In case you get this: We couldn't get your developer license for Windows 8.1 Preview. Our Server is unavailable right now. Please try again later.

Yep really excited about Visual Studio 2013, except for…Having to rebuild my system yesterday because of what appears to be a bad install/uninstall with VS 2013.  For some reason during my installation I did an uninstall of Visual Studio 2013, not sure why, got distracted by a shiny object.  As a result, I could not run a Visual Studio Windows Store project.  The symptoms were that the Visual Studio would not connect to the Windows Store Account, showing in a dialog box which I burned up when I did the rebuild.  I did try some tricks with Power Shell (which some people call Windows Shell, it isn’t).

So no matter what I did, system restore, power shell to try to get the windows store, magic dance, plead to the demo demi-gods, nothing worked.  Tried to install Visual Studio 2012 Express to see if I could trick the Registry Demi-Gods, didn’t work.  Searched the Registry, exported the registry and then threw a tantrum (well not really, but mentally and got all frowny face).

And to paraphrase Thomas Edison, Try and Try again, then give up, don’t be a darn fool about it. 

Happily it was a quick install which it only took about 15 minutes to rebuild Windows 8.1, another 15 to get Visual Studio 2013 installed and then Office 2013.  So it was pretty quick. 

For some of the Power Shell cmdlets see: https://win8powershell.codeplex.com/

If this powershell command doesn't work, then you are pretty much going to have to rebuild your system, although you could try that system restore you likely forgot to do:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration

So all ended well, and the apps and blogs will roll on.