I installed the conductor software on my Windows 8 machine and it runs fine. What version of .NET are you using? You may need to install the older versions of the framework.
.NET Framework 4.5 is enabled by default in Windows 8. Windows 8 does not include .NET 3.5 by default, but the files for .NET 3.5 are available on the Windows 8 installation media as an optional feature.