Re: [Xen-users] Re: dual boot windows

[Andrew Wafaa <andrew@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Turk, JohnX wrote:
> I haven't seen any official guides on installing a Windows guest on Xen. But it 
> seems that the way to do it is fairly simple:
>
> Make an ISO image of the installation CD and use that as the "CDROM" while 
> installing.
>
> When the installer screen comes up and says "Press F6 to load third party drivers...", don't press F6, but press F5. You won't see anything immediately, but shortly you will see a screen that says to manually choose your HAL. Simply choose "Standard PC" and your install should go smoothly. The only downside is that you can't install a 64-bit flavor of Windows, nor can you get multi-processor support. 
>
> -------------
>
> I think this is also the same reason that you will not be able to boot an 
> already installed copy of Windows in Xen. Typically the HAL is for an ACPI PC, 
> or if you have dual core or hyperthreading, the HAL will be Multiprocessor ACPI 
> PC, which I don't believe anybody has working in Xen just yet.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Terje J. Hanssen
> Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 1:13 PM
> To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [Xen-users] Re: dual boot windows
>
> Turk, JohnX wrote:
>
>
> > While it may be possible to do, I would strongly recommend against it. The 
> > thing is that the virtualized hardware is completely different from what the 
> > actual hardware in your system is. Lets say you load Windows on your machine 
> > baremetal, it sees a nice new Intel chipset, GeForce video card, and a SATA 
> > hard drive. Then when you try to boot that partition with Xen, it suddenly 
> > being thrown a completely different set of hardware. It now is seeing a Cirrus 
> > Logic video card, some older generic chipset, and an IDE hard drive. This will 
> > most likely cause your system to blue screen, or worst case you will have some 
> > major data loss.
> It seems reasonable to add:
> Does there exist any official installation guide for how to install and
> setup Linux+Windows on Xen?
>
> Rgds,
> Terje J. Hanssen
John / Terje,

For an official guide to installing Windows on Xen check the pdf that's 
available on the Wiki - 
http://www.xensource.com/files/xen_install_windows.pdf
The guide does state that it is not intended for production use.  I 
haven't read it in detail or tried it out.  I'd be interested in your 
experience trying it.
Hope it works for you.

Andy
--
Andrew Wafaa, RHCT
Tel: +44 (0)7974 074546
e-Mail: andrew@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.forcev.net

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