No-hassle way to install Windows 10 with VirtualBox

Hither'south the best way to test out Windows x without harming your machine.

Contributing Editor, ITworld |

Want to test out Windows x Technical Preview, merely don't want to have a chance information technology'll impale your PC? Your best bet is to install information technology as a virtual automobile using VirtualBox. Information technology'southward easier to practise than you might think. Here are stride-by-step instructions about how to do it.

1. Install VirtualBox

VirtualBox runs on Windows machines, Macs, and Linux machines, and so you'll be able to install Windows 10 in just about any platform. Get it from here, download it, and install it. No special instructions needed.

two. Become the Windows 10 Technical Preview ISO File

Head to this folio to become it. When you go in that location, click "Become started," and follow the instructions and prompts until you finally get to the download page. Choose your language and whether yous desire to download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. I downloaded the 64-scrap version, because I installed it on a 64-bit automobile. Some people have reported issues with installing the 64-bit version with VirtualBox, but my installation went without a hitch. Write downwards where you downloaded the ISO file, because you'll need to know that later.

3. Get-go the installation

Run VirtualBox and click the New icon on the upper-left side of the machine. From the screen that appears, type Windows 10 in the name field. And so from the Version drop-down box, select Windows 8.1, and cull either the 32-bit or 64-scrap version, depending on the ISO you downloaded.

4. Select the amount of RAM

Adjacent you'll exist prompted to select how much RAM you want to devote to your Windows ten virtual machine. Yous'll be shown a recommended amount of RAM. You lot can change it if you want, but I've used VirtualBox for several years and take created many virtual machines, and I've plant its recommendations to exist on target. So unless y'all know what you're doing and accept a very skilful reason to modify information technology, accept the recommendation.

five. Create a Virtual Hard Drive

In club to install Windows 10, you'll accept to create a virtual difficult drive for installing it. And then from the screen that appears after yous've selected the corporeality of RAM, click "Create a virtual hard bulldoze." Choose VDI (VirtualBox Disk Prototype) as the file blazon. For the type of drive, yous'll have a choice between i that is a stock-still size and one that dynamically allocates space, that is, it grows larger if the operating system needs it. Your all-time bet is to choose a stock-still size. That offers better functioning. Click "Create" after you lot've made your choices.

6. Select your ISO as the startup disk

After yous create the virtual hard drive, yous'll be sent dorsum to the VirtualBox main screen. Click the Offset button. You'll be asked to "Select start-up disk." Caput to where you downloaded the Windows ten ISO file, click "Start," and the installation begins.

7. Finish installing Windows 10

From here on in, it'southward but like any normal Windows installation, with the usual occasional reboots. The reboots happen inside VirtualBox, not on your machine itself. There'southward only one important pick you lot demand to make --- select "Custom: Install Windows only (avant-garde)" when you're given a choice betwixt that and a standard installation.

eight. Turn on the Start Menu

After the installation, Windows 10 volition run as a virtual machine. But there will announced to exist 1 affair missing: You may not see the new Windows Kickoff Bill of fare, which is for many people the whole point of Windows x. Yous'll have to tell Windows to use information technology. To practise that, right-click the taskbar and select Backdrop -->Beginning Menu. Then click "Use the Outset Menu instead of the Get-go screen." Afterward you practice that, y'all'll have to log out of Windows ten, and so dorsum in again. Only after that, you'll see the new Start Menu in all of its glory.

This story, "No-hassle way to install Windows x with VirtualBox" was originally published by ITworld .

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld and the author of more than than 45 books, including Windows 8 Hacks (O'Reilly, 2022) and How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).

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