Step by step: How to safely test-drive Win8

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	TOP STORY Step by step: How to safely test-drive Win8
	By Fred Langa Using safe, free virtual PC software, you can set up and run the Windows 8 Consumer Preview inside your current PC without affecting your other programs or your installed version of Windows. This method lets you test-drive Windows 8 without having to make potentially risky changes to your current setup. There’s no need for dual-booting, special partitions, and so on.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/top-story/step-by-step-how-to-safely-test-drive-win8/ (paid content, opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.[/td]

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Excellent article once again from Fred.
Wonder why he chose VBOX over VPC?
Anyway a comment I have is that you can only run a x64 version of Win8 under VBOX on a Host PC that has the virtualization feature on the CPU. The host OS also has to be a x64 version. A lot of Intel Core2 CPU’s don’t have this feature (all recent, 2008+, AMD’s CPU’s do!). So even if you are currently running a x64 version of an OS (XP, Vista, Win7, Linux, Solaris etc) that are supported by VBOX), you will get message that you are running on the wrong hardware on a non-virtualization enabled CPU.

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Thanks, Fred.
Just one thing: I downloaded VirtualBox 4.1.10, as that was what was immediately offered. But it seems that this version cannot read the downloaded ISO file for Win8-Consumer-Preview, so I could not see how to install Win8. I uninstalled VirtualBox 4.1.10, and installed version 4.1.8, and then it worked.
Paul Allerton

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I’ve been using VirtualBox to run Ubuntu on my Win 7 machine and it has worked well for quite a long time. I have two issues with it:

[*]The default install configures a VirtualBox Host-Only Network adapter that conflicts with my HP OfficeJet scanner and some Ubuntu networking. You cannot scan from the printer or find all the computers on your network with with the adapter enabled. Solution: Disable the adapter!
[*]A recent update has corrupted something on my system and every time I use VirtualBox, I’m certain to blue screen my computer when Ubuntu is exiting. I haven’t taken the time to chase this problem yet…

The VirtualBox Host-Only adapter is the big thing for me — don’t know if anyone else has the same problem or not, but it is a consistent problem for me. Each update of VirtuialBox re-enables the Host-Only adapter and I usually remember to disable it when my scanning stops working.

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Just like ebax, I could not run virtualization software on my computer. I have an Intel E7200 processor which does not support virtualization http://ark.intel.com/VTList.aspx and a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R mobo which does not have a virtualization switch in the BIOS. I ended up installing a spare 80 Gig drive and setting up Windows 8 which installed with great ease. Sound, LAN and video worked right off the bat. I hate the Metro interface and had a good laugh trying to find the OFF button.

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Just like ebax, I could not run virtualization software on my computer. I have an Intel E7200 processor which does not support virtualization http://ark.intel.com/VTList.aspx and a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R mobo which does not have a virtualization switch in the BIOS. I ended up installing a spare 80 Gig drive and setting up Windows 8 which installed with great ease. Sound, LAN and video worked right off the bat. I hate the Metro interface and had a good laugh trying to find the OFF button.

There are utilities which actually do turn off Metro and restore the Classic Start Menu.

Given all the hoops folks have had to jump through in the article and in this thread, I don’t think a dual-boot is any more difficult. Dual-booting is actually ZERO risk, as the entire partition can be wiped out and the computer is then restored to its original single-boot configuration with ZERO changes to the original OS setup. The only tricky part is shrinking the original single partition to make room for the experimental OS.

Even when Avast 7 beta trashed my Windows 8 Consumer Preview so badly that it could not even be Reset, I was able to boot into Windows 7 Home Premium, run a Windows reformat, and reinstall from the DVD burned from the INSTALLER’s Burn to ISO option. The installer is half the size of the direct ISO download, and it is created simply by telling the installer you want to install Win 8 CP on a different partition. In addition to burning the ISO, the installer lets you make a bootable USB stick with the full Win 8 CP installer on it.

Given the ability to use Macrium Reflect V Free to back up a dual-boot at any point in your experiments, and that a full rollback takes 15 to 30 minutes, this is an equally viable, no risk way to go with any new OS experiments. Reset from the DVD is even faster.

