How To Install Windows 8 On VMware Virtual Machine
Posted April 13, 2011 – 1:50 pm in: Windows 8 GuidesPreviously, we showed you how to install Windows 8 from a USB flash drive without using CD/DVD. Since the current build of Windows 8 is still in pre-beta stage, some users are not yet ready to use Windows 8 as their primary OS.
So, if you don’t want to install Windows 8 on your primary machine, you can install and try it on a virtual machine software such as VMware Player, VirtualBox, and Windows Virtual PC.
Update: This guide works perfectly for Windows 8 with VMware 4.0 and above.
In this guide, we will show you how to install and run Windows 8 on VMware Player:
1. First of all, download and install VMware Player on your machine (supports XP, Vista, and Windows 7 as host machines).
2. Once installed, start VMware Player and click Create a New Virtual Machine option to launch New Virtual Machine Wizard.
3. Here, you have two options: install from a DVD or install from an ISO image file. As we have an ISO image of Windows 8, let’s select the second option Installer disc image file (iso) option.
Select Installer disc image file option and use the browse button to browse to the Windows 8 ISO image file. You might get “Could not detect which operating system is in this disc image” message. Ignore the message and simply click Next button to continue.
4. In this step, select the operating system as Microsoft Windows and version as Windows 7. If you have a x64 version of Windows 8, please select Windows 7 x64 from the version dropdown menu.
Note: The current version of VMware Player doesn’t officially support Windows 8. So, we are selecting Windows 7 as OS version.
Click Next button to proceed to the next step.
5. VMware allows you enter Windows product key, user name, and password so that you need not to enter these information while installing Windows 8. Enter product key and other details if you want to.
You can also skip this step without entering any details. Click Next button.
6. Name your Windows 8 virtual machine and also select that location to save the virtual machine. Please select a location with enough free space (20 GB recommended).
7. Specify the disk space that you wan to allocate to the new virtual machine (20 GB recommended) and select Store virtual disk as a single file option. Click Next button to proceed to the last step.
8. Finally click Finish button to create the new virtual machine. It will automatically start the Windows 8 installation.
It might ask you to download and install VMware Tools during installation. Simply click Download and Install button, or Remind Me Later button to install it after installing Windows 8.
9. Follow the on screen procedure to complete Windows 8 installation.
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15 Comments
VMWare is detecting my Win8-Image as “Win7 x64″ , how can i disable this detection to install it properly ?
Nice tutorial, but Windows 8 won’t install for me.
I tried VMWare with a few different settings and it failed.
I then tried virtual box, and once again it failed.
How can I trust an operating system that can’t handle virtualization?
It’s strange! I have been testing Windows 8 Developer Preview on VirtualBox and VMware (installation in progress) without any problems. Are you getting any error?
This is what i get in vm player vcpu-0:NOT_IMPLEMENTED vmcore/vmm/intr/apic.c:1903 this is on a dell inspiron n7110 64 bit windows 7 with 4 gb of ram and i am trying to install the 64 bit versions of windows 8
I get the HAL_INITIALIZATION FAILED error
It seems many Windows users are getting errors while trying install Windows 8 Developer Preview on VMware Player. Hope VMware will release a new version soon.
I am getting a win8 error message “Windows cannot read the setting from the unattend answer file.
It doesn’t matter if I enter correct serial number for developer’s preview or if I leave this blank..
i’m stuck with this 5 blue boxes. it appears after loading files. can anyone help me with this.
http://i54.tinypic.com/2lvmn7n.png
Getting the same as Winman trying to install on VMware esxi-5
The new BSOD show a message: HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED
I tried VMWare with a few different settings TOO… but the message is the same
VMWare 3.1.4
Win 7
Intel HD Graphics
2 RAM
Intel i3
Dell Laptop
This is a fast publish from Microsoft about the problem with the installation and the message: HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2619487
doesnt work for me. just says setup is starting then reboots
I get same unattended error cant read product key, even if i dont put one in for Win 8
To prevent the “can’t read product key” error you can go to machine preferences and delete the floopy unit. This occurs becase VMware is booting form a floppy that contains the unattended information. I have avoided that problem by this way but install fails because it has a problem with the disk.
PD.: Sorry my english, it isn’t my native language.
Franco, thank you! Your suggestion is just what I needed!