
You can skip that step when installing a virtual machine, as VirtualBox sees the. iso images natively, presenting them as a live media resource in Windows Explorer. This won't be necessary once Windows 8 goes mainstream, as it can read. To install this from a DVD in the regular manner you'd need to burn it to a disc, first expanding the image to extract the files it contains. The Windows 8 installer is a free download. You don't need to choose at this point how much space you want to give to your guest operating system, so just choose a destination and click through the dialogues.ĭon't worry if you see a warning that you'll be disconnected from your local network: as soon as the installation has completed your connections will be re-established. Download the version of VirtualBox appropriate to your operating system from and run through the regular installation routine. This will be deducted from your system memory, and won't be available to your regular host operating system all the time the guest OS is running.Ģ.

You'll also need to give over some of your system memory to the guest OS, with Windows 8 demanding at least 1GB for the 32-bit install and 2GB for the 64-bit version. It needs 30MB of disk space for its own codebase, and we'd recommend a further 60GB of space for each virtual machine you want to install, as this has to accommodate not only the OS system files but also any applications you want to run within it, plus your data, settings and media. Virtualbox will install on pretty much any recent Intel or AMD processor. This is also a neat solution for Mac users who need to run an occasional Windows application, and thus can't justify the expense of a physical PC. This free download for Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris and Linux creates a virtual computer on your hard drive, sharing resources with your core system so you can install alternative operating systems, including Linux and Windows 8, inside your existing OS. If that's putting you off trying it out and seeing what all the buzz is about, help is at hand in the shape of VirtualBox. That's a problem, as the free-to-download installer overwrites your existing installation - albeit without touching your accounts and files - and the only way to get back to Windows 7 or earlier is to reinstall from the original media.

As our preview revealed, Microsoft's next operating system is fast, responsive and stable already, but with the developer still describing it as 'pre-beta', you shouldn't be using it as your primary operating system just yet. Windows 8 is ready for download, but it's not yet ready for the bigtime.
