How to install Windows 8 on your laptop in just 4. You can put the Windows 8 client on your laptop for free in 3. Preparation takes extra time. If you want to kick the tires of Microsofts newest product for work or pleasure, you can install it on your current laptop or desktop with little risk. By submitting your personal information, you agree that Tech. Target and its partners may contact you regarding relevant content, products and special offers. You also agree that your personal information may be transferred and processed in the United States, and that you have read and agree to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. I dont recommend using your companys production workstation because IT administrators frown upon that sort of thing. In addition, your organization probably has some sort of encryption such as Mc. Afee Endpoint Protection or Bit. Locker, and while there might be ways to get around this, its probably not worth the effort because its better to install Windows 8 on a non production machine. Windows 7 und Windows Server 2008 R2 Deployment Mag. Christian Zahler, Stand August 2012 45 6 Erstellen eines verteilbaren Windows 7Images. ImageX is a commandline tool that enables original equipment manufacturers OEMs, corporations and Windows enthusiasts to capture, to modify, and to apply file. There are several download options for Windows 8. Follow the link to Windows 8 Consumer Preview Online Install, download a 5 MB. Internet. Once you run the. Microsofts site, and Windows 8 should run pretty smoothly. For this discussion, however, we need the International Organization for Standardization ISO image. You can download the ISO from Microsoft. Burn it to a DVD or open and mount it with a third party utility such as Magic. ISO. There are a couple of interesting features in the Windows 8 setup. Figure 1. A shows the Setup screen that summarizes the apps and devices. Figure 1. B shows the compatibility report that lists the devices and apps on my machine as well as which ones will and wont work. I can then take steps to correct the problem. Just like Windows 7, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview can be installed in a virtual hard disk VHD, and the machine can be booted from the VHD. Details for file extension JPG CompactDRAW. Troubleshoot, fix and learn about JPG and errors with extensive information from Filext. com. I just tried to copy my Users folder from partition C to partition D using the method mentioned in this post. Unfortunately I encountered two problems When using the. I have had my ultrabook as a dual boot, windows 8 upgraded from windows 7 and Linux on another partition, I deleted the partion to remove Linux, but every time I turn. Windows 2. 00. 8 R2 and Windows 8 Server can also be installed to a VHD. This means you can boot multiple configurations and operating systems from one physical server. This is better than relying on virtual machines VMs because you are truly running on physical hardware rather than having the hypervisor and all the virtual devices separate your Windows installation from the hardware. If you are testing products or software for Windows 8, it is better to test on the actual hardware rather than in a VM. Its easy to configure a computer that can boot to various flavors of Windows 7, Windows 8 or their server equivalents, in addition to having various OS flavors running different apps or versions of apps. Another benefit of using these configurations is that just like with a virtual machine, if you mess it up, you can always boot to another configuration VHD, delete the problematic one, and rebuild it. There are a couple of ways to do this an easy way and a slightly more complicated way, depending on what you want. The Easy Way. You can get Windows 8 on your Windows 7 laptop in just a few minutes longer than the installation takes. From a Windows 7 client, boot the Windows 8 DVD. When setup asks, Where do you want to install Windows hit SHIFT F1. Win. PE. At the Win. PE command prompt, use Diskpart to create the VHD DISKPART create vdisk filed VMsWin. DISKPART select vdisk filed VMsWin. DISKPART attach vdisk. DISKPART create partition primary. Alternatively, you could create the VHD prior to booting the Windows 8 DVD and use Diskpart to attach it with the following commands point to the. Diskpart Select vdisk filed vmswin. Diskpart attach vdisk. Return to Setup. When it gets to the screen asking for the disk location, the VHD will show up. Setup will continue and install Windows 8. Notes Windows 8 Boot Manager will be installed, replacing Windows 7 boot manager. Dont do this if you are on your company laptop and are afraid of the IT police. But I did it on my non production laptop, and it is fine. BCDEdit is modified so you see Windows 8 in the boot menu just like in the old dual boot days. The Windows 8 WIM Windows Imaging file format is applied to the VHD, avoiding lots of work found in the more complicated way below.  A more complicated but more powerful method. The procedure described above is great for a quick install, but what if you want to build some testing, development, training or sandbox environments with apps The following procedure will allow you to boot custom WIM files, Sysprepped images, etc. Ive learned, however, to open some options and avoid pitfalls. Here are three steps to create the bootable VHD. Preparation Obtain a WIM image of Windows 8 or whatever Windows version you want to install. Obtain a copy of Imagex. Microsoft utility in the Windows Automated Installation Kit WAIK. Use a computer with sufficient disk space. The client versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 require about 1. GB of disk space for a minimal installation. Installation Create a VHD. Put the WIM and imagex. C drive. Use imagex commands to copy the WIM image to the VHD. Use BCDEdit to build a boot file to boot the VHD. If you are holding me to the 4. WIM file, creating the VHD and running imagex to copy the Windows image to VHD. Your mileage may vary. Preparing a machine for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. First, create a directory to hold the files required for this process. I used C VHD. Open up a couple of administrator level command windows. Obtain a WIM File. The easy way to get a WIM file is from the Windows ISO image or DVD. Starting with Windows 7, Microsoft began using WIM files rather than having all the files in the i. WIM is a single file that is stored in the Sources directory on the DVD or ISO image. Note that they are always called install. WIM files can be built and customized with specific drivers, language packs and applications. There are a number of tools to do this, but my favorite is the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, which can be used to build custom WIM files. For our purposes, well use the default install. Windows DVD or ISO image. Action Copy the WIM file to C VHD or whichever directory you are using. Obtain a copy of imagex. This is the toughest part of this process. Imagex. exe, which is available in 3. Action Copy imagex. C VHD. Build the VHDThis can be done using the Disk Management snap in to the Microsoft Management Console MMC or the Diskpart command line tool. Using Disk Management MMC. Create the VHD. In the Disk Management MMC, select Apply, then select Create VHD. In the Create and Attach VHD wizard see Figure 2. Browse to dir C VHD and enter a file name such as Win. Preview. vhd. Remember to make the file name descriptive because you may want to have several different images. Although Windows 7 needs only about 7 GB, you should give it at least 1. GB. Select fixed disk size. While a dynamic disk may save disk space, the dynamic disk must have the full expanded size in free disk space when it boots or it will fail to. Always use a fixed disk for a VHD boot. Select OK to build the VHD. It takes a while look to the lower right corner of the computer management snap in to see its progress. The VHD will now show up as a disk in Disk Management. Right click and initialize the disk. The VHD disk should now show online. Right click on the VHD disk, select Simple Volume New Simple Volume Wizard, and fill in the specifications as needed.