How to Create a Virtual Machine To Run Windows 10 Technical Preview

Scope

The purpose of this article is to show how to create a Virtual Machine, in Hyper-V Manager, to test the Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Introduction

Before creating the Virtual Machine, we need to ensure that the Hyper-V is enabled.

Start by checking the BIOS, to verify that virtualization is enabled. For example in my Lenovo S440 I got this:







After this, run the Control Panel and open the Programs and Features and then click in “Turn Windows features on or off”.



And then check all about Hyper-V.



After this, you should restart your PC.

In some cases, if you turn off Hyper-V using PowerShell, you need to enable it again, by doing:



If you miss any one of these steps, you will get an error like this:



Or:

 

Prerequisites for Windows 10 Technical Preview

 

The following are the minimum system specification to install Windows 10 Technical Preview:

• Microsoft account and Internet access
• 1 GHz or faster Processor
• 2 GB RAM for 64 Bit machine.
• 16 GB of free hard disk space.
• Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics card with WDDM driver

Learn more about the prerequisites and the download Windows 10 Technical Preview from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview.

Description

Now that the Hyper-V is on, we can use the Hyper-V Manager to create the Virtual Machine, use the Search to get it, as in the following:



Then we will get this window:



Now let's create the VM.

In this case we will do a right-click, using the mouse, in Lenovo to create a new virtual machine as in the following:



Then define all steps in the wizard.









Note: Here we can set the startup memory we want.

Set the connection type, in my case I have these options:



Define the path for the ISO file (Download from insider.windows.com).



Clicking on Finish, we will get this:



In the right panel, click in Start and then in Connect and you will see the following screen:



After setting some definitions you will have a screen to set your account. If you use your account that is used in Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 you will get the following screen:



Choosing the first option, to copy all definitions from the actual computer to the machine, at the end it wil have all apps and settings from the “Lenovo-PC”.

Here is the final result: