Chapter 2
Installing and Upgrading to Windows 8
In This Chapter
- Understanding the different options for installing and upgrading to Windows 8
- Understanding how the web-based installer works
- Using new Windows Setup features
- Choosing a sign-in type
- Employing post-setup tasks for a complete install
- Looking at advanced Windows 8 configurations
- Using a dual-boot configuration
- Installing Windows 8 on a Mac
With previous Windows versions, Microsoft offered a fairly static set of capabilities by which one could install the OS onto a new or existing computer. These capabilities were based on the same underlying functionality but were designed to serve three basic audiences: end users, businesses, and PC makers, and not necessarily in that order. As such, the process was pretty technical for the typical user, which wasn’t much of a problem because very few users actually installed Windows this way anyway. Most acquired Windows with a new PC purchase or, perhaps, through a work-based PC.
With Windows 7, however, those usage patterns changed somewhat. For the first time, a significant percentage of Windows users upgraded existing PCs running a previous version of Windows to Windows 7, and to do so they typically purchased a retailed, boxed copy of the new OS, in Upgrade form, and then performed the upgrade manually.
The reason for this sudden change is obvious: With Windows 7, for the first time, a new version of Windows actually had system requirements that matched, not exceeded, those ...
