consumer preview Window 8 CP on a Virtual PC

[johnporter29]

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

[PGHammer]

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.

[johnporter29]

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

[remixedcat]

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.

[PGHammer]

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).

[johnporter29]

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.

[Anthonyd]

Just dual boot your current installation. If you don't want to make a new partition, install it on a VHD, it works fine.

[remixedcat]

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??

[cropcircles]

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 ?

[lalalawawawa]

^ 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.

[cropcircles]

^ 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.

[remixedcat]

vmware player ran it better then VB did!

[MFH]

Certainly didn't work for me with Virtual PC @ Win7. Installer always crashed with a BSOD?

[remixedcat]

try it in vmware.

[Zeek18]

I used virtualbox to test it out, worked just fine, just had to make sure hardware virtualization was enabled and a few other settings in VB and it ran like it wasn't even in a virtual env.

[+seb5150 Subscriber²]

I've been running it in VB since release and it runs without problems. I didn't try VMWare.

[johnporter29]

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.

[V23]

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?

[johnporter29]

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.