Installing Windows 8

**royw** · 2012-06-10 11:14

I created a new partition to install Win 8 Release Preview, and downloaded it, having first made sure all my drive backups were up to date

When the download finished there was an option to install now or install later “from the desktop”. I chose to install later and found that a new folder called ESD had been created on the C drive, and a new folder called Websetup appeared in my C:\Users\Roy\AppData\Local\Microsoft folder. I want to make sure Win 8 is installed in the new partition, so I moved the ESD folder to the new partition, and created a folder for Users\Roy\AppData\Local\Microsoft in the new partition, and moved the Websetup folder to that. I assume that is OK and that I can install Win 8 from the new partition, but would appreciate fellow loungers comments before I proceed.

Thanks and regards, Roy

**Medico** · 2012-06-10 12:22

Roy, Download the ISO file and Save To your HD, does not matter where. The default location is the Downloads folder. Burn the whole ISO file to DVD! Very Important to get the best install where you want it. Once you have the DVD burned (right click the ISO file and choose Burn Disk Image) reboot to the DVD. During the initial steps you will need to enter the key that was on the download site, then choose Custom (Clean) Install. You can then point to the correct partition.

Installing from the setup file you have will install over your present OS, something you definitely do not want to do.

**royw** · 2012-06-10 19:02

Ted,thanks a lot.I deleted the folders I had moved to the new partition,then followed your instructions and successfully installed the Win 8 Release Preview.

It's going to be quite a learning curve! Two immediate problems. Firstly,I could not set up a mail account. In Win 7 I use the latest version of WLM.Secondly, in Win 7 the drive letters and drive contents are as they were before installing the Win 8 RP. However, in Win 8 RP the drive letters have been changed.

If you can tell me how I can set up WLM in Win 8 RP,and also sort out the drive letters in that OS I would be very grateful.

Best regards, Roy

**Medico** · 2012-06-10 19:32

I just downloaded WLE and installed the portions of the suite I wanted (WLM and Photo Gallery) Read the many posts in this forum on tips and tricks to setting up and using Win 8 RP. There are many ways to customize this OS to work the way you want. It does seem intimidating at first but easy to use once you find your way around.

In my setup, when I boot to Win 8 RP it takes over as C Drive with Win 7 becoming the D Drive and the data drive as E Drive. When I'm in Win 7 it is C Drive and Win 8 RP is the D Drive.

**royw** · 2012-06-11 16:00

Ted,thanks again.

I am still confused about the changes to drive letters.

On my machine:

Win 7 C drive is D in Win 8

Win 7 D drive is F in Win 8

Win 7 F drive is E in Win 8

Win 7 G drive is H in Win 8

Win 7 H drive is G in Win 8

Win 7 I drive is C in Win 8

Win 7 Z drive is I in Win 8

The installers for all my programs are on drive D in Win 7, so they are on drive F in Win 8. I assume I can install programs from drive F in Win 8, and that I should install them to drive C in Win 8. Do you agree this makes sense?

Apart from the above, where is Network and sharing centre in Win 8, and where do I find the shutdown/restart buttons?

One further thing, not directly related to Win 8 but which is making it difficult for me to see what I'm typing here,is that the font size on this and other sites has become much smaller. I don't know what caused this,but if you can tell me how to increase the font size I would be grateful.

Thanks in anticipation of further help.

Regards,Roy

**Medico** · 2012-06-11 16:10

To quickly increase the Font, either Ctrl + (+) to decrease Ctrl + (-), or simply Ctrl + change mouse wheel to increase/decrease.

Win 8 assigns drive letters in the order they appear to the OS. Win 8 will be assigned Drive C when you are booted to Win 8 (The active OS is always assigned Drive C by Windows) In this instance Win 7 should then be Drive D, My data Drive is then Drive E, DVD drive is Drive F, USB ports and SD Drive are assigned if something is plugged in to them.

If I am booted to Win 7, then Win 7 (C Drive), Data Drive (E Drive), Win 8 RP (D Drive), etc.

Let me list this differently to allow easier understanding:

BootedWin8RP.jpg bootWIn 7.jpg

I suspect the differences are related to the fact that my Data Drive was set as D Drive long before Win 8 RP was installed.