-- rc primak

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Tried all of Freds instructions but installed the latest VirtualBox 4.1.10. Completed all the way till went to install the win8 ISO. Got a black box then an error as below.
30385-Virtual-box-error.
What is this error and what can be done?

For the moment I have uninstall Virtualbox 4.1.10

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All went well until Figure 19. When your Win8 .iso has fully downloaded, click the Win8 item in VirtualBox Manager to launch your newly created — but empty — VPC.
At this point, Win8 says “Saved” (in left corner) but I get a message about “Autocapture” which is not mentioned and “FATAL: no bootable Medium Found”
First time in 12 years Windows Secrets let me down but the first time I tried any thing from Fred Langa. Disappointing

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For installation, I copied the .ISO file to a DVD, put it in the drive and had the Wizard look there for it.

My problem – and it’s a big one for me: My PC now boots into Win8 and I can’t get back to the host system! If I shut down Win8, it turns the PC off. Any ideas on how I can get back to the host?

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I removed 4.1.10 and installed 4.1.8 but i never get the new wizard (after creating the instance) so i never have a chance to reference the win8 ISO

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Same here. The first run wizard is nowhere to be found (tried with both 4.1.10 and 4.1.8). I tried both before and after accessing Settings on the newly created VM.

Talk about anti-climatic.

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This is first time I used VirtualBox. I followed Fred’s instructions to a “t” but when I started the virtual machine, instead of the First Run Wizard I got a black screen with an error message saying no bootable media found. Finally figured out that I had to tell the virtual machine where to look for the dvd drive under the Devices menu, then I could install but never saw any sign of the First Run Wizard. VB ver. 4.1.10 on HPZ200 Intel core i5 8Gb.

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The “black screen” message is resolved by going to setup/storage/ then click on the “Empty” icon under (in my case) IDE Controller. Then on the right, click on the little round disc. Then select “Choose a virtual CD/DVD disc file”. Go to your Windows 8 down load. Now go back and start again. Worked for me.

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I wasted some considerable time with this process and at the end, it would not load the win 8 iso. It only told me that there was no version of an operating system on my virtual drive and presented no means to acquire one. I tried several things and gave up. I have uninstalled Vbox and trashed the win8 iso. I’m not real happy.

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I had to do the same. At first I tried pablo234’s advice, but it didn’t work. This did. Thanks.

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I futzed around enough with it to get the ISO loaded, sort of… But all I can see at that point is the beta/fish, with a black background. I have no indicators Win 8 is doing anything. Anyone know how I can get it to move on, or get feed back that it really is doing something?

Thanks!

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Virtual Box install of 64 bit version went fine on 64 bit host. Running it with 3gigs of ram on an i5 desktop. Worked OK first time then on 2nd attempt started flickering and freezing. Had to shut it down by powering down as opposed to shutting down win 8. Before trying Fred’s solution I had tried dual booting with win 7,but ran into trouble as soon as I tried to change the default startup settings of the bootloader( no longer gave me a choice of operating systems). Maybe I’ll try a 3rd party option like “easybcd”.

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Nor am I. I tried dturnidge’s suggestion about loading the virtual disc file and the process started, but it then went to the Recovery Console stating that I don’t have a 64-bit processor (I do). I also get an error about audio devices (PCM_in) and an Error ID: Host audio not responding. At first I thought this had to do with not having Win8 installed yet, but perhaps it’s something particular with my system. I’m rapidly losing interest. So much for the fool-proof experiment. :^_^:

Win7/64 (home premium)
HP p7-1120
i3-2130
8GB RAM

EDIT: I looked up the specs on the i3-2130 and found this:

Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x) — Supported
Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) — Not supported

Is this my problem?

EDIT2: OK, got it installed (after enabling VT-x in the BIOS).

EDIT3: Had a look, not impressed. Uninstalled 15 min. later. What a waste of a morning.

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Nice article, but will these same steps work on a Vista machine?

