How to install Windows 8 in Oracle VM Virtual Box – Part I?

I hope you are aware of the brand new version of Microsoft Windows which is Windows 8 and it is highly optimized for touch sensitive gestures. In a nutshell, Windows 8 is more touch friendly than your previous Windows 7.

However, you must know that installing a developer version of operating system as your main environment for interacting with computer may cause some troubles with your work. Developer version of Windows 8 may crash, may not be compatible with your drivers, games may not run properly, etc.

To summarize it in few words, using Windows 8 developer version as your main environment for interacting with your laptop or desktop may be risky at the moment. You must always use the developer version on a system where you don’t work professionally or it is for experimental purposes only.

With that said, let us move to our topic about how to install Windows 8 in VM Virtual Box in case you don’t have a spare system to test this developer version. I know the feeling when you want to try something and can’t hold it back. So, this would be a little work around till Microsoft releases the final build with optimized performance and tweaks. Download developer version of Windows 8

• First of all, you will need the developer version of Windows 8 so that you can install it in VM Virtual Box.
• Download the developer version of Windows 8 from Microsoft's Website.
• I downloaded the 32-bit Windows 8 developer preview English version without developer tools.
• The file size is only 2.8 GB for this version and it may vary depending on your selection.

Download and install VM Virtual Box Head over to Virtual Box.org website where you can download the latest version of VM Virtual Box. Follow the download link below to make it quick.

• Don’t worry about the X86 version because it will work fine with 64-bit Windows 7 as well.
• The package is not too large (only 87.52 MB) and must not take more than 20 minutes if you have a speed internet connection.
• After the download is finished, you should install the package by clicking it. Proceed with the installation procedure and you will see Virtual Box icon on your desktop.

Create a New Hard-Disk in VM Virtual Box

• Now, we will create a new virtual hard disk in our Windows 7 system which will be treated as physical hard-disk for our Windows 8 environment when we install it.
• Open the VM Virtual Box icon and you will see a window resembling with the picture embedded below.

• Click on New to create a start the procedure.

• Click on Next and on the next screen, fill out the information like this:
  • Name: Windows 8 (doesn’t matter because this is just for your eyes).
  • Operating System: Microsoft Windows.
  • Version: Other Windows (scroll to the very bottom and select the option).
• An appropriate RAM size is the key here or else, your Windows 7 will crash due to insufficient memory left for it when you try to run VM Virtual Box with Windows 8.
• 1 GB RAM would be great if you have 4 GB in total in your computer. Assigning ¼ of your total memory is always better than assigning 1/3^rd or ½.
• There are two ways to assign RAM. You can either type 1024 in the field (which means 1024 MB = 1 GB) or you can move the slider to 1024 MB mark. You will see the field number updating quickly as you move the slider to tell you the memory size.
• Select Next when you are done. In the next window, you will see the option to create a new hard disk and this is what we want to do.
• Check Start-up disk box, so that we can boot our Windows 8 and select Create New Hard Disk. Select Next when done.
• A new window will pop-up and ask you the type of virtual hard-disk that you want to create. Select VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) because this file type is compatible with many other types of software as well. Select Next when done.
• In the next window, you can set the hard disk to dynamically expand when the data is increased or you can fix the size of virtual hard disk. When the hard disk is full, the Windows 8 inside VM Virtual Machine will prompt you to delete some data to make more space.
• It will be better to select Dynamically Allocated because we don’t know how much data we would be using with Windows 8 and apps. Select Next when done.
• In the next screen, you can change the folder where your virtual hard disk with Windows 8 will be created and allocate the hard disk size that will be reported to guest OS (Windows 8 in this case). You can set any number because since we selected “Dynamically Allocated in the previous window, this size will not affect the actual area that this virtual hard disk will cover.
• However, since this size will be reported to Windows 8 setup, make sure to keep it more than 13 GB. I kept mine to 20GB to keep everything fine.
• Select Next when done and in this screen you will be able to see the summary of your Virtual Hard Disk. Select Create when you are satisfied, else you can go back and revisit the settings.
• Select Create again to finalize your entire settings with the new Virtual Machine (this will include RAM, virtual hard disk, name and OS type). In a couple of seconds, you will be able to see a new Virtual Machine in VM Virtual Box like the picture embedded below.

This is it for part one of How to install Windows 8 in VM Virtual Box and I'll see you in the next part that will show you rest of the process involved.