104 replies to this topic

[al_jo]

...

[sara - pmedia]

I was able to boot XP Vboot from USB hard disk.
I tested it on 3 different computers, worked fine.
Here is how can we do this:
Start installing xp to a vhd.
When it copied the files, don't continue with the 2nd step.
Boot into other Windows download UsbBootWatcher.zip from here: www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22473&st=0
Also download usb_xp_init.cmd from here: www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopi...920&#entry153920
Unzip UsbBootWatcher.zip and put usb_xp_init.cmd into the folder we have just extracted UsbBootWatcher. The directory structure should look like this:
amd64 - directory
x86 - directory
usb_xp_init.cmd

Boot into a Windows as SYSTEM (for example Win7PE) and mount vhd.
You can also use in XP the "at hours:minutes /interactive cmd" command to get a command promt with SYSTEM user privileges.
Run usb_xp_init.cmd and type the path of system32 directory of the mounted vhd. (for examle D:\Windows\system32)
When it completed unmount the vhd, put it in the USB hard disk and create entry in grub.cfg for it (We need to use UUID= or LABEL= format).
(We need to create one for continue setup, and one without cdrom to run normally)
I suggest to set registry setting DisablePagingExecutive to 1 in HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management before continue setup.

Great news! I'm waiting to check it ..
If this is true then its the first time we found real solution for universal xp from usb without ram maping

Is it necessary to update ide drivers in Device Manager to standard and computer to advansd..... ??

[karyonix]

Basically you reserve a memory region at boot time, and VBoot will use this region to cache disk read/writes. In contrast to other RAM booting, ours is not slow even at the first start time. We don't load all bits to memory at the very first beginning, we do it at the first read of sectors.

This is not RAM booting. It is disk cache.
If you load whole image into RAM, Windows can boot and work even if it does not have access to source medium (eg. does not have SATA driver).

If this is true then its the first time we found real solution for universal xp from usb without ram maping

It is not more universal than USB boot from a primary partition without VHD.

[L A M A]

...Specifically what I was interested in avoiding was that a less experienced user could "adopt" your Beta as "main" means of booting and find himself/herself with an unbootable system on February 16th, 2011. ...

THIS is precisely why was not happy. I downloaded the package and then read your link in second post. If there was an "Agree" or "Dis Agree" button, most likely i was going to blindly click "agree" button not knowing anything about time bomb and eventually would have got frustrated troubleshooting.



Anyways, the app is very interesting and i'll see the progress. Somehow, I'll not test it now (given the fact that it does not have ram-booting option and i'm already satisfied by reboot.pro's apps)

[sambul61]

There are many examples of well known highly profitable commercial apps integration into PEs and such discussed on this forum (like Acronis), so no need to be antagonistic to a developer who presented a very interesting app, far remote from making a real profit, but rather required more development and user support obviously limited on its unknown forum.

In fact, his ideas may prompt future improvements in free apps like G4D and similar. Just remember, merely a dream to improve living conditions is not equal to getting rich overnight, its the most complex project almost everyone faces on this planet.

[andriusst]

to boot a Windows PE based iso, it's very easy

menuentry "Windows PE" {
vboot cdrom=(hd0,1)/my-win-pe.iso
}

the iso can be anywhere, non-contiguous sectors

You can also use ISO files to install Windows, the process is about same, except you pick a virtual disk to install.

Great idea but I am having trouble booting a basic BartPE ISO built from XP SP3.
Vboot locates image and starts booting BartPE. It gets past the progress bar at the bottom, enters into graphics mode and displays Windows logo with the running line below it and then bluescreens with 7B code. Tried the same iso on vmlite workstation - booting fine. Any ideas?

[huisinro]

To andriusst:

Is the iso RAM based? If not, you may want to add the following:

menuentry "Windows PE" {
vboot floppy=(hd0,1)/vboot/vboot.img cdrom=(hd0,1)/my-win-pe.iso boot=cdrom
}

this way, the virtual disk driver will be loaded after XP booted, and the iso should continue.

Let me know.