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I can get Win 8 to load files and go into setup. What happens then is that a screen ups up and tells me I need to load a driver for my CD Rom. I’ve tried everything and cannot get past that stage. Can someone help? Thanks

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I followed the instructions but noticed the @#@( thing was trying to create its virtual drive in my Dropbox folder! Why it defaults to that I have no idea. Finally deleted the Windows 8 machine and found a setting in the VirtualBox Manager that lets you specify the default location for all its needed files.

Edit: Be prepared for lots of personal info demanded by MS to finish the install…naturally I entered crap.

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No First Run Wizard, no joy. Also, I had to enable virtualization in real Machine’s Bios.

went to settings, deselected all drives except Cd-ROM/DVD, moved floppy down out of the way and promoted
CD to top position (using up arrow) .

basically used info from here (last msg as of today)

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33970

namely:

Re: Re-running ‘First Run’ Wizard?

Postby BillG » 25. Aug 2010, 02:24
You use exactly the same sequence. First shut down the vm.
From the Settings screen, go to System and change the boot device to the CD/DVD.
From Storage, select the Windows install disk (ISO file or physical drive).
Start the vm.
Press any key to boot from CD/DVD.
___
during install am getting pesky ‘you have 24-bit color should select 32-bit’ but I have no right mouse click
[whether i use mouse “capture” or “mouse integration”], maybe after install)

__

don’t know if i reenable hard drive after install either…sigh

unsure good of WS to recommend VB w/o a functioning First Run Wizard
____

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“…you can conduct your test drives and experiments with almost zero risk to your current setup!”
Well, at least you did say almost zero risk. I installed W8 in Oracle Virtualbox & my experience wasn’t all that great. W8 did install in Virtualbox & I was suitably underwhelmed, to say the least. My problem was I noticed that my wireless mouse had become erratic with Virtualbox & my audio’s keyboard controls had become inoperative. I’m guessing that since neither problem occurred when using VMware Player, that the possible reason was with Virtualbox allowing your mouse to be active in both sessions (desktop & virtual) at the same time & with Player it isn’t. Why it hosed the OSD for the audio I couldn’t guess. I uninstalled Virtualbox, reinstalled my mouse software, rolled back my system w/ system restore. Didn’t fix the problems. Installed a new OSD & futzed with the mouse settings. The OSD is restored, but the mouse isn’t quite back to where it was before installing Virtualbox. I would have preferred using Player, but the version I have from only a week ago didn’t support W8. User beware!

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Install procedure missing some steps

I’ve followed your instructions for creating a virtual version of Windows 8 twice to make sure I’d done it exactly as you suggest.

At the point where you say:

Click the Win8 item in VirtualBox Manager to launch your newly created — but empty — VPC.

a single click does nothing. Double clicking starts the machine but does not open the First Run Wizard and after halts the machine because of no OS. There is nothing in the pulldowns that say anything about the wizard.

Any suggestions?

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I would add one last step to Fred’s directions. Once the OS is installed, select “Install Guest Additions…” from the device menu. This inserts a virtual CD in the drive that contains drivers for the VBox environment. Installing them improves performance of the VM.

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Everything worked fine up until figure 19 when I got the same black screen. After looking at all these posts I finally told the virtual machine to look for the setup disc on my desktop. Then it began the setup and at the very end told me to re-boot and re-insert the installation disc & re-start the upgrade. How in the world can I do that when it’s on my desktop?

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How to fix no “First Run Wizard”

Thanks for the article Fred. As it turns out there is a small sequencing error that prevents the “First Run Wizard” from appearing. When you tweak the virtual machine using the settings menu PRIOR to installing Win 8, the wizard will not appear. If you start the virtual machine BEFORE the settings tweaks, the First Run Wizard will appear and allow you to install the iso. You can then go back and tweak the settings.

BTW, I did get the 32 bit Win 8 to run on an AMD with virtualization under a 64bit Win 7 host.

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I’ve tried just about every suggestion, that I read yesterday, and I cannot get the First Run Window. So for now I’ve deleted the Win 8 setup data, but still have the Virtual setup.
Anyone with more suggestions????
I have a setup where I can swap out the C:/ Drive and I admit I have not been able to do a Win 8 installation on a fresh hard drive from the CD. But I will try again.
Happy computing all.

