How to : Try the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Windows 8 Consumer Preview

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is free to download from Microsoft's website. It comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and in a variety of languages, and the 64-bit version weighs in at a hefty 32GB.

if you're planning to do a clean install of Windows 8. or run it from within a VM, it's probably best to head straight for the ISOs at http://tinyurl.com/6u4m7hc. The page provides instructions on how to burn the ISO to either DVD or USB stick, using free tools provided by Microsoft.

If you're feeling brave, you can also install the Windows 8 Consumer Preview over your current installation of Windows XP. Vista or 7 using the special installer at http://tinyurl.com/7rnql5L . Note, however, that only Windows 7 users will keep applications, settings and user accounts in place. Those upgrading from Vista and XP have more limited options.

We've upgraded in place on several Windows 7 machines and it has worked flawlessly every time. Drivers, settings and Library structures have all been retained.

That said, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is a glorified beta, so proceed with extreme caution, especially with PCs you depend on for work. Just because it worked for us doesn't mean it will do so for you, and there's no rolling back once you've made the upgrade. Take a full disk image backup of your existing PC before starting the upgrade, so you can revert to your current setup if something happens to go drastically wrong.

The upgrade installer checks your current PC has the right specification, and the compatibility of any applications you've pre-installed. If you Ye already running Microsoft's Security Essentials antivirus suite, you'll be forced to uninstall this first, os this is built into Windows 8 under the new guise of Windows Defender. Once you've passed all the necessary checks, the installer then proceeds to download and install the OS. After the download was complete, the installation took around 45 minutes on our aging Core 2 Duo laptop with 2GB of RAM.

Do beware that the Consumer Preview will eventually time out, and when the final version of Windows 8 is launched you won't be able to upgrade in place from the Consumer Preview. Microsoft has said it will provide migration tools to make the process of transferring data and settings easier than ever.