**royw** · 2012-06-11 16:58

Ted, thanks again.

Could you please also tell me:

1.Where is Network and Sharing Centre in Win 8, and where do I find the regedit and shutdown/restart buttons?

2.Does Classic Shell work in Win 8?

3.If I install Windows Live Mail in Win 8 will I receive new messages in Win 7 and Win 8 while using Win 8, i.e. if I get new messages in Win 8 and then reboot to Win 7 will I get those new messages in Win 7?

4.I make regular images of all my drives with Macrium Reflect in Win 7. Should I do the same in Win 8, or will that cause problems?

Again,thanks in anticipation of your further help.

Best regards,Roy

**Medico** · 2012-06-11 17:55

Control Panel, Network and Sharing Center

Classic Shell - yes, I use it.

You can actually install WLM in Win 8 RP then change the location of the WLM folder to the Win 7 location: WLM, Options, Advanced, Maintenance, Store Folder, point this toward your Win 7 WLM location.

WLMLocation.jpg

I Image both Win 7 and Win 8 RP with Acronis. I choose both OS's and each Image file includes both OS's. To restore they have to be restored separately.

**DrWho** · 2012-06-14 10:21

The whole world, of BETA TESTING Win-8/RP gets much easier if you just install it on its own drive.

Hard to do on a laptop, but pretty darn easy on a desktop PC.

I run XP as my main OS, with Win-8/RP/32 on a separate drive and Win-8/RP/64 on a third drive.
I just plug in the power to the one I want to use at any moment.
I just leave the data lines connected to the motherboard.
Then there is NO question about drive letters or one OS messing around with another OS.

Most of us have used the desktop shortcuts, to make our own Shutdown and/or Reboot desktop shortcut icons.
Using the Win-8 shutdown method is like running a rat maze.

I can't believe, they actually made it so difficult, to just shut down the PC.

I'll bet there will be a lot of people using the Power Button on their PC, to shut down from Win-8.

Here's the shutdown shortcut for XP:
%windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s -t 00 -f

But, for Win-8 it needs a little edit, to:
%windir%\System32\shutdown.exe /s /t 00

To turn this shortcut into a "Reboot" shortcut,
just change the /s to a /r

Most of us, who work primarily from the Desktop, in Win-8/RP, are already using these shortcuts.

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor

PS: The old Classic shell that was written for the older OS's (XP, Vista & Win-7) does NOT work with Win-8, but....
the New and Improved version does.

**royw** · 2012-06-14 14:51

Where do I find regedit in the Win 8 RP? Also, when I open Network and Sharing Centre there is no Network Map link. Where do I find that?

**Medico** · 2012-06-14 15:33

Win + X, will open the power users menu. Run is there, open Run box and type regedit.

or

Go to Metro and type regedit anywhere. It will open the regedit app.

To Map a Network open Windows Explorer

Win + E, see Map Network in ribbon.

MapNetwork.jpg

**royw** · 2012-06-15 17:48

Hi Ted,

I installed Windows Live Mail in Win 8 RP and set the location of the WLM message store to the Win 7 location, but when I restarted in Win 7 I found that my storage folders then contained 2 copies of every message, one copy of each opened but for the other copy I got an "Error opening this message" (or words to that effect) notification. Also,when I tried to delete the messages that wouldn't open I got an "Error deleting this message" notification.I then opened my Macrium backup of WLM and after deleting storage folders from WLM in Win 7 one by one, first copying their names, I then had to recreate the folders in Win 7 and copy and paste messages from the backup to the newly created folders.

I have 175 storage folders and sorting the mess out took hours.

The Macrium backup was not completely up to date, but the only missing messages were inbox messages, and I was able to drag and drop those from the Win 8 WLM inbox.

I have 2 remaining problems with WLM in Win 7:

1.There are a couple of storage folders with messages that I can't open, and I can't delete the folders. What I have done about those is to create folders with the same name plus the suffix (2) and drag and drop messages from the Macrium backup into those "suffixed" folders.

2. Every time I start WLM in Win 7 now a "Recovering the WLM database" message pops up.

As to WLM in Win 8, I imported messages in WLM format from the Win 7 location, at least that is what I configured WLM to do, but the only inbox messages imported were very recent ones, and the only storage folders imported were the deleted, drafts and sent folders.

