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.

Windows 10 Unveiled - Microsoft Users In The Next Era Of Windows By Skipping 9

Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 at an event in San Francisco today, lifting the lid off the highly anticipated Windows upgrade, though not under its expected name, before a gathered group of journalists and analysts.

Microsoft's Terry Myerson said the new Windows needed to be built from the ground up for a "mobile-first, cloud-first world," the mantra Microsoft has adopted ever since CEO Satya Nadella took over.

To that end, Windows 10 will run on more types of devices than ever before, and Microsoft will bring forth a single application platform, complete with one integrated Store, to deliver Windows experiences across devices.

Myerson called Windows 10 "our most comprehensive platform ever." Windows 10 is scalable across devices big and small, and developers can create across platforms using a "core common code."

You may notice Microsoft jumped straight from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, leapfrogging the expected Windows 9 release. Myerson maintained that when users get their hands on the new OS, they'll see "Windows 10" is more fitting than "Windows 9."

Beginning tomorrow, Microsoft is launching a Windows Insider Program. A preview of Windows 10 is due out next week, and Microsoft expects to ship the OS later in 2015.

Windows 9 ... er 10 ... for enterprise

The event was billed as an enterprise-focused affair, and Myerson wasted no time getting into the business side of things.

According to Microsoft, Windows 10 offers a modern management platform that provides familiar, compatible and productive service.

Enterprises will get a chance to try an early version of Windows 10 before anyone else. The new OS will be able to run all of Microsoft's legacy Windows enterprise apps.

IT managers will be able to create customized internal app stores for employees to access, and managing Windows 10 should be a streamlined breeze as it will be accessible on phones, tablets, PCs and more.

Windows 10 features

By design, Windows 10 has some clear hark-backs to Windows 7.

The company wanted to give users something familiar to work with, a complaint that plagued the jarring Windows 8.

For example, the traditional Windows 7 Snap View works in classic and universal apps on Windows 10.

Microsoft also wanted to make its OS more novice-friendly to help them multitask better on the platform.

A button called "task view" is now present on the task bar, and launching task view will pull up all the apps users have running. Multiple desktops live along the bottom of the screen, and users can jump from desktop to desktop while keeping all their apps running.

A new Snap Assist UI lets users grab apps from various desktops, pulling them onto their screen in one full-screen view. You can have Bing search along the bottom, a Word doc on top, a PowerPoint to the side and your finder open below it.

In a simple fix - one that should have been added long ago - users can now Crtl+V to paste a command prompt.

While lending plenty of time to Windows power users, Microsoft also addressed the touch-first crowd it tried to attract with Windows 8. The Charms bar isn't going away in Windows 10, though Joe Belfiore said he expects it to change over time.

Swiping to the left on a touch-enabled Windows 10 device will pull up task view, complete with larger buttons for a more finger-friendly experience. Swiping to the right pulls up the settings menu.

A new design feature called Continuum lets the Windows 10 UI change depending on what device someone is using. Clicking away on a mouse and keyboard? Windows 10 will show in classic desktop mode. Jump to a tablet or a 2-in-1, and you're in tablet mode.The idea behind Continuum seems to be a consistent yet device-optimized design to give users the best Windows 10 experience, no matter.

Myerson said there will be more to share on the consumer side of Windows 10 early next year, and the Build 2015 conference will feature talk on Universal apps.

src:in.techradar.com