I just installed the Microsoft Windows 10 Preview – twice. The first install was a piece of cake and I urge you to try it with a few caveats – keep reading. Microsoft has created a consumer-oriented (that would be “technical consumers”) portal for the Win10 Technical Preview called Windows Insider. Joining this should be your first step as there is much information and this is how you get the install files. This article is about installing Win10. It is not about the benefits, features, good or bad performance, or anything like a review of Win10. All that is for you to find on your own and then write about here in DACS.doc.
The Win10 install process is very much like Windows 8, which is to say smooth and straightforward. The system requirements give several supported alternatives:
- A clean install on an empty hard drive, as in a new machine.
- From Windows Update as an in-place upgrade to your existing Windows installation.
- As a virtual machine.
- Installed on a separate partition with dual boot.
Note that the Technical Preview edition will expire on April 15th so if you want to try, get crackin’!
Option #1 is the easiest if you have a not-too-old PC or laptop available. My second install was on an ASUS Transformer Book T100TA. This is a convertible tablet so the basic install was from a USB memory stick and required that I locate all the Win8 device drivers. More on this later.
Option #2 is not for the faint of heart, as this irrevocably installs a beta version of Windows over your existing system. If this sounds good to you, be sure to investigate all the system requirements thoroughly as there will be no coming back. On the other hand, this in-place upgrade option does not even require you to download the ISO. It’s like baking cookies from those refrigerated tubes in the supermarket – really, really easy unless something screws up. This process is likely a preview of the “free upgrade” promised for users of the “consumer” versions of Win7 and 8.
Option #3 is my favorite as there is no commitment beyond time and disk space. Of course you must be running Windows 8 Pro to use Hyper-V, but there are other “more free” hypervisors available. Hypervisor stuff is beyond our scope.
Option #4 is a middle ground. It may take some work to create a 100GB partition on your hard drive (my suggested size, not the official requirement). Once installed Win10 will run without the performance penalty imposed on a virtual machine.
Ok, the fun part starts here. My first Win10 install was a guest virtual machine on Hyper-V running on a Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit laptop, Core i7 processor (4 cores) and 8GB of RAM. I was pleased to see that Microsoft also supports Win10 as a guest machine under Virtual PC on Win7. This was not an option for the Win8 Preview. While I have not investigated other hypervisors, I suspect the preview can be installed and run on VirtualBox (Oracle), VMWare Workstation and Parallels Desktop on the Mac, among others. Note that the host computer needs to have some “umpf”. My laptop works fine with one VM running, but gets slow when I run two VMs simultaneously.
The install process I followed is:
- Download the ISO file from Microsoft. I would not trust any other source and your favorite search engine will find a million. I chose the 32-bit version because it requires less RAM.
- Create a new virtual machine and virtual hard disk. The exact buttons you click to do this will vary with your hypervisor. I gave the VM 2GB RAM and made the virtual hard drive 100GB using the “dynamically expanding” option. This means the virtual disk file is only as big as the programs and data it contains. After installation but before adding any application programs, the physical file is a little less than 8GB.
- Start the VM and let it fail with no operating system found. This finds any mistakes you made configuring the VM now rather than half-way thru installing the OS.
- Now point the VM’s “CD drive” to the ISO downloaded earlier. There is no need to burn it to a physical DVD disk.
- Start the VM. You should see the Windows install start up. I always choose a custom install, but after pointing to the empty virtual disk, the install will run without further intervention thru at least one reboot (I minimized the window). No codes, no questions, no errors.
- When you see the login screen the install is complete. Naturally it wants a Microsoft account. While this is not necessary, if you use a Microsoft account on your regular machine, using it now will save a lot of time as Windows will replicate many of your settings to this new “machine”. In fact I suggest using the same account that you used to join Windows Insider.
- By default the VM will have a network adapter that will connect to your local network over the host computer’s existing network connection. The VM will obtain an IP address the same way as the host machine, probably via DHCP from your router.
- Naturally your mileage may vary but, with any luck, you are now ready to play with Windows 10.
Even running under Hyper-V, I was able to change the screen resolution to full screen on the fly. Used this way, the fact that there is a VM involved becomes transparent. Minimizing the VM makes it quick to switch between “machines”.
Another advantage to using my Microsoft account was that OneDrive is available so there is no need to copy any data to the VM’s virtual disk. It’s also possible to share directories on the host machine with the VM.
After a couple of reboots, there was a popup that Windows updates were available. Using the search in the Start menu, I opened Windows Update. Since I had not yet set any preferences for how updates should be installed, I had to search. Very quickly I had a list of three updates: one for the technical preview, one for the IE Flash Player, and new definitions for Windows Defender. All very cool. After playing with Win10 this way (large monitor and separate keyboard) and then seeing a DACS member at the general meeting using Win10 on one of his tablet computers, I wanted to try Win10 on a smaller machine. To get some ideas for how this would go, I watched a few YouTube demonstrations installing Win10 on tablets. Naturally they all made it look super easy, so I decided to install Win10 on my ASUS Transformer Book (Model T100TA).
This second install meant replacing the original Windows 8.1 installation with Win10. This would be an all-out no-going-back option #1 installation with a few twists. Since there is no DVD drive on a tablet, the installation files need to be on a bootable USB thumb drive. Any such memory stick larger than 4.5GB will do. This process will reformat the drive, so you must first remove any files that you want to keep. I think the drive I used is 8GB. Put the drive in to a USB port. Next download UNetbootin.exe (unetbootin.sourceforge.net/). It is very helpful when installing Linux, but it can copy any ISO to any drive. The program requires no installation; simply put it somewhere and run it. Select the “Diskimage” option and navigate to the Win10 Tech Preview ISO file you downloaded earlier. Make sure target USB drive is the correct drive letter and click OK. A few minutes later, the USB drive will be a bootable Win10 installer.
While that completes, make sure you have the device drivers for your tablet. I did not do this in advance and had a semi-functional tablet after the Win10 installation completed. The YouTube demos did not need any additional drivers; again, your mileage may vary. I found the ASUS drivers for my ASUS tablet on their website. I downloaded twelve files for the core system board, video, audio, Bluetooth, touchpad, etc. Some drivers came with an install program, others installed using Device Manager in Control Panel. As I installed more drivers, all the tablet stuff started to work, like the touch screen – to my great relief!
So far the tablet is working quite well. Win10 has two user interfaces; one is closer to Win8 and is more suited to the smaller screen of most tablets while the other is very desktop-oriented and should satisfy most Windows 8 haters.
One final caveat: don’t install this on your main computer as the primary operating system. If you have only one machine that now runs Windows 7 or 8, use the virtual machine or dual boot options to preserve your current operating environment until the final version is released later this year. For now, you must assume that there will not be a smooth upgrade path to the final release version and that this installation will be toast when the technical preview edition expires on April 15th.
So do I like Win10? Honestly I have been too busy writing this article to find out. Ask me at a meeting.