jford,

Yes Windows 8 runs beautifully as a VM on VMWare Workstation 8 - It won't run on Workstation 7 though. If you download the free 30 day trial of VMWare 8, it contains VMWare Player 4 and Windows 8 will continue to to run on that even after the trial ends.

BiaB 2012 also runs nicely on this Windows 8 VM - in fact when I put it in full screen mode I completely forget it's a VM !

(NO my pc isn't "screeming bleeding edge" but it IS i7 based)

Hope this helps!

Ole