I had similar problems with the windows 8 server beta. Tried installing it in a vm to check it out. And I was unable to figure out how to do anything at all with it. No windows explorer, or command prompt available. I dont even get the metro skin, it just popped up the server configuration manager. I spent 10 mins googling if there was a way to get the start button back to no avail(since most posts were about the consumer preview). I guess I will try again once the final version is out.