How to create a Windows 8 bootable USB drive or bootable DVD

With Windows 8 Developer Preview out into the wild, many of you may choose to install it using a virtual machine (vm), which would be recommended because this is a preview, not a finished product; others may want to use a spare computer to test this new OS, for this last option you either want to create a bootable USB drive or bootable DVD.

In this short how-to article, you are going to learn the steps necessary to create a Windows 8 bootable USB drive or bootable DVD — which is not complicated:

First, if you haven’t done it yet, you’ll need to download a copy of Windows 8 Developer Preview that will be in an ISO image file format. Then head to the Microsoft Store page and download the USB/DVD Download Tool, which is a little application that is capable of putting the ISO image onto a bootable USB drive for installation.

After the tool is installed and opened, all you have to do is to choose the ISO, choose the USB or DVD drive, click Begin Copy and wait until the process is finished.

There you go! Now you have a portable installation of Windows 8 Developer Preview that you can use and erase at any time — if you have chosen the USB drive, of course.

Useful Links

• Download Windows 8 Developer Preview 32 or 64-bit
• Learn how to create a virtual machine in VMware to install Windows 8
• Get full coverage of Windows 8: Videos, How-to’s, News and more