Re: [Xen-users] Release 0.9.0 of GPL PV Drivers for Windows

[Scott McKenzie <scott.xensource@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James Harper wrote:
> I've just put up the latest release of the GPLPV drivers for Windows.
> This release involved a fairly big rewrite of the stuff that talks to
> Windows as I changed from WDF to WDM. WDF is a newer framework from
> Microsoft which makes it easier to write drivers as a lot of the state
> management stuff is done for you. It also means shipping a great big dll
> around with the drivers (note the difference in size between this and
> the previous version), and makes it really hard to do some things. With
> any luck eventually these drivers will be buildable under Linux using
> something like MinGW, which wouldn't have been possible under WDF.
>
> *** WARNING *** Just to spell it out clearly, do not use these drivers
> on a production DomU. And if you use them on a production Dom0, make
> sure you have good backups. There was a bug that made my Dom0 freeze for
> 5-10 minutes (no lasting damage when it unfroze though). That bug is
> fixed now but it's always possible that there could be others ***
> WARNING ***
>
> Almost everything that was working before should be working now, but
> obviously this version hasn't seen nearly as much testing. The one thing
> that definitely is not working is disabling the drivers - you'll get a
> crash if you try that or if you try to upgrade from this version to the
> next one. I'll get on to that eventually.
>
> To upgrade from a version less that 0.9.0, you'll really need to clean
> your system of any old drivers. The supplied uninstall_0.8.x.bat might
> do the trick - you'll need to copy it into the directory you installed
> the 0.8.x drivers from though before you run it. Failing that, email me
> and I'll help if I can.
>
> On a clean system, install.bat should do the install, much the same as
> before. There is no 'stub' driver at the moment, so you'll be prompted
> for drivers for the 'vfb' and 'console' devices. Just ignore that for
> now. Without /GPLPV specified in the boot.ini the xenvbd and xennet
> drivers will just sit in 'Failed to start. Code 10' state. See the next
> paragraph for why.
>
> Also changed in this release is a different approach to xenhide which
> hides the QEMU ATA and network PCI devices (and the xen devices when
> GPLPV is specified). Hopefully this should put an end to the problem of
> duplicate disks and the resulting corruption. At the moment it will
> leave 'hidden' devices visible with a yellow exclamation mark, because
> of the way it fails them. I'll fix that too (by hiding them - the yellow
> exclamation mark will still be there if you tell windows to show hidden
> devices)
>
> You can download from http://www.meadowcourt.org/downloads/ , and I've
> also created a few wiki pages - still pretty bare at the moment but you
> can see where I'm going at http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenWindows
> .
>
> Enjoy!
>
> James
>   
Hi James

I've finally found some time to test these new drivers on my system - 
64bit dom0 Ubuntu Hardy w/xen 3.2; domU Windows 2003 i386 (SBS).  I 
couldn't boot Windows after installing the drivers, ether with or 
without the /gplpv boot option.  Startup stalled on the first screen of 
windows starting, the black screen with the moving progress bar before 
it switches to graphics mode.  The progress bar stopped moving and it 
never switched to graphics mode.  I let it run for about 3minutes before 
"xm destroy"ing it.  Normal boot is about 1:45 to the Windows login prompt.
The drivers appeared to install OK in Windows - no errors or anything.  
Let me know if you need more info and thanks for your continued efforts 
on developing these drivers.

-Scott


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