Window 8 CP on a Virtual PC

By johnporter29
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

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Grand Master

PGHammer

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Does any know if the Consumer Preview will work under Windows Virtual PC or will you need to use VirtualBox as with Developer Preview?

Actually, the x32 Developer Preview will work in Virtual PC. VirtualPC doesn't support 64-bit guests.

Experienced

johnporter29

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Actually, the x32 Developer Preview will work in Virtual PC. VirtualPC doesn't support 64-bit guests.

Will it, errors on mine, will try again

Edit: Yep I get the following: Your PC ran into a problem that it couldn't handle, and now it needs to restart.

HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED

And apparently it's a known issue: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/16/running-windows-8-developer-preview-in-a-virtual-environment.aspx

Grand Master

remixedcat

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I would use vmware player 4 if you don't wanna shell out the around 200 bucks for vmware workstation. both are awesome.

vmware player (as of version 3) allows you to create vms the same as workstation so don't worry about that.

the only thing you can't do is snapshots, and teams (grouping vms) and a few other things, but as a free hypervisor it's very nice.

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

I would use vmware player 4 if you don't wanna shell out the around 200 bucks for vmware workstation. both are awesome.

vmware player (as of version 3) allows you to create vms the same as workstation so don't worry about that.

the only thing you can't do is snapshots, and teams (grouping vms) and a few other things, but as a free hypervisor it's very nice.

Oracle VirtualBox will also work (it was my Original WDP test platform before going to my bare-metal dual, which is now a triple).

Experienced

johnporter29

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Well I did use VirtualBox and got the WDP workiing but it was slow and just unusable, anyway after reading the blog I linked to earlier, decided to wait for the Consumer Preview and may dual boot with Windows 7 on my main PC.

Grand Master

remixedcat

Posted
Posted

Well I did use VirtualBox and got the WDP workiing but it was slow and just unusable, anyway after reading the blog I linked to earlier, decided to wait for the Consumer Preview and may dual boot with Windows 7 on my main PC.

did you try vmware??

Mentor

cropcircles

Posted
Posted

Just curious if people felt W8 developers preview worked more smoothly on Virtualbox or VMware. I ran it on Virtualbox and it seemed to lag quite a bit at times even with my memory up to 2GB for it. Shouldn't we be seeing beta out in the next couple weeks. Latest build information seems pretty quiet. Redmond has these guys under lock and key this time but totally different team then W7 I heard ?

Mentor

cropcircles

Posted
Posted

^ dunno about VirtualBox, but it ran okay on VMware, although I experienced a few lockups, performance drops, and crashes. Just make sure to install VMware Tools with Windows 7 compatibility mode, if you want them to work.

Thanks. I think I'll play with it some more. Really getting excited to see beta out soon.

Experienced

johnporter29

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  • Author
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I did get it to work in VB but I found it slow and problematic.

However, have since discovered how to do a VHD boot and now dual boot with Win 7 and Developer Preview until the CP get released next week.

Experienced

johnporter29

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Do you only have to attach the VHD once immediately prior to installing Windows 8 or do you have to attach it every time you want to use it?

Attach it once, apply the install.wim image using imagex and then you can detach it. Modify your boot records using bcdedit and away you go. You can re-attach at anytime should you wish. You don't need it attached to boot from it.

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