In case you missed it: yesterday was the Keynote of the BUILD-conference (the Professional Developer Conference got a new name), and Steven Sinofski (Vice President of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft) officially introduced the first version of Windows “8” to the broad public. Pretty exciting and a lot of changes. You can see the keynote at www.buildwindows.com, and download the developer preview at dev.windows.com. If you are a MSDN subscriber there are more versions and information available, including a developer preview of the server version. If you are at BUILD, I highly recommend to see the server sessions also, as far as I know there is one today which will present the overview what’s coming in the next server version. Pretty exciting!
Please remember:
- Windows “8” is a codename and might change
- It is a developer preview – not a quite-stable beta – only for testing and starting to develop for the new user interface (Metro, the same than Windows Phone)
And BTW, some tipps:
- Since Vista you can install using a USB-Key which I find totally cool. You are likely to have to re-format your USB-Key. You can do this using Diskpart.exe, “List Disk”, “Select Disk #” (make sure you have the Key selected, and we will wipe it in the next step). “Clean” will wipe the key, then you have to “Create Partition Primary”, make it “Active”, and format it NTFS “Format FS=NTFS QUICK”. Fat or Fat32 won’t work since the image of the developer preview is over 4 GB. Copy all Files from the ISO-Image (extracted) to the USB-Key. Afterwards you can boot from the key and install.
- If installation is failing to find the disk drive prompting you to point to a driver, it might be an issue with the USB-Key (some are detected as harddrive and make issues when installing). Try a different key, or burn the ISO. Bad message here – you need to burn it to a dual-layer DVD since it’s to large. And installing from a USB-Key is usually faster than from DVD.
Enjoy the preview!
Ulf