Windows 8 installation on Vmware Workstation

Filed under: ms tip — Tags: installation, vmware, Windows 8, workstation 8 — Mehmet Bora Teoman @ 00:33

windows Logo

Hi everyone

This is a new article and there won’t be much talk throughout this article. I will explain what I want to with screen captures mostly. The subject is (as you all understand from the title) Windows 8 operating system installation on VMware workstation product. Let’s start with the process.

Microsoft released a Developer Preview edition of Windows 8 operating system last week and I did want to install this new release on a virtual machine. The virtualization product that I use on my personal computer is VMware Workstation so I opened the VMware Workstation console and created a new virtual machine with a selection of Windows 7 guest operating system. Why I did this? Because I have a version of 7.1 VMware workstation and there is no Windows 8 selection in this version.

After the creation of virtual machine, I mounted the ISO file of Windows 8 (which can be downloaded via http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516 ) to my virtual machine and started the installation process. But an internal error message popped up :( . Figure 1 shows this error message and unfortunately I was unable to install Windows 8 on to my VMware Workstation 7.1 product.

Figure 1: Error message that I received

Therefore I visited VMware website to find a solution (if they had) and fortunately they released VMware Workstation 8 product. I immediately downloaded the trial version of the new release and installed on my computer. After I tried to install Windows 8 on this version , I succeeded. By the way, there is no guest selection for Windows 8 on this version either. But selecting Windows 7 as a guest was just fine. Here are the steps that I followed during installation and here are the installation steps of the new Windows 8 operating system.

Figure 2: Windows is loading files

Figure 3: Preparation for installation

Figure 4: Time, currency and keyboard selections

Figure 5: “Install now” screen

Figure 6:License agreement

In the “Installation Type” screen, I select the “Custom (advanced)” installation type because I don’t have any operating system installed on the machine.

Figure 7: Installation type screen

Figure 8: Disk selection

Figure 9: Windows is copying installation files

Uptil now, the installation process is very similar to Windows 7 installation. But after restart, the installation interface is very different and very green in Windows 8. I think Microsoft gives the underlying message of Green IT here :) .

Figure 10: Giving machine name

Settings page gives two options which are “Use express Settings” and “Customize”. If “Customize” is selected, more Settings pages appear (which I don’t put the screen captures here). Otherwise the installation handles all the settings for you.

Figure 11: Settings page

The default sign-in option on “Log On” page is the LiveID. If you enter your Live email address here, Windows will connect your Live account through internet and synchronize some settings like internet browser favorites, history etc. across the PCs you use. What I mean by that is you can get the same settings whatever Windows 8 you use. If you don’t want to use LiveID, you have also the chance to create a local account here. To do that, just select the link “Don’t want to log on with a Windows LiveID?” at the bottom.

Figure 12: Log On page

Figure 13:Installation prepares the PC for the user

Figure 14: The new “Start screen”

Figure 15: Windows 8 desktop

Figure 16: Internet Explorer 10 comes with Windows 8

Figure 17: User lock screen

By the way, on MSDN site there is an instructive article about Windows 8 installation on a virtualized environment. As it specifies, Windows 8 can be installed on the following virtualization platforms. Not supported platforms are also listed.

Functional: