[TazeTSchnitzel]

>They replaced the excellent System.IO namespace with the Windows.Storage namespace, which doesn't give you access to much of the computer's actual storage

For security reasons. You can open a file picker, but you can't just spider directories on the hard disk, because Windows 8 has quite restrictive sandboxing.

[EwanG]

Although for most purposes you can tell it to just use the "defined" Documents space (effectively user/MyDocuments) which means you shouldn't HAVE to worry about spidering down directories for your save files and such.

Not associated with MS, but currently developing for the Windows Store :-)