Some early observations: No option for a "Classic" Explorer shell with the start menu, just the Windows 8 "Metro" start screen. Finally you can create custom modules again, which can then be used when building an OS image. No mentions of an ARM target platform (Edit: well, not in this CTP; there will be an ARM release of WES8).
The WES 8 CTP IBW bears little comparison to the WES 7 - It is buggy, slow and essentially dysfunctional - I tried several times to create a WES 8 system - and after an age, either a broken system or something non-graphical and unusable beyond opening up the control panel, taskmanager, and explorer window if lucky - no desktop emerged. The first difference is that you need to enter the product key at the beginning of the setup of the IBW - it will become very tedious as it must be entered by hand - every time - in the preinstallation environment - there is no way to copy it in. That gives you 30 days grace to try out the embedded system you build - for that you needed to enter no product key at all in WES7. The worst problem seems to be that dependencies and conflicts do not get resolved, and the OS size on disk is not calculated, and the Installing features and updates and the first run - getting system ready - takes forever. Then it mucks up the boot menu by taking over as the default OS and setting the timeout first to 3 and on a subsequent restart to 0 seconds - you can reset this in msconfig by opening a command window - shift F10, and then typing msconfig, and changing the boot settings back to something like they were before. Life's too short - it's not worth it for a 30 day trial. I only burnt a 32-bit version DVD, have not got the heart to try the 64-bit IBW in case it turns out the same. The DVD announces itself as Windows 8 32bit Bootable IBS - which I think stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome! I might try the toolkit if I am feeling masochistic later in the week. On balance I don't recommend trying it, yet
Well I don't think IBW has much practical relevance really. After all booting from DVD and setting up a system by customizing its components every time is a very tedious process itself. Using a preconfigured answer file instead is much more useful, especially when you're testing and modifying configurations. It's also not intended for use as a regular OS, so the 30-day trial period isn't a big deal for me. At this early stage in development there is just no point to use this for anything more than testing and getting familiar with the new tools and OS components. Also, final releases of WES will only come a few months after the "regular" OS RTMs, so while this has the same build number it is still in an earlier development stage than the current Windows 8 beta/consumer preview.
The ICE is improved over embedded 7 with task manager and other important components clearly named exporting directly to bootable usb is a timesaver too. I hope they are not going to use inline activation in the final build
I grabbed it last night (WE8I) watched the included video. Can this be installed on a VM, like VMware, VPC or Hyper-v? I did (googled &) see a story on installing the WEcompact version on a VHD, just wanting to try this one in a VM though. Edit: Well I answered my own question. I found my screenshots from several previous of Windows Embedded builds that I installed in (win7 host) VPC.