Install Windows 8 in bootable VHD
the Windows 8 developer preview is out, now you can install this in a virtual machine to try it out, but it is more fun to run it direct on your hardware. However this build is pre-beta, so not ready to do all your daily “ production” work on. You can solve this by dual booting, but it is cooler to boot of a VHD! Booting from VHD was introduced in Windows 7.Now there are several methods on the Internet to make this work, I have found this procedure so the procedure is the simplest and quickest.
No need to use WAIK, DISM, x-image, sysprep, WIM2VHD. Even no need for BCEDIT!
In short:
- Boot from the Win8dev DVD or USB
- When in setup the disk selection appears where to install to you press SHIFT-F10
- A cmd window appears.
- Now your drive letters may have shifted so do some DIR commands where you want the put the VHD file also choose a volume that has enough free space.
- Then run diskpart:
- create vdisk file=d:\win8dev.vhd type=expandable maximum=50000 (for better performance do not use expandable, but creating the VHD may take some time.
I choose about 50 GB in size - select vdisk file=d:\win8dev.vhd
- attach vdisk
- create vdisk file=d:\win8dev.vhd type=expandable maximum=50000 (for better performance do not use expandable, but creating the VHD may take some time.
- Now alt-tab back to the disk selection window and click refresh, the VHD volume should appear, select it to install Windows in it.
- Click next, Windows will install and reboot into next phase of Windows 8 setup
- After another reboot the new Metro style boot menu appears where you can choose to boot from Windows 8 or Windows 7. Advanced options lets you set the default and change timeout. Also troubleshooting options are here.
- The default is Windows 8 and it will run direct on your hardware
A bit longer guide but with screenshots is here: