win 10 preview

Important Read this:
Before you install Windows Technical Preview - Microsoft Windows

Also read the post by ThrashZone above.

The preview will expire on April 15 2015. To continue using Windows 10 past that point will likely require a clean install of the release version of the OS, when it becomes available.

The preview is relatively stable - for a pre release version of an OS. In other words it will have bugs, some of them possibly serious. Updates are with Windows Automatic Update which cannot be turned off.

Petey7 said:

.....
If the attempt to boot from USB is failing, even using the Win 7 to USB/DVD program, it may be that your flash drive simply isn't capable of being booted from.
.....

You CANNOT use the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool to create USB UEFI install media!

That utility formats the USB with NTFS ... for some reason UEFI requres FAT32.

A DVD doesn't have any problem though - it's filesystem format is UDF.

Better to fololw the instructions given and use Rufus or another utiltiy.

Other than that your suggestions are good.

jamos316 could try another thumb drive, another port, or DVD install media.

can you tell me how i can backup my system image if i havent got a usb hard drive?

Slartybart said:

+edit

Thrashzone makes a very good point
Backup your system.

If you proceed with installing Win10 PREVIEW without backing up your system - you do so at your own risk

At the very least copy your personal data to a safe location

-edit
Did you shrink the volume to free up space?
Please post a screen shot of your Disk Mgmnt.
Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

Windows 10 is very light - about 10 GB on my machine
You could shrink C: by 15 (15362) or 20 GB (20482) and still have room for progams and data
You mentioned games, (they're big) - you might want to shrink C: by 40 GB (40962)

Remember, this is a preview version of Windows - treat it as a test environment to see if your there are windows 10 specific issues with the games you play. If they paly in Win8, there probably won't be any issue in Windows 10.

The error on the boot to USB sounds as though the USB was not created properly.
Try creating the media again - pay attention to the Secure Boot & UEFI information

*** It might be better to create a disc - UEFI media on a USB has a caveat that everyone misses
- the USB must be formatted FAT32!

Once you have free disk space and good install media, things will go well.
Read the entire tutorial and ask any questions first.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...ndows-8-a.html

To answer your question about time limits:

Technical Preview expires on April 15, 2015
If you’re running Technical Preview, we'll send you notifications beginning on April 1, 2015 to remind you that it’s time to upgrade your PC to a newer version.

just tried with rufus. selecting fat32 over ntfs

Slartybart said:

You CANNOT use the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool to create USB UEFI install media!

That utility formats the USB with NTFS ... for some reason UEFI requres FAT32.

A DVD doesn't have any problem though - it's filesystem format is UDF.

Better to fololw the instructions given and use Rufus or another utiltiy.

Other than that your suggestions are good.

jamos316 could try another thumb drive, another port, or DVD install media.

Sure, but it requires some disk schema changes

There's plenty of room on C: but shrink can't get it all

First turn off hibernation:

1.Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2.In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3.When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
4.At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press Enter.
5.Type exit, and then press Enter to close the Command Prompt window.

defrag your c: drive

Then Shrink C: again to get somewhere to put your backup

I'll stop here and wait for the results of those steps.

Hi,
Without a separate hard drive to put a system image on I would use Virtual machine with vmplayer instead of dual boot,
VMware Player - Install Windows 8

ok but im confused. if when using win 10 preview it does go down coming up with the BSOD or something there is a risk of it wiping your hard drive, is it not? With that said this is the reason we need to back up but there really is no point if im backing up and leaving the backup files on my hard drive as they too are in danger of getting wiped. am i right?

i have already made a backup of important stuff (documents...) moving them to my dropbox account

Slartybart said:

Sure, but it requires some disk schema changes

There's plenty of room on C: but shrink can't get it all

First turn off hibernation:

1.Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2.In the search results list, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator.
3.When you are prompted by User Account Control, click Continue.
4.At the command prompt, type powercfg.exe /hibernate off, and then press Enter.
5.Type exit, and then press Enter to close the Command Prompt window.

defrag your c: drive

Then Shrink C: again to get somewhere to put your backup

I'll stop here and wait for the results of those steps.

jamos316 said:

just tried with rufus. selecting fat32 over ntfs

My fault, I should have been more specific.

To make this really easy: create DVD install media.