Hello all,
First, go here to enter in the $20 Starbucks Gift Card giveaway before it's too late.
Now that you've entered, you are now prepared to test drive the new Windows 8.
Windows 8 is Microsoft's highly-anticipated sequel to the successful Windows 7 (obviously). Now that you've read my post on downloading and installing Windows 7 for free, why not try out Windows 8 while you're at it?
Windows 8 is not releasing until sometime around the summer/fall time of 2012 (allegedly), but Microsoft has so-kindly posted a developer preview copy of the new Windows on their downloads page. If you are a developer, there is a version for you with developer tools included and you must install the Windows 8 ISO file on a clean install. However, the majority of the users will simply want a regular version to preview without all of the developer tool add-ons. This version can be installed over your current version of Windows XP, Vista, or 7, which keeps your current files; or, with a clean install, which wipes your hard drive clean before installing.
Some of the known upgrades from Windows 7 include:
1) Windows to Go - This allows Windows 8 the ability to boot from a USB drive on any Windows 7 or 8 computer. This means you can take all of your programs, documents, settings, etc with you on the go to any computer running Windows 7 or 8 and transforms that computer into yours. Pretty slick.
2) ARM Tablet Support - Windows 8, like iOS, will now be available for an array of tablet devices and smartphones. This should bring about streamlining your Windows devices, much like Apple has done with the iPhone/iPad/Mac's using iCloud.
3) Faster multitasking by using less CPU to run programs.
4) A Windows App Store - Similar to Droid, Apple, and Blackberry app stores, Windows will now have an app store on Windows 8 so you can download all your favorite apps right to your PC or other devices.
5) New User Interface - One of the most obvious changes is how Windows 8 looks compared to Windows 7. Here are some screenshots from the developer preview, which are pretty intriguing to say the least.
If you have Xbox Live for an Xbox 360, the UI probably looks sorta familiar since the new Xbox Live update changed the UI to match the new Windows 8 UI. I bet you just can't wait to give it a try now so here's how to get Windows 8 (the developer preview edition) running on your system.
1) Download the appropriate ISO straight from Microsoft's website found here.
You can now choose 2 different ways to install so read them both before you choose:
Option A) If you are doing a clean install; meaning you are wiping everything from your current hard drive and only going to be running Windows 8, begin with Step 2 of my Windows 7 tutorial.
Option B) If you want to keep your current operating system and want to be able to choose which OS your computer runs, you will need to download Virtual Box here and continue reading. *You will not need to burn the ISO file to a CD with this option.
3) When you open up Virtual Box, click New in the top left corner and it will bring up a step-by-step guide on adding your new OS.
4) Enter a name for the OS (ex. Windows 8 Preview) and make sure you choose Version: Windows 7 (64 bit). **There is no Windows 8 option at this time so you must choose Windows 7 (64 bit) in order for Windows 8 to work properly. Click Next.
5) Now choose how much RAM to allocate to the new OS. Pick something between 512mb and 2gb, depending on your preference. Click Next.
6) Make sure Start-up Disk is checked and choose "Create new hard disk". You also notice you need at least 20gb of free space to proceed with this process so make sure you do. Click Next.
7) Choose the type of file for the new virtual disk. The default is VDI so that will work just fine. Click Next.
8) Now you choose between a Dynamic or Fixed size drive. Dynamic automatically expands your drive allocation (default 20gb) if you approach your stated max size. Fixed will keep it at your stated max size no matter what. It's up to you which you choose. Click Next.
9) This is where you choose your allocation size. You can keep it at 20gb if you wish, that should be plenty of room since you're just testing out Windows 8 for now. Click Next.
10) Confirm that you made the right choices and then proceed.
11) Your new drive is created so now select it and click "Start" at the top. This will boot up the new drive and run a setup wizard automatically.
12) You will now select where you saved the Windows 8 ISO file you downloaded above. Click Next and a Windows installation menu should appear.
13) Follow the prompts to accept the agreements until you get to the Upgrade page.
14) When it asks you whether you want to "Upgrade" or "Custom" installation, choose "Custom" (advanced). You are treating the newly-created drive as a fresh drive so you are not upgrading anything, simply doing a "clean install" on your particular partition.
15) Now choose the new drive you just created to install Windows 8.
16) Continue the prompts until you get to the Windows Live ID section. Choose whether or not to sign in with your Windows Live ID, if you don't have one just choose load without using a Windows Live ID.
You should now be up and running with Windows 8! To go back to your normal OS, reboot and you should be given an option of which OS to run.
Leave a comment to let everyone know what you think of Windows 8.
Enjoy!
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