How to download and install the Windows 10 Technical Preview

Microsoft, right on schedule, has made the Windows 10 Technical Preview available to download. There are 64-bit and 32-bit versions available for US English, Real English, Chinese, and Brazilian Portuguese. Follow these instructions to download and install the Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Updated: I have just completed upgrading Windows 8.1 Pro to Windows 10 Technical Preview. The upgrade appears to have worked cleanly. I haven’t spotted any issues yet, but will run a full suite of tests now.

Updated: Watch a video of my first hands-on impressions of Windows 10 Technical Preview.

My first Windows 10 Technical Preview screenshot, showing Photoshop and the new Start menu

Be prepared

As always with beta/preview software, you shouldn’t install it unless you’re fully prepared. This means you should back up any important files, and ideally you should have a separate hard drive/partition to install the Technical Preview on. You cannot revert from Windows 10 Technical Preview to Windows 7 or Windows 8; if you have second thoughts, you will have to reinstall from scratch.

Download the Windows 10 Technical Preview

To begin, head on over to preview.windows.com and join the Windows Insider Program. This only takes a few clicks if you already have a Microsoft account.

You then need to download the appropriate installation file (an ISO) for your system. This is probably the 64-bit (x64) version — though if you have an older system, or you want to test out the 32-bit version, grab the 32-bit download instead. The download will probably take quite a while: the 64-bit ISO comes in at 4GB.

Note down your license key (though you will be able to visit the page later, too).

With the ISO fully downloaded, you then need to transfer it to either a USB thumb drive (preferred) or burn it to a DVD. If you have Windows 8/8.1, burning a DVD is fairly easy — you can do it directly in Explorer. For burning an ISO image to a USB thumb drive,the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool is probably still your best bet.

If you want to install a fresh version of Windows 10 Technical Preview, reboot your computer, boot from the USB stick/DVD drive, and follow the on-screen prompts  (use “Advanced” mode when prompted). If you want to upgrade an existing version of Windows 7 or 8/8.1, just run setup.exe from the USB/DVD drive from Explorer.

Do read the next section before you go ahead with the install, though.

Screenshot from the Windows 10 Technical Preview upgrade client (in Windows 8.1)

Screenshot from the Windows 10 Technical Preview upgrade client (in Windows 8.1)

Caveats and other options

As far as we’re aware, you can upgrade your existing Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 installation to the Windows 10 Technical Preview. I would advise you to do a clean installation of the Technical Preview, however, on a separate partition or hard drive, in case something messes up. The Technical Preview license expires at the end of April 2015, but another Preview build will be released before then. Other potential caveats/pitfalls can be found on the Windows 10 Technical Preview FAQ.

Another option is installing Windows 10 Technical Preview in VirtualBox — our instructions for how to do it with Windows 8 should work for Windows 10, but we haven’t tested it yet.

Again, do not proceed unless you know what you’re doing: This is a very early build of Windows.

Now read: Windows 10 Technical Preview (or just watch the video below)

Windows 10 Technical Preview

So, I installed Windows 10 Technical Preview. Actually, I was feeling so brave (foolhardy?) that I upgraded my main Windows 8.1 installation to Windows 10. The good news: The upgrade process went very smoothly indeed. The bad news: Well, except for a few small interface quirks, there doesn’t seem to be much bad news. Read on for my early hands-on impressions of Windows 10 Technical Preview — and a video of Windows 10 Technical Preview running on my multi-monitor desktop PC.

If you can’t watch this hands-on video, there are lots of screenshots below.

Upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10

First up, the upgrade process was very simple. I downloaded and installed Windows 10 Technical Preview, burnt it to a USB thumb drive, and then ran setup.exe from within Windows 8.1. I followed the on-screen prompts and kept all of my “settings, personal files, and apps” when given the option. After that, it was just a matter of hitting Next until the install completed. The upgrade took about 10-15 minutes (on a decent SSD).

Windows 10 Technical Preview upgrade screen. Yes, the rainbow colored section towards the end is still there.