[huisinro]

We will continue to offer unique features. One feature to come is the first of its kind, live snapshot of your host system without using VHD file. Basically, you will be able to take snapshot of your current running OS instance (that is already installed to a real harddisk), in a way same to a virtual machine. You can restore, or boot your host as immutable.

This unique feature gives you the same control as you would do to a vm, the first time you can install different diff images to the same base OS of your running host. I use live snapshots to install Visual Studio 2010 inside one snapshot, and Vistual Studio 2008 on another snapshot, for example.

[karyonix]

Like "Deep Freeze" and "Shadow Defender" ?
It would be a good feature.

[huisinro]

It will be much more than that. As I understand, those software only allow the PC to recover to original state after reboot. We do the same from our "immutable boot". However, we provide much more powerful features, snapshots are persistent across reboots. It's same as VMWare/VMLite's snpahot features for the virtual machines, but we do it on the real machine.

More discussions and screen shots are available here:

http://www.vmlite.co...ive-host-system

Like "Deep Freeze" and "Shadow Defender" ?
It would be a good feature.

[huisinro]

Basically, when your PC powers on, you see a tree like boot menu and you can select a snapshot to boot. The same OS can have multiple snapshots, each snapshot in turn can have child snapshots, etc.

[karyonix]

VHDs can have parent-child relationship. If a parent disk is modified, its children are invalid.

When parent disk is not virtual disk, it is difficult to determine if parent disk is modified or not.
Users must make sure the parent disk is not modified.
Beginners will probably unintentionally break the relationship.

[andriusst]

To andriusst:

Is the iso RAM based? If not, you may want to add the following:

menuentry "Windows PE" {
vboot floppy=(hd0,1)/vboot/vboot.img cdrom=(hd0,1)/my-win-pe.iso boot=cdrom
}

this way, the virtual disk driver will be loaded after XP booted, and the iso should continue.

Let me know.

Correct, it is not RAM based PE and your suggestion did the trick. I only now start realising the potential. No more separate partitions for each OS, also an easy way to install Windows without optical drive. This is GREAT!

On the other hand I only now realised that your software will expire soon and is not free for personal use, which is not so great. Here at Reboot.pro (Boot Land) people are used to share ideas, knowledge and work without asking anything in return (well maybe except for a beer). So you entering this community does feel like taking advantage of it. Uninstalling until situation changes.

[ireneuszp]

Is it possible and how to chainload Vboot from Grub4DOS as its menu item?

Yes

title VMLite VBoot Loader 1.0 (vbootldr.mbr)\n VMLite VBoot (based on GRUB2 1.97~beta4)\n (/vboot.mbr->/vbootldr->/vboot/grub/???)

	find --set-root --ignore-floppies /vbootldr.mbr

	uuid ()

	chainloader /vbootldr.mbr



title VMLite VBoot Loader 1.0 (core.img)\n VMLite VBoot (based on GRUB2 1.97~beta4)\n (kernel /vboot/grub/core.img)

	## http://www.vmlite.com/index.php/download/38-vboot

	find --set-root --ignore-floppies /vboot/grub/core.img

	uuid ()

	kernel /vboot/grub/core.img

	boot

[L A M A]

I still don't see how this is useful to me. As far as "immutable" goes, any windows on ramdisk gets erased upon reboot thus making it "immutable"




The only feature I'm attracted to is... (1) installing OS on image from iso (which i've been pushing somewhere) (2) snapshots and (3) future features. But on the bad side, (1) booting windows from ramdisk is not yet supported. (2) Vmware/commercials are known to keep very high prices for everything (1, 2, 3). (3) Closed source and their closed group will obviously limit user knowledge.




Conspiracy: If VMLite = VMWare, my paranoid brain warns me that VMWare allies with "Intel" who allies with "Spy alliance". These days they've put "fire exit" (backdoor) on their latest products to catch future terrorists (us) easily, kill our privacy, collect usage statistics, make it easy to break in and to spy "whenever they want" not always (Source: cryptome archives goo.) The point is, if something critical as boot gets bugged, its not good. Somehow i can't find any clue that they are one,,,

[ireneuszp]

my screenshots from win xp and server 2003 r2 bootet via VBoot Laoder vhd

[fabjr.]

