I saw a couple of questions on the VMTN Communities around running Windows 8 Dev Preview on ESXi 5.0 and support and the fact that it doesn’t work. Although the OS is listed in the dropdown list after you have created a VM it does not mean it is supported. Support for Operating Systems should always be validated through the following page: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software. Currently Windows 8 Dev Preview is not on the list and as such not supported, which means no guarantee that it will work. As some have already noticed it won’t work (HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED), for now… as I am sure the engineers at VMware are working on it as I am typing this article. (That’s no guarantee a solution / workaround will come in the near future though.)
There’s a KB article on this topic http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006859, if you are interested I would suggest bookmarking it or subscribing to it.
I want to point out though that you can run Windows 8 in Workstation 8 or Fusion 4. Yes I know that these are paid products, but you can download the eval version which is valid for 30 days. Workstation 8 comes with VMware Player 4.0, which is completely free! (Not available as a separate download yet unfortunately.)
Installing Windows 8 is straight forward, just use the Windows 7 – 64 Bit profile that is part of both Fusion and Workstation.
I bet someone will eventually find a hack to get it to work on vShpere 5 (maybe even 4.1 for that matter) 😉
Hi !
I’ve been able to run windows 8 Developer Preview both on a vSphere 4.1 and 5.
This method is a bit special, but it works.
You can read the article on my blog: http://www.sqaopen.net
If you have a better way, I need to know !
🙂
Well not exactly what most people are looking for I guess 🙂
Duncan, great post, and I’ve been blogging about this too:
http://tinkertry.com/windows8download
Today, I’ve noticed that VMware has perhaps pulled down the kb article you reference above, as of 10:47 am eastern on 9/19:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2006859
However, searches for that kb still work and show the title of the result:
http://search.vmware.com/search?cn=vmware&cc=www&client=VMware_Site&entqr=0&ud=1&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=VMware_gsa_Site&site=VMware_Site&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=2006859&x=0&y=0
so, meanwhile, here’s the cached version:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:06KTtb2WcfoJ:kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/microsite.do%3Fcmd%3DdisplayKC%26docType%3Dkc%26externalId%3D2006859%26sliceId%3D1%26docTypeID%3DDT_KB_1_1+kb.vmware.com/kb/2006859&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
but since the actual page is gone, no way to subscribe to notifications when VMware has fixed this that I can find.
Just found a new working link for the same info as the original kb 2006859 article:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=2006859&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1
Yes, I know…
Everybody wants to have the ability to deploy a VM with Windows 8 directly on vsphere. But if you really need to have a windows 8 installed, and usable by your developer team to check their software on this platform, you have 2 solutions :
– install windows 8 on a physical server
– follow my post and install it on a VM which is itself on a vm in your vsphere 4.1 or 5.0.
My developers team is using this way for a week and it works… We can wait vmware to update both vsphere 4.1 and 5.0, and use windows 8 during this time.
I don’t understand how there is not more demand for a how-to for Windows 8 on ESX 4.1 – have most people migrated to ESX 5.0 and the new licensing terms already? If so, we and our client base are waaaay behind…
I can run vshpere 5 on Hyper V 3 in Windows 8 Server:)
Was able to get Windows 8 Development Preview working in Virtualbox using the Win7 64bit profile.
Works fine with no special config on workstation 8.
Couldn’t get the Developer Preview to install on a bare virtual (ESXi 4.1). It looks like it is installing fine on top of an existing Win7 VM.
Sorry, the install could not complete.
As Stoked pointed out, the Windows 8 preview runs fine within Virtualbox. It’s a free download so was the perfect solution for me.
It may not be ideal for all environments but to just play with it inside a VM on your own client PC it does the job.
There is no option of Windows 8 in drop down list of vsphere when we go and create a virtual machine:(
so is ESX going to include Windows 8 in it as its hampering our work cos we migrated to ESX v5 now.
please visit:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2006859
I have the latest version of the Widnows 8 Build 8306 in ESXi 5.0 with out a problem.
How are you able to get Windows Server 8 – Beta to work o Esxi?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Kevin
I’m just downloaded
en_windows_server_8-beta_x64_dvd_810648.iso