So far I haven’t noticed any obvious issues (crashing bugs, faulty drivers) — but I haven’t done much more than run Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and a few games (Dota 2). Considering the Desktop side of Windows 10 is basically just Windows 8 (which in turn is essentially just Windows 7), everything should just work.

Read: Why is it called Windows 10, and not Windows 9?

Using Windows 10 Technical Preview

For the most part, if you’ve been using Windows 8 on a mouse-and-keyboard desktop PC for a while, Windows 10 Technical Preview will feel very familiar. Here are the new changes/features that immediately stood out:

• Windows 10 looks a lot sharper. The new 1-pixel borders on app windows, along with the drop shadow, really does make the Windows 10 Desktop look rather smart.
• The new Alt-Tab view is horrible. I’ve always hated Microsoft’s attempts to re-work the Alt-Tab app switcher into something more visual. The new Alt-Tab view in Windows 10 is pretty horrendous (picture below). Maybe it’ll be better once I get used to it — but if you’re used to a neat line of thumbnails that you can cycle through, you’re in for a shock.
• Snapping is indeed much improved. In Windows 10 Technical Preview you have many more ways of snapping apps than in Windows 8. You can now snap left and right, and left and right of the middle divider on a multi-monitor setup. You can also snap in a top or bottom corner. When you snap an app, if you have other apps minimized, a new interface pops up asking if you want to snap another app into the remaining gap. It’s kind of cool. Very much a throwback to the “tile view” of yesteryear.
• The Start menu is back. Personally I don’t use the Start menu much (I prefer to pin my apps to the taskbar), but yes, the Start menu is back in Windows 10 — and yes, you can remove all of the live tiles if you want. (Funnily enough, after removing all of the live tiles, I don’t know how to put them back.)

Windows 10 Technical Preview screenshots

Here’s a selection of screenshots from my Windows 10 Technical Preview adventures thus far. They mostly accompany the video; where you might not be able to see the detail in the video, I’ve provided a full-res screenshot below.

Windows 10 Technical Preview: The new Alt-Tab switcher

Windows 10 Technical Preview, Chrome. You can see the red X button is designed for the wider border of Windows 8, and thus it overhangs a bit in Windows 10

Windows 10 Technical Preview Start menu – without any live tiles

Windows 10 Technical Preview, snap helper UI thing

Windows 10 Technical Preview, improved app snapping

And finally, a very intimidating screenshot indeed: The new virtual desktops feature, on a multi-monitor Windows 10 Technical Preview setup. You will want to click this image to zoom in, to marvel at the power-userness of it all.

This is just the tip of the Windows 10 iceberg. The Technical Preview appears to be missing a lot of features, such as Cortana and the Notifications tray. There are also a lot of new configuration options to play around with — which is what I’m going to do now. I’ll keep this post updated as my exploration of Windows 10 Technical Preview progresses.

For now, you may want to install the Windows 10 Technical Preview yourself, or read ourcomplete list of Windows 10 changes and new features.

Why is it called Windows 10 not Windows 9?

One of the most surprising aspects of yesterday’s Microsoft event was the name of its new operating system: Windows 10. Not Windows 8.2  or Windows 9… but Windows 10. When asked about Windows 10′s name, Windows chief Terry Myerson and Joe Belfiore avoided a direct answer, instead joking about how “seven ate nine” and then lamely saying how the “breadth of the product family” justifies the grandiose name. So, really, why did Microsoft call it Windows 10 instead of Windows 9?

Updated 6:39am October 2: I’ve added two other alternative (conspiracy?) theories on why it might be called Windows 10 rather than Windows 9. I would take these theories with a large pinch of salt — but I’ve included them because they’re just about feasible enough that they might actually be real.

Version numbers, version schmumbers

First of all, it’s important to note that between Windows 3 and Windows 7, versions of Windows were designated by a name rather than a number: 95, 98, NT, Me, 2000, Vista, and so on. When Microsoft announced Windows 7, there was actually a similar amount of disbelief/pushback; after a series of named versions of Windows, it seemed odd to jump back to numbers.

