How to Install Windows 10 Technical Preview on Oracle VirtualBox Virtual Machine

I'm enjoy learning a new thing everyday. To learn more about Windows 10, I'm using Oracle VirtualBox Virtual Machine to install. Since VirtualBox 4.3.16 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (VirtualBox Guest Addition) not work with Windows 10 yet, I cannot see a full screen and using a shared folder. Hope the next version of VirtualBox will work well with Windows 10

My New Toy

My new toy is a 13-inch MacBook Pro. It took me a lot of time to think over which Mac (Mac Mini, MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, or 15-inch MacBook Pro) would be my next working computer. I needed a new computer with a bigger hard drive, longer battery life, and support Intel Virtual Technology. I also needed to familiarize myself with Mac OS X as more people are using Mac OS and iOS. I would have preferred a 15-inch MacBook Pro but I did not want to overspend on a Mac product. Yes, Apple products are high quality but they are too expensive.

My first impression with my MacBook Pro: I can utilize second band 5GHz wireless network (801.11a / 801.11n). Next, it just had only one or two updates, which took a few minutes to install after I initialized the new computer. My Dell Windows 7 took an hour to update. After a system update, I installed Adobe Flash, Java Development Kit SE, LibreOffice, Android SDK, and Eclipse IDE, and Virtual Box. Last, after learning how to use the Multi-Touch track pad, I really like it.

How about the boot time? It is fast but it still cannot beat Ubuntu 11.10 running on a slower CPU, Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2.3GHz.

Linux turned 20 on Aug. 25

The first Linux distro I played around was Red Hat Linux 5.2 in 1999.

After that, I backed to Windows for both professional development and personal desktop application usage. Before that I developed a FoxBase+ application on SCO/Unix in 1990 for a year. I tried again with another distro in 2002, I guessed. Still not a right time, back to Windows. Today, I'm using Ubuntu Linux on daily basic. I'm still using Microsoft Windows for software development (ASP 3.0, ASP.NET, C#, Microsoft SQL 2008, IIS 7, TFS) at work. Anything else, Linux. Android development: Linux. Web develop using PHP, Python, MySQL: Linux. Desktop word processing: Linux. Web browsing: Linux. Listen to music on computer: Linux.

64-bit Operating System

I'm not pay much attention to 64-bit operating system until few months ago. At that time, I needed to evaluate  Windows Server 2008 R2 Operating System and tested our applications in that 64-bit operating system.

After I downloaded a trial copy from Microsoft site, I could not install it as a VirtualBox virtual machine on my 32-bit Ubuntu 10.10 desktop. So, backed up my stuff before installed 64-bit Ubuntu 11.04 beta on my laptop to host 64-bit guest operating system. It still not work. I did some research on the internet, someone said need to enable virtualization in BIOS. My BIOS did not have it. According to the specification from Intel web site, my CPU did not have Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT). Too bad. I could not install 64-bit guest operating system on my current 64-bit PC.

Let not quit yet. Try VMWare Player. Same problem. I could not install Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit  as a guest virtual machine.

This experience taught me a lesson: Your next PC should have virtualization technology. As I mentioned in my blog last month, my next PC will be a Mac. 15-inch MacBook Pro using quad-core Intel Core i7 processor. This CPU supports Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT) along with many advanced technologies.

While waiting to acquire a new PC, I loaded Windows Server 2008 Standard (32-bit) on my 64-bit PC running 64-bit Linux Operating System to evaluation and test our applications. Below is the picture of my desktop:

Two virtual machines: Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Standard run on Ubuntu 11.04 desktop.