You Can Download Windows 8 Developer Preview for Free

Sep 13, 2011 - 32 Comments

Windows 8

Windows 8 is Microsofts future operating system that is intended to share aspects of Windows 7 while also competing directly with iPad, iOS, and Android thanks to it’s Metro user interface. We’ve praised some of the Windows 8 features before, and also criticized the freakishly cluttered Ribbon UI, but now you can try it out yourself and come up with your own conclusion of Microsofts future OS, completely for free.

The Windows 8 Developer Preview comes as a free download from Microsoft:

Get it from Microsofts new Windows Dev Center

There is no product activation required. The .iso files weigh in between 2.8GB and 4.8GB depending on what you’re looking for and you can install it in a Virtual Machine if you want, here are a few guides on how to do this:

These methods work to run Windows 8 atop Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7, Linux, and Windows, just be sure you have adequate RAM and disk space available.

If you want to install it separately, you should have about 16GB of disk space to try it out, and without a touch screen you won’t be able to enjoy all the funky Metro UI features. Official system requirements are as follows:

Windows Developer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows Vista and Windows 7:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch

If you don’t have a spare PC to install Windows 8 DP on and you don’t want to bother dual booting with a separate partition, go the aforementioned virtual machine route.

Windows 8 Developer Preview

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Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Fun, News

32 Comments

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  1. Super says:

    Hey the dev center doesn’t offer the developer download anymore, is there an alternative?

  2. ema says:

    Je viens de me procurer un imac et j’aimerais utiliser vmware. Comment puis-je me procurer windows sans l’acheter. Tout cela dans le but d’utiliser autocad sur un autre ordi pc et pouvoir l’ouvrir ensuite sur mon mac.

    merci

  3. imran says:

    Developer Preview for Free iwant now

  4. oliver says:

    what can i do with download to be faster? and I want to know ..how many

  5. […] Windows 8 Developer Preview – download this free from Microsoft Dev Center […]

  6. […] Puedes descargar Win8 Dev Preview desde este enlace. […]

  7. […] los chicos de Redmond. El día de ayer, Steve Ballmer dio a conocer los números de descargas de Windows 8 Developer Preview (que en estos momentos estoy […]

  8. […] Download Windows 8 Developer Preview – free download (64-bit version recommended) […]

  9. kmk says:

    Windows 8 installs fine in Boot Camp, just use the latest drivers!

    https://picasaweb.google.com/104679027020941404401/Windows8

  10. icebreaker says:

    If this version is the same as the final version then I’m not transferring my Windows 7 gaming pc to Windows 8. Normally I always go to the newest version of Windows but this is going to be an acceptation. Their isn’t even an ‘all programs’ list.

  11. Cameron says:

    Can you run this in Parallels?

  12. No One says:

    CAN I install this with BootCamp on OS X?????

  13. Master says:

    F*CK*NG APPLE TROLLS, WHY CAN’T YOU GUYS ENJOY ANYTHING, I OWN BOTH A MACBOOK PRO AND AN IMAC AND I MUST SAY WINDOWS 7 HAS BEEN AWESOME SO FAR AND WINDOWS 8 IS ALSO LOOKING VERY PROMISING. GET A LIFE LOSERS !!!

  14. FreeRange says:

    And I would want to load this crapware on my device because….?

  15. joseph says:

    You think it’s made that way to be used with a Kinect? Like if you didn’t have a touch screen you could use a webcam/or Kinect? That would be cool IMO.

  16. done says:

    virtualbox install does not work. Getting errors and reboots…

  17. mark says:

    I’ll pass and stay with OS X

    :)

  18. Kevin says:

    Hmm, seems to not be working in virtualbox… This may take a bit to figure out

  19. Doug says:

    Reminds me of the Xbox dashboard

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