Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Get yer Win8 preview

It's available today if you're curious about the giant changes in store for the platform.

I'm downloading it now, gonna install it in a VM when I get some time. I'm a huge fan of the Metro concept M$ started using with MCE then Windows Phone, 360 and now Win8. I'm sure it's going to turn the Luddites off thou.

I sure do love VMs.

I love VMs more than you do.

I think you're just infatuated.

That's it, I'm taking away your vCenter access.

How do you do that? When the Windows 7 trial came out, I had it installed in a dual boot setup alongside Windows XP. Is one set up better than the other?

Thanks

VM (virtual machine) is a lot more convenient since you can run it at the same time as your primary OS, in its own window or fullscreen. It requires emulation software like VMware Workstation ($) or VirtualBox (free).

Thanks, Peter.

I'm going to look into the install method with VirtualBox. Hopefully it's not too difficult.

I would highly recommend VirtualBox (vbox). I got win8 up and running in it today. Was pretty simple. If you've never really used virtualization software before there might be a small learning curve but it's not too difficult and vbox isn't terrible complex.

So far my impressions of Windows 8 are mixed. I think the Metro UI is great but not on a legacy desktop computer. I'm really excited about the future of tablets thou.

The lack of the old fashioned start button when in the legacy desktop is a completely retarded decision on Microsoft's part. I'm a windows guy but I'm going to find it hard to defend some of their decisions here. They seem to be forcing the Metro style interface on you. Problem is all of your existing software is meant to be run in the legacy desktop so all they've essentially done is crippled your ability to run those apps. Very poor decision IMO.

I've only given this VM 1G of ram to use and the OS has performed pretty well. The Metro UI is amazingly snappy, thou some of the apps you launch from it are not.

My experience has been the same. The Metro UI glides back and forth and zooms nicely, but most the of the apps take a long time to load and display information.

Are the steps shown in this video exactly how it should be installed?

Yup. Win 7 install steps will work. The actual Windows 8 installation (once the VM boots from the ISO) is super simple.

Thanks, Peter.

From what I can tell in the video, the VM software just runs Windows 8 in something similar to a command prompt window. Is that correct? If so, can you easily switch back and forth from one operating system to the other by simply minimizing the window and Windows 8 will simply continue to run in the background?

Also, what happens after Windows 8 is installed? Will my Windows 7 still load automatically after a reboot, and then I have a choice to load Windows 8 via the software? Or upon reboot am I prompted with a boot screen to choose either operating system (similar to a dual boot setup)?

I just want to know how accessible it will be for me to use before I go ahead and load it.

Thanks

As far as your main Windows installation is concerned, a VM is just another application -- like Notepad. You can minimize the window, run it full screen, move it around your screen, etc.

Another cool thing about VMs is that you can pause them. Done messing around with Windows 8? Don't shut it down. Just pause/suspend it. Next time you want to run it, resume it. It'll start up much faster than a normal boot.

One other killer feature -- snapshots. Let's say you wanted to really start messing around with Windows 8 and you just downloaded 1337haX0R tool and want to install it. Make a snapshot first. That saves the state of your VM. Then, when the 1337haX0R tool inevitable hoses your Windows 8 VM. You can just revert back to that snapshot as if nothing happened. This is much more reliable than setting a Windows Restore Point and hoping that will actually work.

A VM is literally an application that simulates hardware. So running something like vbox creates multiple (if you want more than one) virtual computers INSIDE your Windows 7 computer. The operating system running in the VM doesn't know that it's being hosted on another computer (well that's not completely true in some situations but for a basic understanding it's easier to grasp). The virtualization software will be a rather large resource hog on your real system but other than that it will completely isolate the operating system running inside of it from your main one.