Parallels kindly offers a two-week trial period after that the software costs $80 for a license. It’s possible to use a USB disk image, but that also requires an existing Windows install as well as Microsoft’s USB/DVD download tool.įirst download and install Parallels from that company’s website.

Click on the disk image and burn it to a blank disk. Once you’ve downloaded the disk image, open Disk Utility on a Mac with an optical drive and mount the image in the sidebar.

You’re the one who wanted to use Windows, remember? Don’t shoot the messenger. Apple’s dual boot manager hasn’t been updated yet to recognize Microsoft’s latest operating system. When it’s time to install the Windows 8 Preview Release in Boot Camp, make like you’re installing Windows 7. Remember to make note of the activation code. Since we’ve already determined that you’re using a recent Mac, you’ll want the 64-bit release.

So, assuming you have a relatively recent Mac, the first thing you’ll need to install Windows 8 Preview Release via Boot Camp is, not surprisingly, a copy of Windows 8 Preview Release, which Microsoft is providing for download at the cost of only a valid email address and your immortal soul. It is possible to extract the install into a new disk image with a normal boot sector, but it’s complicated, and you’d need an existing Windows install to attempt it. I was actually able to install an earlier preview release on a 2006 Core Solo Mac mini, but not the latest release, which is unfortunate. You might want to run Windows on an older machine, as Windows 8 actually has much less stringent hardware requirements than Mac OS X Lion, but the problem is that only Macs since about 2008 have firmware that can boot from disks with the modified boot sectors Microsoft started using in Vista.

Parallels desktop for mac 10.9.5