Fun and games with Win 8.1 pro, VirtualBox and HyperV

Just having bought a new machine that came pre-loaded with Windows 8.1pro I have been spending time getting to grips with Redmonds latest. Metro aside, one of the only major issues was running Virtualbox which turned into a saga that went something like this:

1. Installed VirtualBox 4.3.14
2. Installed ok, virtual machine crashed on startup with some Vbox error
3. Web search ... found a single post on a forum that this was a known 8.1 issue with 4.3.14 and to use 4.3.12 instead.
4. Downgraded to 4.3.12 which installed ok, however, vt-x extensions not detected (only single CPU VM's! and bad performance)
5. Web search ... found a forum posting that explained how Virtualbox behaved like this when Hyper-V is installed, recommended action uninstall Hyper-V
6. Clicked over to windows components ... Hyper V not installed!
7. ...
8. ...
9. The next day a new strategy crystallised ...
10. Installed Hyper-V via system components
11. Rebooted a few times to be sure
12. Uninstalled Hyper-V and rebooted a few times
13. Installed VirtualBox 4.3.12 and voila ... vt-x is now available
14. !!!!!

Conclusion. For some or other reason Win 8.1 pro only enabled support for vt-x after installing Hyper-V even though it was enabled in the BIOS. The next chapter in this saga will be to compare VirtualBox and HyperV.

And now for a real keyboard ...

My old keyboard died and its (long pondered over) replacement arrived today a "Zowie Celeritas" that makes use of mechanical Cherry MX Brown switches. So far so good, it has an awesome feel for typing - once you realize you don't have to push the key all the way down :-)

Other than a small compatibility issue with VirtualBox's USB ghosting I'm sold on mechanical switches. The only problem is that that at work I have a (comparatively) spongy, sticky rubber dome keyboard that is on its way to be replaced ... :-)

Update: a while ago I couldn't take the generic work keyboard anymore and bought a Das Professional model S (silent) also using Cherry MX Browns. This is another amazing keyboard, no more finger strain and I can now create typo's and other gibberish at high speed. I would say the Das is probably my preferred keyboard for typing with the Zowie good for more general use (e.g. Starcraft)