Hi all,I have a question,how do I Integrate sp1 into W7

fabjr

[L A M A]

:crazyrocker:hmmm... so it works all right, but no ram disk




fabfr? why you're asking here? and not looking for updated stuff HERE instead?

[pajenn]

Question: Does the vdisk.img (floppy image needed to install windows to vhd from iso) expire feb-15?

Feedback for reboot members considering trying this software (assuming there will be more than a week left to use it):

1. I'm using vboot as an alternative or a complement to winvblock and grub4dos methods to boot vhd files, but I assume it offers a lot of other features (some unique) that I haven't tried yet. VBoot comes with a virtual floppy image, vdisk.img, that can be used in a similar fashion to winvblock.ima (or firadisk.ima) to install windows iso to vhd.

2. So why use vboot instead of grub4dos and winvblock? i'm sure there are lots of reasons, but in my very focused case I was having trouble using g4d/winvblock to create a full universal xp.vhd, however, vboot worked. I was also able to install the winvblock driver properly once inside the running vbooted vhd system -- now it seems to boot fine with g4d/winvblock (although declaring success may be premature).

3. Don't be afraid of the vboot "install." It can be very minimal on Win XP at least and the instructions in the readme file are clear. All I had to do was to download vboot-v1.zip (10.5 MB) from ireneuszp's site, unzip to C:\ (system partition), and copy 2 small files (vbootldr and vbootldr.mbr) to C:\. To use vboot during boot-up you either add a reference to it into your boot.ini (C:\vbootldr.mbr="VBoot"), or you can chainload it from grub4dos menu per ireneuszp's instructions. Inside C:\vboot\grub you have a file called grub.cfg that seems equivalent to the menu.lst file in grub4dos. It has some basic example entries for installing windows xp or 7 from iso to vhd. You need to edit them to fit your iso and vhd names, but that part is self-explanatory. There's also a command to create a vhd, but I didn't use it. The documentation (readme.html file) is fairly clear at least for people with some basic experience with grub4dos or similar.

4. I'm not sure what the larger VMLite installer files do, (VMLiteWorkstationSetup.exe = 65 MB, VMLiteWorkstationPluginSetup.exe = 57.5 MB), but I didn't install them nor do I think they are required for basic vboot functionality.

[davlak]

well I must say that vboot worked really fine for me.
I've installed 5 OSs (2 xp - 2 3003 - 1 win7) successfully. and all it's very easy.
but a random error, unable to copy vbootdsk.sys at the beginning of copying setup in certain conditions that I've not yet clearly identified.
anyway...great software.

[huisinro]

VBoot v1.1 released:

http://www.vmlite.co...ot-v11-released

The trial version expires on May-15-2011.

[huisinro]

to steom,

recover_mbr is now available in v1.1, e.g.,

menuentry "my entry"
{
vboot cdrom=(hd0,1)/my.iso boot=cdrom recover_mbr
}

[steom]

hi huisinro!
recover_mbr is not added to grub.cfg!
the command
vbootedit.exe create title="ISO" cdrom=c:\pe.iso boot=cdrom recover_mbr
create this entry:
menuentry "ISO" {

vboot cdrom="(UUID=f01474341473fbc2)/pe.iso" boot=cdrom

}

is required to manually add recover_mbr by editing grub.cfg

for the rest works beautifully!!!

well done!

Edited by steom, 15 February 2011 - 08:34 PM.

[L A M A]

to steom,

recover_mbr is now available in v1.1, e.g.,

menuentry "my entry"
{
vboot cdrom=(hd0,1)/my.iso boot=cdrom recover_mbr
}

Is RAM disk/memDisk available now? without ram disk speed=sucks . Since you're commercial and sticking around, you wouldn't happen to be Sha0, hiding in disguise under the name of japanese nick? At times it seems like you guys teamed up here... in this product. If no, then i'll assume you came here to accelerate DEVz (which is good in a way)




If I may ask, how many guys work on vboot? 10? 50? vs (kar+sha+tin+ch+?+?+?+?)

[huisinro]

I came here because the boss (Nuno Brito) invited me to do so.