With today's release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, we got our first hands-on experience with the brand-spanking-new Windows Store. The previously released Developer Preview showed an icon (or tile, in Windows 8-speak) for the Store, but clicking it didn't lead anywhere. Now, you can actually download tons of apps that take advantage of the new Metro interface Microsoft is pushing across all its mobile and desktop operating systems.

Microsoft is the king of the desktop and laptop world, of course, but to break into the tablet market in a meaningful way, the app store will need a consumer-friendly experience and, most importantly, lots of great and useful applications. So far, the Windows Store could use some improvement in the methods for discovering applications, but much of the groundwork for a useful app store is available in the Consumer Preview and should be far more advanced by the time a final version of Windows 8 is released. While a touch-based interface will probably provide the best Windows Store experience, we've been using it with mouse and keyboard in a virtual machine and can offer an overview on how it works and some initial thoughts.

In the preview, all the apps are free. But the interface for downloading free trials of paid apps is already present. In some applications there are "buy" and "try" options, as seen here:

At the moment, buying and trying is the same thing—clicking either will download the application, which then appears as a tile on your Start screen. Developers will have the freedom to decide whether to offer trials, which can either limit the number of features or set a time limit on how long the consumer can use the application in its free mode. There will be in-place trial upgrades, as well as in-app purchases.

Microsoft has not said exactly how many apps are available, but there are 78 in the "Top free" section and 61 in "All stars." "Later, there will also be lots of apps that you can buy," Windows executive Kent Walter said in a blog post today. "You’ll be able to try many apps before you buy, and if you like one you’re trying, you can get the full version without losing your place or reinstalling anything."

This is similar to how Windows Phone works, and is more flexible than the iPhone and iPad, which don't offer trial periods for applications (although there are plenty of "lite" versions of iOS apps with limited functionality). Android offers the ability to test out apps and get a refund if you don't like it, but you only have 15 minutes to decide. With Windows Metro apps, developers who decide to offer trial versions will be able to choose how long users may test the apps out before committing to a purchase.

The Windows Store home screen, as seen below, shows a few featured apps, sections for new releases, top paid apps (currently empty), top free apps, and "All stars."

The Store could use better options for sorting through the apps, in particular a list of all the categories (games, news, books, entertainment, productivity, etc.) on the home screen. These categories are all there, but each one gets its own space-consuming tile, meaning you have to keep scrolling to the right to find them all. Even clicking on the "Top free" app section just brings you to a big list, with no division by category. This is a bit annoying on the desktop. On a tablet, it won't be quite as bad, but a list of all categories on one screen would be helpful, which is why both Apple and Google built them into their tablet interfaces.

It's odd, because the categories are all there—just not in a conveniently accessible list. For example, if you click on a game, like Cut The Rope, you'll see categories "Home > Games > Puzzle" at the top left. Clicking on Games brings up a list of games and a drop-down list including all the subcategories, as seen here:

The Store's home screen would be a lot more useful if it contained a similar drop-down menu containing all primary categories. UPDATE: As one reader points out, there is a way to zoom out from the Store home screen to gain a view of all categories. In a keyboard/mouse scenario, you can do this by pressing Control and using the scroll wheel. It hasn't worked on my virtual machine, but I am told it does work on the appropriate hardware, and should be easy on a touch screen.

The category divisions in the Windows Store can also be found in the search bar. Hold your mouse pointer or finger on the top right or top left to bring it up. After completing a search, you'll be able to sort the results by category, price, rating, name, or date of release.

By the time Windows 8 comes out for real, later this year, we'd expect a much more efficient system for sorting and discovering apps. It becomes obvious that the store isn't quite ready for prime time when you scroll all the way to the last screen on the right, click the "Security apps" tile and are told "We can't find any apps for this category." The "Top free" apps section is also a bit of mess. While it usually showed 78 apps, there were times when only ten would appear, or it would show free apps from one random category, like games, without an option to select other categories.

Microsoft stressed that, just like the OS, the Store and apps are still in a preview state. "The OS is at the consumer preview level, the apps are at the app preview level‚ all subject to change," Microsoft said in a statement sent to Ars. "It's early. Now is not a good time to start reviewing the apps, or listing them, or categorizing them."

The interface for the individual apps' description pages is quite useful, with slots for reviews, pictures, the supported processors—x86, x64, and ARM—and the app's permissions. For example, Cut The Rope has just one permission, the right to access your Internet connection, while Photobucket can access the Internet, your webcam, and pictures library. You don't have to do any scrolling to find the app's permissions—it's right up front, and even listed twice:

There doesn't seem to be any link to a privacy policy, but Microsoft has promised to force app makers to provide those as part of a recent agreement with the State of California.

Apps you download from the Windows Store can be installed on up to five PCs. The Consumer Preview has 14 pre-installed apps, including Maps, Xbox Live Games, Solitaire, Mail, Photos, Camera, Reader, and SkyDrive. If there are updates available, you'll see a little number in the Store tile on the Windows 8 Start screen. Maps, Weather, Finance, and Solitaire have already received updates since we installed the Consumer Preview this morning.

If you want to tweak your preferences a bit, you can go into the settings and account preferences in the same way you find the search bar, by moving over to the top right or top left of the screen. Here, you can change the settings on whether to automatically download application updates, or require a password before completing purchases. There are also settings for making it easier to find applications in your preferred languages, and to locate applications that meet accessibility requirements.