How to Install Windows Blue
By Dave Taylor
The Question: I’ve been running Windows 8 and it’s okay, but I hear that Windows 8.1 is now available in a “preview” version and that there are a bunch of updates and new apps. Excellent. Before I jump in, however, I’m afraid of messing up my PC. Can you show me step-by-step how to install the Win8.1 upgrade?
Dave’s Answer:
Glad to help out as I too was very curious about what was released in “Windows 8 Blue” (the original code name, now just known as Windows 8.1). While there’s a way to do the update within the Windows 8 Store application, I found it to be pretty sketch and frustrating — it would complain that I’d already downloaded the update launcher, but then wouldn’t let me launch the update — so I’ll show you the slightly more complex but far more reliable way to upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 Preview edition by downloading the ISO disk image.
For the interim storage unit, I reformatted one of my Kingston USB flash drives in “NTFS” format (a requirement when you’re working with really big files), which you can see documented here if you don’t know how to do that: reformat usb flash drive into ntfs.
The other issue here is that you’ll not only need a flash drive or external drive to proceed, but you’ll need at least 6GB of free space on your computer drive and a decent Internet connection because you’ll be downloading an ISO disk image that’s over 3GB in size. Try that at the local café and you might be sitting there for hours, drinking coffee and trying to avoid making eye contact with the other people there who are wondering why the Internet’s running so slowly. 🙂
But let’s get to it.
This post is excerpted with permission from Dave Taylor.
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