I've been playing around with this. My perspective is that there's two UI environments on Windows 8 - there's the new'Metro' environment which AFAIK we now call the Windows 8 Start screen; and there's the 'traditional' Windows desktop. Running Windows 8
you can switch back and forth between the two.
Some new applications are listed on the Windows 8 start screen, and when you start them, they run in the Windows 8 Start screen (formerly the 'Metro' environment). Other older applications, like Calculator and Visual Studio, you can list them using tiles
on the Windows 8 Start screen. When you launch them they run on the traditional Windows desktop.
I hope to soon publish videos that shows how to create Lync WPF and Silverlight control applications that run in Windows 8, using the Lync 2013 Preview SDK. With a WPF app I believe you will be able to start it from the Windows 8 Start screen, and it will
run on the desktop. With a Lync Silverlight application, I believe you'll be able to start it in IE, and it will run on the desktop. I don't know yet what the story is with Windows 8 and the Lync 2010 SDK. I encourage you to give it a try.
I know of no way to create a Lync 'Metro' application. Yet.
