, paid, or trial versions available. You can sort by most "noteworthy," newest, highest rating, and lowest or highest price.

There's a surprisingly rich selection for a store that just opened. Prominent among the choices are the winners of Microsoft's worldwide developer contest called First Apps Contest. There are a few prominent no-shows, however: I saw no type of word-processor or security software, nor is there a utilities section.

Each App's page shows its user star rating, icon, price (all free for now), with Buy and optionally Try buttons. On the larger right column are three tabs—Overview, Details, and Reviews. Overview shows screenshots, a text description, and Features list. The Details tab indicates hardware requirements and privacy permissions the app needs. I couldn't write a review of an app until I'd installed it, which makes sense. Each review includes a star rating and in turn can be rated itself by readers as helpful or not, or they can report it as inappropriate.

Free…For Now

Even though all the current apps are free, some, such as the Flow game, already have a Try button for installing on a trial basis—something that in normal practice would only make sense for a paid app. Trials can be either time- or feature-limited, and in-app purchasing is supported for later upgrades. This ability to install trial versions of software is something not offered by the iOS App Store. I could also install multiple apps at the same time, with a note at top-right telling me how many were being installed.

Once you hit the Install button, the activity dots animate across the screen. Then you see a fly-in notification at upper-right telling you that the app was installed. I think a missing step here is the confirmation: Especially with an expensive app, you'll probably want a check that you really want to buy it. The Apple App store even makes you re-sign into your account before installing a new free app.

Check out our full Windows 8 Hands On.

After installation, the new app's tile appears at the end of your Start screen, and, if you visit the same app's page in the store again, under the price it says "You own this app." Clear enough, but Apple's replacing the price button with "Installed" is clearer.

Apps Anywhere

A benefit of this and other app stores (Apple's and Google's Chrome Web Store) is that any installed app will be available on any other machine you sign into. But when I signed in with my Windows ID on a second machine, however, no tiles for apps I'd installed on the first machine appeared, and even when I went to the Windows Store on the second machine, even though all my Sync settings were set to "on."  Clearly Microsoft hasn't finished with this one. Another benefit is automatic updating, and my store already showed notifications that I had updates for the few apps I'd installed.

One type of app completely missing from the store was old-style Windows desktop apps, though Microsoft's developer pages make it clear that programs running in the desktop are fair game for the Windows Store. And indeed, apps that will appear in the Security section would likely need to be full desktop apps.

An App Store with a Difference

Microsoft has learned from Apple's App Store, applying its own Metro-style approach. The Windows Store's simple, clear interface works well for touch input. And it duplicates pretty much everything you find in the Apple App Store, even adding the ability to test out trial versions of software. The store is so new that it still lacks some of the polish of Apple's App Store, but it's likely that the rough edges of the Windows Store will be smoothed by the time it's fully released with purchasing capability.

For more from Michael, follow him on Twitter @mikemuch.