Windows 8 Developer Preview installation on a Virtual Machine (VMWare Workstation)
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As we know Microsoft released Developer Preview of Window 8 last week, I am very sure that you would like to give it a try and would keen to know how Windows 8 looks like.
These could we two ways to install Windows 8 Developer Preview:-
(1) Clean Install
(2) Install Windows 8 Developer Preview Edition on a Virtual Machine.
Here we will discuss about 2nd method to test Windows 8 i.e., installation of windows 8 (developer preview) on a virtual machine. In this post, we will see how can we install Windows 8 on VMWare.
VMWare is one of the lead player in virtualization. It offers VMWare Player, which is a free software. VMWare Player can be used to create virtual machines. On my Windows 7 Operating system, I am having Windows XP, Windows 98, Windows 95, etc as a virtual machine. But this VMWare Player is not compatible with Windows 8 Developer Preview.
So you need to use VMWare Workstation, which is also a product of VMWare. Latest release of VMWare Workstation is compatible with Windows 8 Developer Preview.
Though there is a license fee of $199 for VMWare Workstation, they give a trial license which will be active for 1 month. I guess it is a good deal. Nothing to pay, but can install Windows 8 for a month.
Download VMWare Workstation from Here
No big deal in installation of VMWare Workstation. Hence I will not go in detail. It should be easy for you.
Now
Download Windows 8 Developer Preview from here
Windows 8 Developer Preview will be downloaded in iso file format.
Once VMWare Workstation has been installed and Windows 8 Developer Preview (.iso) is downloaded, start VMWare Workstation.
Step1
Click on Create a new Virtual Machine.
New Virtual Machine Wizard will start. Go for Typical installation.
Select “I will install the operating system later” and in next screen, instruct VMWare Workstation that guest Operating systems is Microsoft Windows7.
(All of these steps are work around to test Windows 8 on virtual machine)
Give a name to your virtual machine and location to store VMWare machine Files.
20 GB Space will be enough. I created virtual machine with 20GB and around 12 GB space was available in C-drive of virtual machine. If you don’t have 20GB space available, you can give a try with 10GB.
Now VMWare Workstation will confirm you settings for Virtual machine. Confirm that memory for Virtual machine (Windows 8 Developer Preview) is 1GB (1024 MB).
Now you will be able to See your Virtual machine entry in VMWare Workstation.
You must remember that we haven’t installed the operating system yet.
Now Click on Devices –> CD/DVD (IDE).
It will open a new pop-up windows for settings. Give ISO image file path (the file, which you have downloaded from Microsoft website).
After you give correct path for iso file, say OK.
You are now back to VMWare Workstation windows.
Click on “Power on this virtual machine” icon. You can also find this option at VM – Power – Power On
Once you power on your virtual machine of Windows 8 Developer Preview, installation of Windows 8 starts.
At this stage, I received this error. Ignore it as most software will not be compatible with Windows 8 Developer Preview for obvious reasons.
After a brief pause, you will see following welcome screen.
Say Next.
Accept License.
Select Custom (Advanced).
Say Next.
Now the actual process of installation of Windows 8 Developer Preview on VMWare Workstation starts.
It will take around 20 min or so. Be patient.
Once installation is done successfully, it will ask you name your PC.
I named my virtual machine of Windows 8 as “Rit-Windows8-DP”.
Click on “Use Express Setting”
Now Windows 8 gives you option to Specify Login credentials.
In Windows 8, Microsoft is has introduced login as Windows Live ID. For this tutorial, we will go for local account.
Click on “Don’t want to log on with a Windows Live ID?”.
Click on Local account.
Specify User name and Password, which will be used to in Windows 8 machine.
Creation of account was the final step in installation of Windows 8 Developer Preview on Virtual machine.
In another 5 min Start Screen will be shown. Installation of Windows 8 Developer Preview has been done successfully on VMWare Workstation.
Click on Desktop and it will send you to legacy desktop of Microsoft Windows family Desktop.
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Category: Microsoft, Virtualization, Windows
About the Author (Author Profile)
Ritesh Kumar is having 6+ years of IT experience in various business intelligence tools and technologies.A mechanical engineer by education and a software engineer by profession. Apart from working on Informatica PC, Pentaho tools, Talend OS, Oracle, MySQL, Hadoop, Pig latin, Business objects (ah... long list to go), I also interest in domaining and blogging. Do take some time to visit about me section of this blog.Subscribe
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at first i tried running it in the VM but it didn’t run, that was the 64 bit of win8 Dev Pre. then i downloaded the 32 bit and now it’s working fine.
good tutorial!
Glad to know that it helped you! Thanks.
sure virtual machine will always be a good place to test this.
thank for the reminder and tutorial.
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