There’s a lot of bad information going around about a defect in the Windows 8 Metro developer license setup pass for Metro development on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.
Specifically, the license servers are overloaded, and mostly-failing.

The way the MSVS panel responds is to give the message

We couldn’t get your developer license for Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Please check your network connection and try again

Error 80004005

However, what’s actually going on is simpler: MSVS is calling some command line program, and that command line program, when it doesn’t get an answer from the other side, assumes your side is broken (thus the comment about checking your network – something it could easily – and should – do itself.)

Honestly, this is like a popular eBay auction – just keep trying, and hammer the servers until they do their job.

You could do that by closing and re-opening Visual Studio 2011, but honestly, who wants to do that?  It’s invoking a program called “Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration“.  Just open a shell or a PowerShell and run that.  You’ll probably see the same error message; keep trying.

It took me six tries.  Once that command completes, opening MSVS will just work.

Honestly, someone really should update that tool to fail in a more transparent fashion; people are re-installing operating systems to get around what should be “try again in five minutes.”