How to install Windows 8 Developer Preview on VirtualBox in Ubuntu?

I have downloaded the Windows 8 developer preview ISO and I'm trying to get it running on VirtualBox 4.1 in Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit. Short story: it doesn't work.

I see a message "Loading files..." followed by a title screen that says "Windows Developer Preview." Then I get an error with some funny boxes and in between it some text that appears to say '... restart your computer...' followed by some error codes.

My machine is a dual-core Intel Centrino running at 1.6GHz with 2GB of RAM. I have assigned the VM 1GB of system RAM, 32MB of VRAM and enabled PAE/NX and 2D acceleration.

What am I doing wrong?

Additional information:

My CPU does not support hardware virtualization.
The download is not corrupt since it boots in the actual computer without issue.

Nathan Osman

Posted 2011-09-14T21:01:21.760

Reputation: 2 552

2My CPU does not support hardware virtualization. - then you can't. – Sathyajith Bhat – 2011-09-15T05:07:00.333

Try assigning some of those 32 gigabytes of video RAM to actual RAM. Just kidding, you don't have hardware virtualisation. – ta.speot.is – 2011-09-15T10:06:14.267

@todda: Ooops :) That's a typo. – Nathan Osman – 2011-09-18T23:04:17.803

Check below guides to install Windows 8 developer preview on VirtualBox & VMware workstation 8: - Install Windows 8 Developer Preview on VirtualBox 4.1

[Installing Windows Server Developer Preview on VirtualBox 4.1

](http://www.mytricks.in/2011/09/guide-installing-windows-server.html)

Installing Windows 8 Developer Preview on VMware Workstation 8

– Santosh S – 2011-09-15T08:34:19.817

Answers

Select Windows 7 as option in VirtualBox
Enable VT-x and Nesting Paging
Enable PAE/NX
Enable IO APIC
Enable 3D Acceleration, you can enable 2D Acceleration also

Source and step by step guide here : http://www.sysprobs.com/guide-install-windows-8-virtualbox

Nick Josevski

Posted 2011-09-14T21:01:21.760

Reputation: 6 747

I didn't enable 3D acceleration... trying that. – Nathan Osman – 2011-09-14T22:01:46.620

That didn't work either. – Nathan Osman – 2011-09-14T22:06:55.680

It's a challenge to get a developer build running on bare metal on certain types of hardware, this combined with Ubuntu as your host OS, may just be a battle not worth fighting. – Nick Josevski – 2011-09-15T03:44:59.003

@Nick Josevski: what is behind "Ubuntu as host OS"? – vtest – 2011-09-19T03:25:28.457

This article will step you through installation on VirtualBox.

William Jackson

Posted 2011-09-14T21:01:21.760

Reputation: 7 646

I followed those steps too, worked fine. – Nick Josevski – 2011-09-14T21:08:39.090

I don't have hardware virtualization. – Nathan Osman – 2011-09-14T22:01:31.380

@George Then I believe you are out of luck. – William Jackson – 2011-09-15T01:11:30.883

VirtualBox seems to have more success loading the Windows 8 image than either VMware's or Microsoft's offerings. Grab a VirtualBox if you haven't already (why not? It's free!) and create a new system, using "Other Windows" as the OS type.

I don't know what the minimum required specs are for Windows 8, but I gave the VM 4096MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive, which should be plenty. Choose to create a new start-up hard disk using the VDI file format.

More detailed instructions on these steps can be found here:

http://www.hypervhd.com/hyper-v-install-and-upgrade-f24/install-windows-8-in-vbox-t1726.html

jakson

Posted 2011-09-14T21:01:21.760

Reputation: 11