Run Windows 8 commitment-free in a virtual machine

@Windows Recovery Environment comment

I was able to solve this issue by making the following changes in settings after the VM was created and before I installed the OS.

In settings

Under System: Enable IO APIC

Under Processor: Enable PAE/NX

Under Acceleration: Enable VT-x/AMD-V and Enable Nested Paging

I tried it out in this fashion last night, and it worked okay, but I couldn't get it activated. Tried to bridge the connection with the host machine but no dice. My network adapter isn't very traditional so I'd probably blame that for the issue. Otherwise the OS was fine... the setup options were a little confusing to me and having no START button seemed like heresy, but overall I'd say it's not bad.

Been using it for the last hour and I find to show the start menu isn't very responsive. Its probably just the memory/ hdd I have allocated for it. I still prefer the start button over this. Will not buy.

@Windows Recovery Environment comment

In settings

Under System: Chipset - ICH9

solved my problem

I ****ing hate the Metro style.
So sad that Microsoft has so many employes and no one could came with a better idea than the ugly Metro style.

If ANYONE knows what partitioning is, it absolutely will not overwrite your previous installation. Windows 8 even supports dual-booting so that it's practically hassle free. This even supports the quick launch features with Windows 8...

same here did all the proper steps but get a error 5 seconds into installation.

So I install Windows 8. There's no start button. How do I launch paint?

Followed instructions, Awesome!

But I can't get my 1366x768 resolution to appear, even though I already installed virtual box additions and the new ati catalyst for windows 8 consumer preview. Other than that, everything else is great.

@Guest above, vbox video driver does not support win8 cp.

To set your resolution close virtualbox, open .vbox file, looks for ExtraData section and add a string custom video mode:

<ExtraDataItem name="CustomVideoMode1" value="1366x768x32"/>

Try one of the other solutions. As you might have found by now, changing the chipset to ICH9 causes W8 to hang periodically.

Go into the Metro and start typing "paint". It will automatically start a search. If you right click on paint you will also get options to pin it somewhere

You probably don't have enough memory allocated

Wow, I am a Windows Sys Admin, and an ex-web developer. I consider myself a technical person. The UI was very un-intuitive, and somewhat cumbersome. Some experimental UI's just seem natural on first touch, this is clearly not one of them.

I see a sharp learning curve coming for many people. IMHO this new version will have no more adoption than Vista, and I see the tomatoes flying on M$ from every corner (except the fanboys of course).
I also doubt enterprise users will adopt this, I mean this looks just unserious and unproductive.

Maybe it's just the beta, but I doubt much will change. Win 7 beta was very good, this one is just awkward.

Just get Bill back in the office...

Nice one, Matthew. If Mark Twain were tech-blogging today, he would be as informative and user-friendly as this article is.

Using VMWare Workstation and Virtual PC, as Guest #1 advises, I find creating the virtual machine and only later installing the OS works where the one-shot deal often fails. Disabling Hardware Virtualization also avoids conflicts that cause installation to fail, especially when running more than one virtualized machine on the same hardware.

I've virtually-installed Windows 8 DP and CP on Windows 7 hosts on dual core machines using just one core and notice a lag in performance that, for playing-around purposes, is very acceptable.

Prediction: Final release will include the ability to effortlessly toggle back-and-forth between a classic Start Menu/Desktop and the new Metro-cious UI.

I have 2 hard drives in my PC; one for Windows 7 and the other for storage/installs/games. I just partitioned my Windows 7 drive and installed Windows 8 on it and dual booted. Worked fine with no problems. I've since deleted the Windows 8 partition though.

Windows 8 ran fine with no problems, but it just felt like Windows 7 with a different Start menu. There was nothing really different in terms of doing the same things as I normally do on Windows 7, aside from having to open a huge full screen menu to get to anything.

I'm sure there are behind the scenes changes that effect performance. Windows 8 "felt" smoother and faster, but I'm not sure if that's just because I didn't have much installed on it. I did some coding in Visual Studio, played some Battlefield 3, and watched some TV in Windows Media Center. It was the exact same experience as on Windows 7, even Windows Media Center was exactly the same.

If it's the same when the full version comes around, I may skip Windows 8 and wait for the next version. There's not enough changes to justify the price, which no doubt will be expensive.

Thanks, that resolved my issue!

hello guys, i'm having this problem. anyone can try to help me?

Failed to open the CD/DVD image C:\Users\ASUS\Downloads\Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso.

Could not get the storage format of the medium 'C:\Users\ASUS\Downloads\Windows8-ConsumerPreview-64bit-English.iso' (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Result Code: VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80BB0005)
Component: Medium
Interface: IMedium {53f9cc0c-e0fd-40a5-a404-a7a5272082cd}
Callee: IVirtualBox {c28be65f-1a8f-43b4-81f1-eb60cb516e66}

You can also install it into a virtual hard drive (.VHD), and dual boot that way.
Google "boot Windows 8 vhd"