Developing and testing your website in every environment ensures a consistent experience across all devices. If you’re like me, my main machine is a Mac. But I know that Windows users are an extremely important demographic for most of my websites. Browser differences are commonplace and need to be dealt with. Today, let’s look at how we can set up a virtualized Window 10 environment on your Mac for free. This article is a continuation in a series of posts dedicated to testing. Previous posts include setting up an Android emulator and iOS simulator on Mac OS X.
Download and Install VirtualBox
There are many virtualization programs to choose from but if you’re looking for something free and open-sourced, VirtualBox is your best route. Visit their downloads page and select the VirtualBox 5.0.20 for OS X hosts option. Double-click the .dmg file and install the .pkg file.
Download Windows
Visit the Microsoft Edge Developer Technologies page or http://modern.ie and scroll down to the Free Tools section. Click on the Virtual Machines link.
Now, select the Virtual machine you would like to use and make sure the platform is set to VirtualBox. NOTE: If you don’t already have an application which support the zip64 format, make sure to download and install The Unarchiver (free) first before downloading the Windows zip file.
Click the Download .zip button. This file could take some time to download. Grab a coffee, and take 5!
Install The Windows VM
IMPORTANT: Right-click on the zip file and select Open With The Unarchiver. This will create an .ova file.
Double-click the .ova file. This will open a one-click process in VirtualBox which configures the vm and allocates the appropriate amount of ram and disk space for the machine.
Run Windows 10 in Virtualization
Double click the the created VM. That’s it. You now have a full Windows 10 environment running within OS X. Pretty simple?