Ted, although I followed your suggestion about installing WLM in Win 8 I am not blaming you for the mess that arose as a result. Apart from anything else you have helped me several times with other problems. Having said that, what would you suggest I do now? I have in mind uninstalling WLM from Win 8, after taking a backup of the WLM Win 7 message store, and seeing what difference, if any, that makes to the storage folders in Win 7.

I would appreciate your further comments.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

**Medico** · 2012-06-15 19:00

That was a problem I encountered as well after I mentioned this to you. I do not have all the storage folders. I just do not save my emails. I only had a dozen or so to take care of. I had to go through mine and reset all my folders from the storage area.

Bottom line for WLM you can only start from one OS or the other. Otherwise, for some reason it will do exactly as you describe. Yes it is a mess to straighten up.

What I did was created a Windows Live MailBU folder. If this happens again I can delete the WLM folder and rename the WLMBU folder and it takes over. Then periodically I go through the routine of deleting the BU folder and recreating a new one so that the BU is Up To Date.

You really have to choose which OS to check your mail from and stick with just that one. In your case, perhaps you could open your Image using 7Zip or some such and copy the WLM folder into which ever OS you plan on using. Delete the WLM folder in that OS and place the WLM folder you copy from your image in place of it. You might loose a few emails, but perhaps they will remain on the server.

**royw** · 2012-06-16 15:44

Hello Ted, I decided to keep WLM on Win 7. I uninstalled WLE from Win 8 and then used the following procedure to sort out WLM in Win 7:

1.I set WLM to offline.

2.I made an up to date image of my C drive with Macrium Reflect.

3.I cut and pasted the complete WLM folder (C:\Users\Roy\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WLM) to a different internal drive,and then edited that folder to leave just the folders associated with my mail account(Inbox,Drafts,Sent,Junk and Deleted), and the storage folders I wanted.

4.I uninstalled Windows Live Essentials (I only had WLM and WLPG installed) with the Pro version of Revo Uninstaller.

5.I deleted remnants of Windows Live Essentials manually.

6.I then used regedit to delete any remaining entries for Windows Live. (Regedit missed entries for WLM, but I found and deleted them).

7.I did a final search for Windows Live with the "Everything" search program.

8.I restarted my computer, having ignored the earlier prompt from the WLE uninstaller to do so.

9.To double check I repeated steps 5,6 and 7. (Just as well, because some items that I previously deleted had resurfaced).

10.I reinstalled the latest version of WLE (WLM and WLPG) 2011.

11.I then created my mail account in WLM.

12.I recreated the storage folders I wanted in WLM, copying folder names from the folders referred to in step 3, then dragged and dropped the inbox and storage folder messages (from the folders referred to in step 3) to the relevant folders in WLM. (Why do Microsoft make life so complicated, i.e. why can't users drag and drop folders)!

13.I then made a new image of my C drive.

N.B. I restricted all folder names to 15 characters, including spaces, to follow Microsoft's arbitrary rules.

A lot of work, but it was worth it to me. The store folder is now in perfect order.

I hope others will find this detailed explanation helpful, although I appreciate not everyone would want to go to these lengths.

Best regards,
Roy

**Medico** · 2012-06-16 18:51

I am sorry about that. I am unsure why WLM acts like this. All my other data folders act appropriately when stored on my Data Partition and accessed from either OS. It is probably a good idea to only access your WLM, and financial acct's etc. from Win 7. After all Win 8 RP is still in beta and is really for testing purposes only. If I have a problem with my Win 8 RP, I will simply restore from the latest Image.

One thing I do when I create an Image, I include both Win 7 and Win 8 RP in the Image. This way I can restore either or both Images, although they are restored one OS at a time.

I would also create a BackUp of the Store Folder. All I did was make a copy of the folder on my desktop, Rename it as WindowsLiveMailBU, then put it back into the same folder as the live Store Folder. Then every once in a while, I recreate this BU to keep it close to up to date as well. The you can simply delete the Store Folder and rename this folder eliminating the BU. WLM will then automatically use this folder and all your Mail folders will be back to where you wish them to be. I hope this is clear.

StoreFolder.jpg

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