Windows 8 Developer Preview
Visual Studio 2011 Express Developer Preview
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2011 Developer Preview
(... actually a lot more, but these are the big boys from my perspective)
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.aspx - if you have MSDN)
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/home/ - if you don't)
The developer preview releases are not for the consumer. The target audience is Microsoft enthusiast or professional developers. You should expect these tools to have some neat new features, but also some significant bugs. To drive the point home further, consider the following text from Microsoft:
The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers. These downloads include prerelease software that may change without notice. The software is provided as is, and you bear the risk of using it. It may not be stable, operate correctly or work the way the final version of the software will. It should not be used in a production environment. The features and functionality in the prerelease software may not appear in the final version. Some product features and functionality may require advanced or additional hardware, or installation of other software.Now for the point to this. Here are the steps I took to get the Windows 8 Developer Preview and Tools installed and running in a VMWare Player (or more accurately, am now taking since I am writing this as I try to get these tools installed for the first time).
VMWare Player Setup
The first step is to get VMWare Player running. If you go to the VMWare website and look for VMWare player, the most recent version you will find is a 3.x version. Unfortunately, this will not work with Windows 8. The good news is that version 4 is out, and does work with Windows 8. The bad news is that you have to download a lot more software just to get it. It is bundled with the VMWare Workstation 8 installer. You can get it here: http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation/8_0. If you do not already have one, you will need to create an account with VMWare (it is free).
Once VMWare Workstation 8 is installed, you should find VMWare Player 4 also installed. Start it up and do the following:
- Create a New Virtual Machine
- Choose "I will Install the operating system later", click next
- Choose Microsoft Windows, and Windows 7 x64 from the drop-down, click next
- Enter a name, change location to store data if desired, click next
- Choose desired storage options, click next
- Click Customize Hardware - set this up as desired, below are my settings
- Memory: 4 GB
- Processors: 2
- CD/DVD: Use Iso Image (chose the windows 8 preview ISO downloaded from links above)
- Network: Bridged, replicating physical network
- All others default
- Click Close
- Click Finish
You should now be able to select the new virtual machine and start it up in VMWare player. Upon booting, it should take you through the normal setup procedure. If it doesn't boot into Windows Setup, you probably did not setup the CD/DVD to boot the Developer Preview ISO. You should be able to fix that in the settings for the virtual machine in VMWare and reboot it. If you are still reading this, you probably don't need to be walked through that. It went fairly well.
Mistakes I made, and the consequences:
- Tried to use VMWare Player 3.x
- This failed miserably. Virtual Machine became trash fairly quickly.
- Used VMWare Player 4, but set operating system to "Other"
- This started to work, but there was an error during setup
- The error rebooted the virtual machine
- From that point on, the VM was in an endless reboot - error cycle
Both of these errors required deleting the virtual machine and starting over.
