[ZombieXboxBlog]

As much as I like Windows 10, as an Xbox gamer with a thing for achievements, the Win 10 games that you have to upgrade to from Win 8 - e.g. Age of Empires: Castle Siege, Solitaire and Bingo - mean that if I trade-in my RT for a Pro 4 then I'll lose access to them and won't be able to get any more achievements. I'm sure you agree this is a serious issue.

Anyway, I wondered about buying a simple 8" Win 8.1 device to have around anyway and use that to chip away at the games, but I also wondered if it would be possible to run Windows 8 on a virtual machine in Windows 10, and access the games that way.

I'm not really sure how to go about such a thing or what sort of specs you'd need to be able to do such a thing.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[xandros9]

of course you can run 8 in a VM!

You can use VirtualBox, VMware Player - I personally recommend the latter.

You'll need something reasonably powerful enough to run Windows twice without too much pain. I'd say 4 GB RAM, not cheapo processor and Enough GB of space to store another Windows install (several GB) absolute minimum.

[ZombieXboxBlog]

Nice one, cheers! Which version of VMware Player would you recommend? Got 8GB RAM so hopefully that should be enough...

[xandros9]

Nice one, cheers! Which version of VMware Player would you recommend? Got 8GB RAM so hopefully that should be enough...

The free one.

4 GB would be a workable squeeze, but 8 should be enough breathing room unless you have some heavy things going on at the same time.

[ZombieXboxBlog]

Thanks. Got VirtualBox up and running and got a Windows 8 ISO but of course I need a product key. Dug out my old one but it's invalid as obviously I redeemed it at the time. Oh well...

[midnightfrolic]

I believe Windows 10 has VM support built-in. Here's some useful links.

Windows 10 now does Windows within Windows within Windows

Windows Insider Preview: Nested Virtualization - Windows Virtualization Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

For WinXP, but same principle
How to add an XP Mode Virtual Machine to Windows 10 (or 8) using Hyper-V

[Rasetech]

Windows 10 has the same built in VM as Windows 8 already had: Hyper-V

[travis_valkyrie]

Either you guys are not reading this correct or I'm totally wrong, but OP said if the Surface RT was traded in for a Pro 4, so assuming OP's still on Windows RT 8.1 on a Surface RT playing those games, then OP wouldn't need a VM in the first place as those games can be downloaded and played on Windows 10 anyway? Like natively?



So I don't really see the point of needing a VM here when you can pretty much download any modern app on Windows 10.

But answering the question and not the problem, then yes, it is possible to run Windows 8 on Windows 10 via VM.

[ZombieXboxBlog]

Hey, yes I'm not sure if you're aware but a number of games have been 'updated' to Windows 10 versions, so Age of Empires: Castle Siege, Bingo and Solitaire are all 'Windows 10' versions, with new achievements and so on. So if I get rid of my RT I won't have access to Windows 8 and therefore would need it to be able to finish off or continue to access those games. Being able to do so in a Virtual Machine would eliminate the need to get, say, a cheap 8" Windows tablet.

Had a long conversation with Microsoft tech last night, who were really helpful in fairness (though I'm not 100% confident they understood exactly what I was on about). They reckoned you shouldn't need a Product Key installing on a Virtual Machine and that my old Product Key should work in any case. They asked me to install Windows 8.1 but it still needed the key and wouldn't work so I've re-flagged it with them, so we'll see what they say. I'm a bit stumped. They offered to upgrade the key to Windows 10, which is when I wondered if they knew what I was after all along...!