As MSDN members can download Windows 8 now, it is time for me to upgrade to Windows 8. Although I upgraded successfully, my journey is a long story. Hopefully my experience can save you some time.
- I had a 120GB SSD that has only 11GB free space left. I am not terribly comfortable with the limited space. So I ordered a 240GB SSD. I used Windows 7 to do an Windows image backup to an external drive. I then booted from the Windows 7 DVD and restored my image to the new drive. It took only 30 minutes to backup, but several hours to restore. After restoring, I went to Computer Management to expand my C drive to use the remaining free space on my new SSD.
- I then tried to download Windows 8 from MSDN. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate. I was not sure which edition of Windows 8 to download. According to this chart, I can upgrade from Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 8 pro, but I can only find Windows 8 pro volume licensing edition in MSDN which I am not entitled to download. It turns our that both Windows 8 and Windows 8 pro uses the same media; the activation key decides which edition to activate.
- The Windows 8 upgrader asked me to uninstall Microsoft Security Essential. This is because Windows 8 has Windows Defender built in.
- The Windows 8 user interface is not entirely intuitive. Fortunately, there is a short video from Mike Halsey that allows one to get familiar quickly.
- After the upgrade, there is a message asking me to uninstall Virtual Clone Drive. This is because Windows 8 has a built-in feature to mount ISO and VHD files. This is a nice edition.
So much for my first day of experiments. See you next time.