Windows 8.1: Actually version 6.3, build 9600

There’s also the odd fact that the name of each Windows release doesn’t actually match the real version number; for example, Windows 8.1 is actually version 6.3 of Windows. Windows 10 is version 6.4. The last time the release name actually matched the version number was Windows NT 4.0, which was released back in 1996. Windows 2000, which was called NT 5.0 during development, was actually version 5.0. Windows  XP was version 5.1. Windows Vista was 6.0, Windows 7 was 6.1, Windows 8 was 6.2, and Windows 8.1 is version 6.3. (WinRT, which powersMetro, is a new and separate beast, but it still sits on top of the core Windows kernel.)

Technically, modern versions of Windows are still based on the Vista kernel/code base — including Windows 10, which is actually Windows 6.4. There will be some confusion if/when we eventually reach internal version 7.0, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Some alternative theories for skipping Windows 9

After publishing this story, some other possible reasons for Microsoft skipping Windows 9 came to light. I am dubious about both of these alternate theories, but they have just enough truthiness in them that I’ll share them with you.

First, an ExtremeTech reader called Benny emailed me to say that the number 9 is considered unlucky in Japan. Microsoft has a big enough presence in Japan that it may have skipped Windows 9 to avoid any weirdness or ill will. Benny says that Trend Micro — a Japanese company — did the same thing a few years ago when it skipped version 9 of its antivirus software.

Second, someone purporting to be a Microsoft developer posted this comment on Reddit:

As stupid/amazing as this sounds, it is actually quite feasible that there are still a lot of legacy Desktop apps that use this method (or something similar) to check for Windows 95 or 98. Bear in mind that this is just an example piece of code — some developers will check for the OS name (“Windows…”), some will check for the version number (as discussed in the previous section of this story), and some might use other methods entirely to find out what OS the app is running on.

What’s in a name?

Ultimately, Windows 10 is just a name. Windows 9 probably would’ve made more sense — and I think it’s going to cause a lot of grief with novice users who just don’t understandwhat happened to Windows 9 — but Windows 10 isn’t any more right or wrong than calling Vista’s successor Windows 7.

Why Windows 10 wasn’t called Windows One: “It has been done before” (by Bill Gates)

A better question to ask now, though, is: Why did Microsoft call it Windows 10 specifically, and not something else? During the unveil event (video embedded above) Myerson gives us a few clues. Starting at around the 2:10 mark, he says: “We know, based on the product that’s coming, and just how different our approach will be overall, it wouldn’t be right to call it Windows 9.” He then talks about how Windows One would make sense with Xbox One, OneDrive, and OneNote, “but unfortunately Windows 1 has been done by the giants that came before us.” And so it seems the only other viable option was Windows 10.

Read: Windows 10: Familiarity breeds contempt

Microsoft’s seemingly arbitrary choice of Windows 10 is an interesting one. It is clearly a strong version number — and it’s also a neat way of distancing it from Windows 8, which Microsoft really wants to brush under the carpet. In fact, this might even be the same trick that Microsoft used to make us forget about Vista: “With a name like Windows 7, it must be very different from Vista…”

Apple’s OS X has been OS X for 13 years now — and shows no sign of being retired

What about any similarity to Apple’s Mac OS X? Apple did a similar trick: Its operating systems steadily incremented through System 1-7, then switched to Mac OS 8 and 9, and when it got to OS 10 (X) in 2001 it stopped. Given how Windows 10 is meant to be a single platform for just about every form factor, plus the massive weight and importance that Microsoft is lending to this release, I wouldn’t be surprised if it sticks around for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if future versions of Windows — at least for the next few years — are 10, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, etc. I don’t think Microsoft is intentionally aping Apple with Windows 10, but I’m sure the marketing department is aware of both the positive and negative repercussions of wanting to ride on Apple’s coattails.

So, there you have it: Windows 10 is called Windows 10 because Microsoft says so. I personally think just “Windows” or “Windows X” would’ve been better — but I guess the former got voted down, and the latter is impossible due to Apple’s own OS X.

src: extremetech.com