Has anyone succeeded in installing the Windows 8 Experience in a Virtual Machine?
I am running W7 Ultimate 32-bit, so I downloaded the 32-bit version.
I already had Windows Virtual PC so I tried that first.
I got a pretty blue screen with the :-( smily saying 'HAL Ininitisation failure'.
Apparently, I am not alone in this. It just won't work with this product.
So I used VM Virtual Box. It got to the unpacking files section and hung at 19%. Crashed this tried again, it failed at 9%. Tried again, failed at 1%.
Cleaned out all the temp files, uninstalled, and reinstalled. Failed at 6%.
This is the Workstation 8 trial version.
Then tried System Central VMM. That said it was not compatible with the OS I was running.
I have a spare laptop, but I really don't want to wipe that if I can avoid it.
So just how can you run in without killing your OS?
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Jump to PostI read recently that Win8 requires a secure UEFI (bios) to boot. If the VM doesn't emulate that, then you are out of luck most likely. The latest versions of some virtual machine managers may support that. VirtualBox does support UEFI, but I'm not sure about secure UEFI.
Jump to PostOk. Apparently Win8 at this point (the preview versions) don't require secure UEFI since no hardware supports it as yet. However, it may well require UEFI instead of the old PC BIOS. If that is an installation option for your VMM, then try that, or try a VMM that supports …
Jump to PostWell, VBox allows you to set it to use a standard BIOS or UEFI. How is your VM configured? You need to go to the System->Motherboard settings and enable EFI.
Jump to PostIt is in the VirtualBox setup screen. Select your VM, click on the System entry, and then select the Motherboard tab. One of the "Extended Features" check boxes should be "Enable EFI (special OSes only)".
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