As you will no doubt be aware, the and is ready for unloading onto your machine. You’ll most likely want to get cracking and take a look at what’s on offer first hand before we reveal our comprehensive guide. But, if you’re using a Mac, you might want to stop, pause for thought, and read this little piece on how to virtualize the latest build of Windows with Parallels, and just why it’s a good idea. Why Virtualize? Obviously this early developer preview (Build 8106) is still at a relatively early stage of development; therefore it’s likely that it’s not going to be issue and hassle-free.

Launch VirtualBox. Click on the New button. In the Name field, type 'Windows 10' or whatever you'd like. Leave Type as Microsoft Windows; Click on the Version menu and select Windows 8.1 (64 bit).

As you’re more than likely just going to be ‘playing’ with it, rather than using it in any sort of productive capacity, running within a virtual machine (VM) makes it easy to simply quit, restart or reinstall with minimal damage. Using Parallels, you can run the virtualised OS alongside Mac OS X, and if you’re running Lion with the latest version of the virtualisation software, you can make use of the ‘full screen’ feature, and have Windows 8 running as no more than its own app in Mission Control.

There are only a couple of reasons that spring to mind which would justify installing this version of Windows 8 clean as the primary OS, or even within a dual-boot, and that is if you’re perhaps running an older machine, with relatively low specs. Virtualization can be quite resource intensive, and requires dedicated allocation of perhaps 1 or 2 cores of your CPU and a couple of gigs of memory, thus deducting it from your primary OS and slowing both down to near-halt.

Alternatively, you might just have a spare computer lying around redundant, in which case you might want to get it out and update it with a brand-spanking new OS. Prepping Parallels Well of course you will first need to install Parallels, which will set you back a fairly hefty £64.99, unless you previously owned a copy of version 5 or later, in which case you’ll only have to fork out £34.99 to upgrade. Instead you might consider making use of the free two-week trial that is ample time to get familiar with a new OS, which you’ll likely ditch through frustration or a lack of necessity after the novelty wears off anyway. The trial is fully-featured. Vmware fusion 8 for mac. Once it’s downloaded and installed, you’ll need to developer preview. Installing Windows When you first open Parallels, you’ll be faced with the following window: You’ll need to hit the highlighted option on the left hand end, labelled ‘Install Windows from DVD or Image File’. Here you have a choice.

Either you can simply go through and select the.ISO file containing Windows 8 that you downloaded earlier that is stored locally, or you can burn said.iSO to a DVD, insert that and be on your way that way via your DVD drive. It’s entirely up to you, though read speeds from your HDD are considerably faster than those of a DVD, so it might shave a few seconds off installation taking the former route. If you decide to burn the DVD, you can simply proceed past this step as the DVD drive is the default location that Parallels looks at when looking for an OS to install, so just hit continue. Otherwise, hit the drop down menu, and select ‘Choose an image file’, and locate it through Finder as per usual.