Windows 8 marks a major departure from any other version of the OS and it behooves any geek to get out on the front lines of such an introduction. Even so, you might not have an extra computer lying around to install the young operating system on. Virtualization to the rescue.
Before getting started, we should keep in mind that virtualization isn’t exactly the optimum solution for testing. It’ll get the job done, but in all likelihood you won’t get a feel for the full speed or smoothness of Windows 8. Your virtualized machine probably won’t have a touchscreen either, so you’ll be missing out there as well. That said, it’s a free operation that isn’t too difficult to set up, so it’s worth the time if you are at all curious about Win8.

For this tutorial we’ll be using VirtualBox, Oracle’s free virtualization software. It’s quite accessible given how complicated the work it’s doing actually is, and it’s easier to work with than VMWare Player. Plus, reports from around the web indicate that VirtualBox plays more nicely with Windows 8 than VMware Player 3.x. VMware Workstation 8 does seem to getting along with Windows 8 well enough, but you’ll have to shell out some cash for that — and VMware Player 4 does seem to be capable of running Win8 but you need Workstation 8 to get that.
Follow these steps and you should have your computer running Windows 8 in no time:
- Download Windows 8 and VirtualBox