Windows 8: Migrating from 32-bit to 64-bit through clean install

Background

Last week, while working on my MBP (mid-2010, 15 inch, OS X 10.8.3) I found out that Apple has updated Boot Camp to support windows 8 officially. I already had Windows 8 (Upgrade version) installed on my machine through older version of Boot Camp and it was working fine with Windows 7 drivers. I installed it through bootcamp by installing Vista through DVD and then running Windows 8 setup from there.

Anyhow, I gleefully downloaded the new bootcamp support software to a USB drive, booted up Windows 8 and tried to run the setup. To my disappointment, I got an error message indicating that the setup can’t be run. Annoyed, I researched a bit to found out that the new drivers (downloaded through bootcamp) only support the 64-bit version of Windows 7 and 8. And I had 32-bit version! So it turned out, the Windows Upgrade Assistant checks your host system for the architecture (64 or x86) and then downloads the appropriate ISO accordingly. Doing further research almost drowned my hopes as there were numerous posts suggesting that migrating to 64bit version isn’t viable and in order to do so, one has to get the installation DVD from microsoft or any other supplier and that the upgrade version can’t do this. After reading some comments pointing to the actual solution, I decided to give it a go and today I successfully managed to install Windows 8 x64 on my MBP using bootcamp, and that too from scratch (after formatting my existing bootcamp partition).

The Process

1. Grab a machine running the eligible-to-upgrade 64-bit version of Windows (I used a 64 bit Windows 7 VM for that purpose). You’ll use this machine to run the upgrade assistant and to download the ISO.
2. Search for the email that you must have received after purchasing the upgrade (through the Upgrade Assistant).
3. Look for this phrase: This is your receipt – make sure that you print or save a copy for your records. If you need to download Windows, write down your new product key and enter it here.
4. Click on the link to download the upgrade assistant. Make sure to use the 64-bit Windows machine to do this.
5. Run the upgrade assistant and follow the steps to download the ISO, there are various tutorials and walkthrough over the internet so I am skipping this part.
6. After the ISO has been downloaded, you’ll have to burn it either on a usb or on a DVD. I used a DVD since my MBP doesn’t support installing Windows through bootable USB.
7. Download Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. And use this to burn it on your preferred medium (USB or DVD). Here you go, you have the 64-bit Windows 8 installation medium now.
8. If you want to install it on a Mac then use Boot Camp to create a new partition and then install the OS normally.
9. If you own a PC, use this DVD/USB to boot up the system and upgrade/clean install your existing version of Windows.

Now here’s the important part. You CAN install Windows 8 on a formatted partition through this installation USB/DVD. I had NO problems in doing so and I DID try this method on BOTH PC and Mac. The upgrade version DOES NOT check for existing installation unlike a common misconception you’ll find throughout the internet. Both of my Windows 8 x64 installations are shown as fully activated and behaving normally. Some people do report that they encountered some issues while activating their windows after using the Upgrade version to fresh-install their OS. You can go to this link if you face that problem.

Here it is. Share your experience of upgrading to 64-bit or any other installation tweaks or guides that are helpful for others in need

Digital Sketching: See You On Tumblr

I’ll be uploading all my sketching/artistic stuff only on Tumblr from now onwards. Here’s the link: http://aubykhan.tumblr.com. See you there!

Digital Sketching: F-16

My first ever take on a fighter plane. F-16 is a real beauty and my personal favorite. Had to research a bit before creating this scene. Done in GIMP using pencil, brush, spray paint and smudge tools. Took around 90 mins to finish this off.

 

Digital Sketching: Staring at the Moon

An inspiration from http://i40.tinypic.com/qyiank.jpg.

 

Digital Sketching: Untitled

Another one using tablet and GIMP. Took around 90 mins. Again a half baked idea but I think I am loving the tablet experience .

Digital Sketching: The Beginning

Finally got my hands on a tablet! And here’s the first one using that (BAMBOO PEN CTL 460). Again used GIMP, took around 1 hour to complete.

 

Digital Sketching: In the Woods

Here’s another one which I just wrapped up. Took almost 90 mins to make. No straight lines and curves. Used brush, smudging and a bit of spray paint tool. No tablets yet so all mouse work once again. Done in GIMP. I didn’t have clear idea how it would look like in the end, just started with a very vague one and ended up like this. There are no leaves on trees which indicates my lack of finishing touches with trees right now so I didn’t draw them at all.

 

Picking up the brush again!

I have been thinking hard to getting back to my old habit of drawing and sketching stuff. After watching a couple of videos showing how the artists use modern tools to sketch such masterpieces, I got motivated enough to getting back to it, again! Here’s what I came up with just some moments back. I know it looks pathetic, but people do post their hello world thing quite so often . So here’s it, created in GIMP using brush tool, smudging and a bit of cloud filter in the background (don’t have a tablet so I used my mouse to draw this ).

 

Metro UI–It’s Youtube now!

While watching some videos on youtube, I noticed a change! Yes, after Android Market following the Microsoft’s Metro UI, it’s now our favorite Youtube that’s following up on the tile based UI that MS introduced with their WP7 release. Now that we’ll going to see Metro UI in Windows 8 (Tablets and PCs) and in Xbox 360, I expect that others will follow the same trend soon.

 

 

Heads up to Microsoft for the introducing a simplistic, fast and neat UI for modern devices.

Android App and Game Development– Using Custom Fonts

Text is one of the most important part of any application or game regardless of the platform it is running on. Without good fonts your overall design doesn’t finish up looking neat.

I was recently making and designing a small fun app for Android (find it here) and I opted to use paper/pencil sort of design for it. I happily designed some backgrounds with paper textures (in GIMP) but eventually I faced a bad situation since Android doesn’t have a font (natively available) that gives a sketchy/handwriting type of look to the text. Without the fonts I liked the app to have, the overall feel of the application would be ruined. I was using libgdx for the main part but one of the screens was build with Android views and layouts. Libgdx does support custom fonts and integrating it was smooth. The problem aroused when I tried to use the same font for the views I was using in the other activity. After a lot of experimenting and surfing on the internet, I got it to work!

So, here’s what you need to do in order to use custom fonts in your apps. Before beginning, let me make this clear that font files are incorporated in your app’s apk. This means that the more larger the font file (.ttf) is the larger your apk will become.

• First step – Choose a font! Remember, the font should not be large enough that results in drastically increasing the apk size.
• Then, you need to copy its TTF file into the assets folder of your app/game. You can directly put it into this folder or you can also keep a separate folder inside the assets for fonts.
• Declare a Typeface instance either globally or inside the function in which you’ll assign this to your controls.
• Next, initialize this variable by calling Typeface.createFromAsset function like below:

• I made a fonts folder inside the assets folder and the same was specified in the function argument. I found people using and suggesting createFromFile function instead of createFromAsset but that simply didn’t work out for me. So this is what I will recommend to my readers.
• Now that you have the Typeface initialized, you can simply assign it to any view that has something to do with fonts or text (EditText, TextView etc). You need to use setTypeface function of the view in order to assign the typeface to that view.

And that’s it! Do get back to me with your queries or if you have other method of achieving this objective in Android apps/games.