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I tried burning the downloaded ISO to a DVD and doing a clean install to an extra drive. It completed everything even got to setting up win 8 then restarted and sat there with a black screen with no HDD activity for more than an hour. If it will not install properly as a clean install what use it it?

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Sorry Fred. This is a pile of #@*t

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I also could not get past step 19. After reading all the above posts ,davelr’s suggestion of “How to fix no “First Run Wizard
“Thanks for the article Fred. As it turns out there is a small sequencing error that prevents the “First Run Wizard” from appearing. When you tweak the virtual machine using the settings menu PRIOR to installing Win 8, the wizard will not appear. If you start the virtual machine BEFORE the settings tweaks, the First Run Wizard will appear and allow you to install the iso. You can then go back and tweak the settings.”
sounded easiest to do , so I deleted my VM thru control panel, then found it had left some files, so deleted them manually and reinstalled WITHOUT the tweaking. Yay , got past the black screen.
OH OH, now i have progressed to starting install, but get this msg “the computer stared using Windows installation disk. remove the installation disk and restart the computer so that windows starts normally. then insert the installation disk and restart the uprgrade —and so on an so on .
How do i do that when its an iso file in a folder???
so I tried to stop the installation, only to get a repeating series of restarting to install,which I only managed to stop with ctrl/alt/del.
I give up . For me , freds information left off about where it should have started .

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Followed all steps exactly. Try to load new Win8 file, put in Product Key and get a screen which basically says ” This computer started using Windows Installation disc – same as poster above. Remove….restart….. Nothing works. Is there a step(s) missing? 😡

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Stan, Welcome to the Lounge.

I’m afraid I do not have any good news for you.

You do not copy the iso to a DVD, you burn it to a DVD, which makes the DVD bootable and allows you to choose where to install the OS. By doing what you did, you might have overwritten your host OS in your primary partition. This replaced the host OS with Win 8 CP. The correct method is to Right Click the iso file from within the host OS and choose Burn Disk Image. This will actually burn the iso file to the DVD.

I hope you made an Image of your host OS before attempting to load Win 8 CP. If not your only alternative may be to reinstall your host OS from scratch.

For anyone not familiar with this please read my thread here before you proceed!

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Thanks, Ted. I wasn’t quite precise in my post. I did in fact burn it to DVD, not copy it. Nevertheless, I seem to have ended up in the state you describe. I assumed that the host OS was under there somewhere, but I guess it’s not.

Thanks again,
Stan

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Once you get your host back where it belongs, try a dual boot scenario, after creating an Image of course. There are discussions on this in the Windows 8 forums. During the install after you boot to the DVD choose Custom install and choose a separate partition from the host partition. (There are also many discussions on how to set up separate partitions with which to install the dual boot OS into). Good luck with this whole operation.

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There’s an excellent YouTube video by Carey Holzman about installing Win8CP on a disk WITHOUT creating any new partitons or altering them in any way, yet still providing for true DUAL boot.

He creates a VHD in disk management (always wondered what use such a thing had) and then installs 8 to the virtual hard drive. It just appears as another folder structure when in Win 7 but fully functions as Win 8 C drive when booted there. It was pretty neat. Only little bit tricky part was using Diskpart to get the Win 8 installer to recognize the vhd as a possible location for installing but everything is explained and demonstrated pretty clearly, including subsequent removal and restoration of single boot.

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There’s an excellent YouTube video by Carey Holzman about installing Win8CP on a disk WITHOUT creating any new partitons or altering them in any way, yet still providing for true DUAL boot.

He creates a VHD in disk management (always wondered what use such a thing had) and then installs 8 to the virtual hard drive. It just appears as another folder structure when in Win 7 but fully functions as Win 8 C drive when booted there. It was pretty neat. Only little bit tricky part was using Diskpart to get the Win 8 installer to recognize the vhd as a possible location for installing but everything is explained and demonstrated pretty clearly, including subsequent removal and restoration of single boot.

Amen…here is the link to Tech-Vets http://tech-vets.com/2012/03/18/how-to-install-windows-8-beta-on-a-vhd-in-windows-7/ I just paused the video to take notes on the procedure and everything worksfine with the dual boot.

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