The Best Way to Test Windows 8: Run It on a Dedicated Machine

Run Windows 8 on a dedicated machine in order to properly test the operating system. This is Microsoft’s advice for the testers. 

At the same time, the Redmond company is well aware that there are a large number of early adopters that have already deployed Windows 8 as a guest operating system inside a virtual machine. 

From the feedback I’ve been seeing, including from comments to my articles here, testers using virtualization with Windows 8 have run into a series of problems. 

Microsoft’s Sue Bohn, David Hicks, Cornel Lupu of our ACDC team (App Compat, Device Compat) have a list of virtualization solutions that play nice with Windows 8, including: Hyper-V in Windows 8 Developer Preview, Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2, VMware Workstation 8.0 for Windows, and VirtualBox 4.1.2 for Windows. 

“Some virtualization products only provide a basic display driver that does not support the high performance graphics used in Windows 8. As a result, you get a noticeably slower, less responsive experience when compared with running the OS natively,” Lupu said. 

“The setup and configuration process can be complicated and error prone when running as a guest OS, especially if you are running it on older hardware that does not support built-in virtualization optimizations featured in the latest generations of Intel and AMD processors.”

According to the software giant, no less than one third of all Windows 8 installations were done on virtual machines. As a reminder, Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102.winmain_win8m3.110830-1739 Milestone 3 (M3) is available to testers since September 13, and was downloaded over 500,000 times on the first day alone.

Here are of the virtualization technologies that early adopters had better not use when testing Windows 8, at least not for the time being: Microsoft Virtual PC (all versions), Microsoft Virtual Server (all versions), Windows 7 XP Mode, and VMWare Workstation 7.x or older. 

Microsoft is currently working with all major manufacturers of virtualization solutions, and the products enumerated above, as well as their successors are bound to become compatible with Windows 8 in the future. 

“We take compatibility very seriously. However, there are categories of software than run “very close to the metal,” and deliberately take dependencies on internal data structures and intricacies of the Windows kernel,” Lupu added.

“These dependencies are not typically publicly supported or exported APIs, and thus must change as Windows changes. We go to great lengths to avoid these changes, but sometimes they are necessary to enable innovation. As a result, some software will require updates when we make significant improvements to Windows.”

As I’ve already said, the best way to give Windows 8 Build 8102 M3 a try is to have it deployed on testing machine used for nothing else.

Here’s Lupu’s explanation why: “Windows 8 takes advantage of hardware acceleration to enable a fast and fluid user interface. If the option of a dedicated physical computer is not available, then using a dual boot setup is a great alternative that preserves your existing OS and setup.” 

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102.winmain_win8m3.110830-1739 Milestone 3 (M3) is available for download here.

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