How to install Windows 8 on Mac

Windows 8 is the current release of Microsoft. It has several new features and functionalities which can give the opportunity to Mac users to gain much experience and fun. For many Mac users who occasionally need to run Windows applications, they can install easily windows 8 on Mac. There are several ways to accomplish this, e.g—Boot Camp, Parallels, VMware Fusion and VirtualBox. 

Install Windows 8 on your Mac using Boot Camp:- 
Step 1: Create a bootable Windows 8 DVD using the ISO images of Windows 8. These ISO images are available in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Step 2: Launch the Boot Camp Assistant available under the Applications – > Utilities folder of your Mac.

Step 3: If you already have Windows running on your Mac through Boot Camp, remove it“. This will remove the existing Windows partition from your Mac and thus all the programs and files on that Windows partitions will also be lost so, keep backup of your important data before proceeding.

Step 4: The next screen will let you create a new partition for your Windows 8. Drag the slider to allocate anywhere between 20 GB – 40 GB space to this new partition.

Step 5: Insert the Windows 8 DVD into your Mac and hit the Install button available inside the Boot Camp Assistant wizard.

Step 6: This will initiate the regular Windows 8 installation routine on your Mac. Pick the disk partition that says “BOOTCAMP” but it may show the following error message:-

“Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. Windows must be installed to a partition formatted as NTFS.”

You can solve this problem easily. While the Boot Camp partition is selected, choose advanced Drive options and hit the F key to format that partition to NTFS format. That’s it. Just follow the prompts, insert the serial number and you will get windows 8 soon with Mac. 

How to Switch between Windows 8 and Mac OS X:-

When you do restart your system, it will automatically boot into Windows. However you can press and hold the Option key while the system is booting and it will give you a choice of operating systems that you want to boot into.

I will explain Windows 8 installation with Parallels, VMware Fusion and VirtualBox in my next post.......