9 replies to this topic

[amitr0]

All,

does any one know of a virtualization environment capable of booting windows 2k8r2 or win 7 64 bit? the exisitng ones I know of dont seem to work.

wmware work station 8 has no support
virtual box supports, but only for linux and mac os
windows hyper-V no support
vmware esx 5 has support, but it is too expensive.

washoping one of you know a product or know a way to hack one of these to boot windows in efi mode

[sbaeder]

Just to be clear, you want to set up the VM to use EFI and not the Bios that they come with??? If it is booting a virtual machine, why do you need EFI in the VM?

[Tripredacus]

What besides having a 2TB+ boot volume is a reason to want to use UEFI anyways?

I'm still in that group that thinks having a large boot volume is a waste.

[amitr0]

sbaeder, Tripredacus,


both of you are right. I don't care whether my host is EFI capable or not. the vm running on that host should be booted through EFI. So the software providing the guest the resources needs to be EFI aware/complaint.

So far only vmware esx5 seems to have that capability with windows, which is a big investment.


now coming to the 'why' part, I am working on a product which does data restore and disk management, and to test whether restore of EFI works properly, and to debug teh bugs we need such virtual machines. As we all know, while playing with boot environements, if something goes wrong we will end up with an unbootable ssytem, and it will increase the development time if we need to start with a fresh OS install everytime this happens. Hence virtual!

[sbaeder]

So far only vmware esx5 seems to have that capability with windows, which is a big investment.

Are you sure? For small deployments (one host?) this is doable with the free version of the hypervisor and the free one host remote viewer (vshpere client)...I am runing it at home here...But I haven't played with it as far as EFI...Maybe that is restricted...So, just checked, and BINGO!!!

 0001.gif   141.28KB   30 downloads

I think the trick is that you need to Edit the settings before you finish (or maybe after it is created???) and then toggle it to UEFI mode...

Go poke around for the Freebie of this...It's not a cluster, and it's a lot more complex that Vbox or on the desktop stuff, since you have to dedicate a box to the bare metal hyper-visor, but looks doable.

p.s. Sorry, just check the screen capture, and I was too fast...Select the CPU tab (I think) to go to the BIOS selection area...(too late, and not enough sleep)

Edited by sbaeder, 18 December 2011 - 05:45 AM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Well, making it simple , Qemu has also an EFI BIOS :
http://smackerelofop...u-efi-bios.html


Wonko

[amitr0]

Are you sure? For small deployments (one host?) this is doable with the free version of the hypervisor and the free one host remote viewer (vshpere client)...I am runing it at home here...But I haven't played with it as far as EFI...Maybe that is restricted...So, just checked, and BINGO!!!

 0001.gif   141.28KB   30 downloads

I think the trick is that you need to Edit the settings before you finish (or maybe after it is created???) and then toggle it to UEFI mode...

Go poke around for the Freebie of this...It's not a cluster, and it's a lot more complex that Vbox or on the desktop stuff, since you have to dedicate a box to the bare metal hyper-visor, but looks doable.

p.s. Sorry, just check the screen capture, and I was too fast...Select the CPU tab (I think) to go to the BIOS selection area...(too late, and not enough sleep)

I didnt know that for single guest deployments it was free. thank you so much, this resolves my problem!

[amitr0]

Well, making it simple , Qemu has also an EFI BIOS :
http://smackerelofop...u-efi-bios.html


Wonko

i have never used qemu, but isn't is very slow as comapred to VMs?

[Wonko the Sane]

i have never used qemu, but isn't is very slow as comapred to VMs?

You asked for a virtual environment capable of booting EFI, you didn't specify you also wanted a fast one.

Sheesh , people is never happy about what they have or what they can get (for free)...


Wonko

[cdob]

wmware work station 8 has no support
...
vmware esx 5 has support, but it is too expensive.

Nontheless EFI function is integrated at VMware Workstation 8 and Player 4.

Edit *.vmx configuration file

firmware = "efi"

In addition this may be nice

#force the VM to enter BIOS/EFI firmware on next boot

bios.forceSetupOnce = "TRUE"

Player 4 EFI seems to ignore a default Windows 8 DVD. Rebuild the ISO file.
http://technet.micro...243(WS.10).aspx
http://technet.micro...537(WS.10).aspx

oscdimg.exe -bE:\w8\efi\microsoft\boot\efisys.bin -pEF -m -n E:\W8\ \temp\w8_efi.iso

Windows 8 installation does finish at EFI boot.

Good luck at Windows 2k8r2