Installing Windows 8 Developers Preview Edition in VirtualBox

Microsoft decided to take a different approach to marketing Windows 8 and has released a free developers preview edition of their new operating system to the public. I decided to download a copy of the new OS so I could do some testing so I set it up as a virtual machine using VirtualBox.

When I'm testing a new operating system I like to install them inside a virtual machine for several different reasons. Virtual machines are great for testing because they don't require a separate physical computer and they also allow you to create snapshots. If something goes wrong during testing you can easily revert the virtual machine to a previous snapshot and start over.

VirtualBox hasn't been around as long as VMware has but there are a few reasons why I like it better than VMWare. First of all VirtualBox is completely free, whereas a copy of VMware workstation costs about $100. Secondly VirtualBox is very straightforward to set up and configure. Third it runs smoother than VMware and consumes less resources.

Currently VMware doesn't even work with Windows 8, during the beginning of the installation it will halt and report the error "vcpu-0:NOT_IMPLEMENTED".

I'm sure VMware will eventually release a fix for this but in the mean time stick with VirtualBox.

Microsoft is providing the Windows 8 installer in ISO (disk image) format. You can find the download links on the MSDN website.

Win 8 preview is available in 3 different version

• Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64) 4.8 GB
• Windows Developer Preview English, 64-bit (x64) 3.6 GB
• Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit (x86) 2.8 GB

During my test I downloaded the 64-bit edition without the developer tools. If you write software and need access to the SDK then you may want the version with developer tools instead.

The ISO files are pretty large and could take a while to download if you don't have a fast connection.

VirtualBox is very easy to install and set up. To get started download the installer to your computer. If you are running Windows download the x86/amd64 package. VB also supports Mac OS-X, Linux, and Solaris as host operating systems.

After the installer finishes downloading run the installation wizzard to install VirtualBox. You can select the default choices on all of the screens during the process. After the installation fishes you will have a shortcut to VirtualBox on your desktop and in your start menu.

1. First you'll need to start the new machine wizard, to do this click on the new button.
2. On the first screen of the wizard click next to proceed.
3. Choose a name for the VM, I called mine "Windows 8". For the OS type choose Microsoft Windows. Set the version to be either Windows 7 32 or 64-bit depending on which version you downloaded.
4. Next you'll need to decide how much memory to allocate to the virtual machine. Windows 8 works best with a minimum of 2GB of memory. Don't allocate too much because this takes memory away from the host computer.

1. On the virtual hard disk page make sure start-up disk is checked and choose to create a new hard disk.
2. In the virtual disk creation wizard chose VDI for the hard disk type.
3. On the storage details screen select dynamically allocated as the disk type. This allows the hard drive to start small and grow based on how much space the VM uses.
4. Choose a location to save the VM hard drive, this can be anywhere on your computer that has enough room. The default size of 20GB is sufficient unless you plan on installing a lot of extra programs. The base install for windows 8 takes about 11GB.

After you have finished creating the VM it will show up in the list of machines in a powered off state. To start the machine just click on the green arrow labeled "Start".

The first time that a machine is started in VirtualBox the first run wizard will be launched. On the second screen of the wizard you will need to select the installation media to use.

I recomend choosing the ISO file as the installation source. You could burn the ISO to a disc instead but the installation will run much slower.

After selecting the source the VM will start up and boot from the Windows 8 installation source.

The process for installing Windows 8 isn't much different from Windows 7, in fact it's almost identical until to get to the end of the installation.

1. Language selection - The installer takes a couple of minutes to load but once it finishes the first screen requires you to selection the language for the installation.
2. Starting the install - After confirming the localization settings you can select "Install now" to begin copying the files to the hard drive. In the lower left corner you'll notice there is an option to do a repair, hopefully you won't need that option.
3. License terms - If you want to continue with the install you must accept the terms of the license agreement.
4. Installation type - The preview release of Windows 8 does not support the upgrade feature so you must select custom on this screen.
5. Installation location - In this step you should see the virtual hard disk you created when you configured VirtualBox. Select the drive and click next.

The virtual machine will restart a couple of times during the installation. Once the installer finishes the Windows personalization wizard will run.

1. Choose a machine name - You can call the machine whatever you want but the name cannot include spaces.
2. Settings - I selected the express settings option. If you want to go through each of the options you can select custom. Either way you can change the settings later if you want.
3. Logging on - Microsoft added the ability to link your Windows user ID with a Windows Live ID. I think this option is pretty cool because it allows you to automatically symc some settings between computers. If you don't want to use a Live ID you can create a local account.

Once you've logged on you can begin exploring Windows 8. Some things in 8 looked familiar to me but others have been completely changed. You'll probably notice that the operating system is heavy designed to run on a touch screen.

Overall I think Windows 8 seems to run quite well on VirtualBox. Microsoft claims they have decreased many of the resource requirements in Windows 8 which seems like a good idea if they are targeting mobile devices.