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How to Download Windows 8 Consumer Preview

How to Download Windows 8 Consumer Preview

By March 4, 2012 windows 8 5 Comments

Windows 8 Consumer preview

On 29th Feb, 2012 Microsoft launched windows 8 consumer preview after previous release of windows 8 developer preview  in Sept, 2011. After launch of Consumer preview it has been downloaded 1million times just within 24 hrs.

This is the popularity and curiosity about windows 8 in public that can be seen by the number of downloads. In my previous post of windows 8 developer preview, I have elaborated how to install and un-install windows 8 developer preview in your PC.

In this post I will tell you how to install and uninstall windows 8 consumer preview.  Actually there is no option to uninstall the windows 8, but you can remove/uninstall it from your drive as mentioned in my previous post of windows 8 developer preview.

The minimum requirement of your PC as per Microsoft’s site for  installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview –

  • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
  • Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
  • Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device or higher

Additional requirements to use certain features:

  • To use touch, you need a tablet or a monitor that supports multitouch.
  • To access the Windows Store and to download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768.
  • To snap apps, you need a screen resolution of at least 1366 x 768.

At this time Microsoft created self-guided small software that make enable you and guide you how to install windows 8. You can download this software from here or see this link-  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download

Using this software you can manage and customize your downloads as like this-

  1. Windows 8 Consumer Preview Setup checks your PC to see if it can run the consumer preview, and provides a compatibility report that you can save or print (make sure your devices are connected to your PC and turned on before you run the Setup program). The Setup program then selects the optimized version of the download (up to 25% smaller) that is right for your PC (32-bit or 64-bit).
  2. The built-in download manager lets you start, stop, and resume the download at any time.
  3. Once Windows 8 Consumer Preview is downloaded, you choose how and when to install it. You can install on the current drive or you can make an ISO or bootable flash drive for installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview on another partition, virtual machine, or another PC (requires Windows Vista or Windows 7).

You can also download ISO for windows 8 consumer preview, as per my opinion this the good option because once you have downloaded and burn this into a DVD media it will remain with you for next installation or any other PC installation purpose.

When you download windows 8 consumer preview from self-guided program, there is no need of any key ; if you are going to install it from DVD media then you need this key – NF32V-Q9P3W-7DR7Y-JGWRW-JFCK8.

You can download windows 8 consumer preview ISO from here-

32bit ISO                64bit ISO

Burn this ISO into an blank DVD media using windows image burn feature (recommended).

If you want a dual boot then you require same bit ISO version as  your previous windows installed.

You have two options either you can upgrade your existing windows OS (I will not recommended this for you because this is a beta version), or you can dual boot your PC with windows 8 with your older windows.

If you want to upgrade then first boot in your current windows OS and insert your already burn DVD media of windows 8 consumer preview. Then from autorun choose to install windows 8; In upgrade you can keep your files, programs and settings depends on your old windows OS-

Windows 7

  • Programs
  • Windows settings
  • User accounts and files

Windows Vista

  • Windows settings
  • User accounts and files

Windows XP

  • User accounts and files
For fresh installation or for dual boot installation insert windows 8 Consumer preview DVD into your PC/Laptop and restart your PC. In BIOS setup choose first boot device as DVD drive then follow the instruction by setup wizard. For dual boot choose another hard-disk drive partition for installation not your older windows OS drive partition. After installation you required to reboot your PC, in next restart you will found windows 8 boot menu to choose either from windows 8 consumer preview or your older windows.

In windows 8 consumer preview you will found Internet Explorer 10 consumer preview, windows store for apps, windows cloud service. And all new user interface experience. When you press windows key you will found an Apps tiles window, desktop is also a part of these apps that can be selected from apps tile.

As per Windows president Steven Sinofsky more than 100,000 changes had been made since the developer version went public.

For other details see the FAQ page of windows-

windows 8 consumer preview FAQ

Resources –

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/faq#section_1

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/iso

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

 

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