Virtual Windows 8 Install It Your

Virtual Windows 8 Install It Your

If you are eager and want to try the Microsofts next milestone Operating System in the history of Windows OS, you have install it your system.

Now you can install and test the Windows 8 Consumer preview in your system through Oracles Virtual box.

There you have two option, one is fixed(It is a fixed size), another one is Dynamic (virtual machine hard disk size to increase in size as it fills up) and then Select the HDD disk Size and storage location.

Once you click Create, youll be presented with three different file types you can select for your hard disk file: Screenshot: David Murphy Advertisement You should be fine to stick with the default option: the VirtualBox Disk Image, or VDI.

The first, and most compelling, is that you want to play: Maybe there are some other operating system you want to dabble with ( cough Linux cough ), but you dont want to deal with installing another hard drive, partitioning your existing drive, or setting up your system a different way.

Advertisement Virtual machines are great because they allow you to install an operating system within your existing operating system.

Everything you do within this new OScue Inception soundtrackis sandboxed from your primary OS.

Anything you install, or mess up, can be deleted with a few clicks of a mouse.

And if youre smart, you saved a version of your secondary OS right after you installed it, so you can quickly go back to a clean, fresh version of Linux, Windows, or whatever.) Even better, you can set up a virtual machine on your system for free.

Heres how to get started: The apps youll need You can pay for a virtual machine app like VMWare Workstation Pro, VMWare Fusion, or Parallels Desktop, but I recommend using the free VirtualBox app if youre new to the wide world of virtual machines.

If youre using Windows 10 Pro, you also get a free, built-in virtualization tool, too.) Advertisement For simplicitys sake, all of my examples in this article will come from a Windows version of VirtualBox, but the app is cross-platform.

For Mac users, VirtualBox is a great alternative if you dont want to Boot Camp into Windows, for example.) A virtual machine isnt very helpful without an operating system to install on it.

For Windows, you can grab the Windows media installation tool and use it to download an image (.ISO) of the operating system, which youll then load into VirtualBox.

GO Media may get a commission Subscribe and Get Your First Bag Free Promo Code AtlasCoffeeDay20 Screenshot: David Murphy You can also download one of the free virtual machine images Microsoft offers, which expire after 90 days.

Advertisement If youre looking to run a virtual version of macOS on macOS, youll have a few hoops to jump through.

Its not as straightforward of a process as running a virtual version any other operating system, but its possible.

If you want to run macOS on Windowsespecially if youre using VirtualBoxyoure in for a world of hurt.

Its complicated, a pain in the butt to configure, and I found that it ran incredibly slowly on my souped-up system when I did it.

Youll probably want to try the free VMWare Player if you go this route, and consult guides over at rhackintosh or helpful YouTube tutorials ( like this one ) to get macOS to work on your Windows system.

Creating a Hackintosh is a guide in itself, and something Ill definitely revisit in a future articleif I can get it to not be terrible.

Advertisement Setting up VirtualBox To get started with your virtual machinebe it Windows, Linux, or macOS (if youre really going for it)load VirtualBox and click on the big New button in the corner.

You cant miss it.

Advertisement (If you downloaded Microsofts free virtual machine images instead of a Windows.ISO file, youll instead click on File Import Appliance and find the.OVA file you unzipped.

Import that, and youll be able to fire it up immediatelyno other configuration required, though you might want to tweak some settings, as we discuss later, to get the best performance.) Screenshot: David Murphy Advertisement Give your new operating system a name, select what it isWindows, Linux, macOS, et ceteraand select the correct version of whatever youre installing.

If you only see 32-bit options, you might have to do a little troubleshooting to unlock 64-bit versions.

It might be worth investigating, however, as a 64-bit version of your virtualized OS can use more than 4GB of memory (if you plan to dedicate that much to your OS-in-an-OS).

If youre using a 32-bit processor, because your computer is ancient, then you should just stick with a 32-bit version of your virtual operating system.

Screenshot: David Murphy Advertisement When VirtualBox asks you how much of your systems memory youd like to devote to your virtual OS, Id stick with its recommendationsspecifically, stay in the green zone.

Youll probably want at least 24GB at minimum for Windows to run smoothly.

If you can get to 8GB, even better.

And, yes, everything is measured in MB in VirtualBox, so 2GB translates to 2048MB, 4GB to 4096MB, et cetera.) You can always the amount of memory youre dedicating to your virtual machine after the fact.

If youre not happy with your initial choice, tweak it and see how that affects your virtual machines performance.

Advertisement Next, VirtualBox will ask you to set up a hard diskreally, a file serving as a hard drivefor your virtual machine to use.

Virtual Windows 8 For Mac