I've done a real quick installation of the new Technical Preview of Windows server - I've put the slides together on Google Drive here:

[caption id="attachment_453" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Installing Windows Server Technical Preview[/caption]

The most astute of you will notice that, just like the Windows 10 desktop OS, the install process is (as far I've seen!) identical- again, VMware tools installs happily and without a hitch.

Like 2012 R2, we have a start button- and this time a classic start menu appears! No search app appears to be installed (unlike Windows 10) although this makes sense- you do, however, get the Windows "Workspace" management icon. Pinning items to the start menu can give you a very Windows 10 style bar - I've pinned Server Manager here for example:

[caption id="attachment_455" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Windows Server TP Start Menu with Pinned Item[/caption]

I must admit, I kind of like this (although I quite liked 2012 R2's menu as it did allow you to customise the start menu so the first thing you see are big old icons for the functions you're likely to use). I'll have a look to install AD (be interesting to see how well the "Azure hosted AD" integration is coming along) and deploy a few boxes for IIS and Remote Desktop and have a play!