Loading Windows, hosted on the virtual disks

Hello
This is my first post on Reboot.pro
Please forgive me my very bad English.
I became interested in the theme of the spring loading Windows, hosted on the virtual disks. At the moment, has implemented various launching OS Windows from IMG and VHD. Perhaps this information will be someone interesting and useful.
I am writing to you now with Windows 7 PE, loaded from the VHD from a USB-stick.
This Win 7 PE to boot from a VHD does not use third-party drivers.
VHD - 400 MB, 80 MB - freely, min RAM - 256 MB (60 MB RAM-disk).
http://www.10pix.ru/...932/6110637.png http://www.10pix.ru/...804/6110646.png http://www.10pix.ru/...424/6110641.png
System VHD, without an external program unit. http://file.qip.ru/f...cTR/Win7PE.html

Edited by stea.61, 13 November 2011 - 12:47 AM.

stea.61

Welcome to Reboot community!

A few questions though:

- does the USB Stick, where you boot Win7PE.vhd from, have Win 7 installed on it or anything else?

- any specific problems with the system booted from the VHD?

sambul61, thank you
Described Win7 PE VHD is part of a multiboot USB-Stick, which is available for boot as Win7 Ultimate compact from VHD, WinXP Live (boot from WIM-Image) and Linux Parted Magic Live;
In the process of building Win7 PE VHD are met:
- The integration of native support for VHD from Win7 Ultimate;
- Correction of Win7 PE registry for USB boot.

Edited by stea.61, 13 November 2011 - 09:40 AM.

stea.61

What would it take to boot your Win7PE.vhd alone natively from an empty USB Stick (no other apps or CDs)? How to prepare a USB Stick for that task - without installing a new OS on it?

Does your Win7PE have English UI - can you link corresponding snapshots?

Hey Nuno, one can buy these days USB-Sticks, which are bigger than 2GB!

I think that he's concerned about the the 2GB limit of FAT16, and certain pre-millenium mothboards that won't boot FAT32 sticks. Or he lives in Klambekistan.

The only 2GB USB device I have in my house, is my watch.

Edited by sfinktah, 13 November 2011 - 01:07 PM.

I think that he's concerned about the the 2GB limit of FAT16, and certain pre-millenium mothboards that won't boot FAT32 sticks. Or he lives in Klambekistan.

The only 2GB USB device I have in my house, is my watch.

Well, you are then way ahead of most of us, either in technology updates or in money, but this is not a good reason to show off what you own or can afford or imply that living in Klambekistan is a bad thing.
Last time I was there it seemed to me like a nice place, with a lot of friendly peeps.



Wonko

Well, it is a very nice watch. But having to carry the USB-to-watch cable kinda ruins the convenience factor. I wonder how fast it is...




Hmm...

Capacity:	2 GB (2,002,780,160 bytes)

  Removable Media:	Yes

  Detachable Drive:	Yes

  BSD Name:	disk9

  Product ID:	0x0b02

  Vendor ID:	0x05e1  (Syntek Design Technology Inc.)

  Version:	 0.02

  Serial Number:	0123456789AC

  Speed:	Up to [b]12 Mb/sec[/b]

  Manufacturer:	Syntek

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/Volumes/MyWatch/zero.dd bs=1m count=100

^C39+0 records in

38+0 records out

39845888 bytes transferred in 67.990975 secs (586047 bytes/sec)

$

So I could like.... boot the FreeDOS ISO with the LiveCD (49 MB) ... in around... what, 3 minutes? Not including the 30 seconds it would take to load grub, of course.

USB watch = EPIC FAIL.

But having to carry the USB-to-watch cable kinda ruins the convenience factor. Hmm...

If you have two arms , get one of these:
http://www.yankodesi...y-snappy-snake/
http://www.hardwares...band-usb-cable/
(or a similar thingy)


Wonko

This isn't one of mine so can't say what's going on; I've never seen a reaction like this from running a browser, portable or otherwise. Not all portables are created equal and very few are specifically designed for use in PE (though most will work fine); try any of the packages here and let me know what you think. I'm always looking for constructive feedback for improvement; please be specific if reporting issues.

I was very surprised when it happened since no other web browser or application in the PE envirement had this issue. I even downloaded a portable version from http://www.portablefreeware.com/, used MakeScript created by Pierre LE Saint to create the script and that crashed after a couple of uses. I will look at the link you put in a reply and check it out.

If it crashed only after a couple of uses, make sure you have enough free RAM. Chrome uses quite a lot and you have no pagefile in a PE.
Also make sure Chrome doesn't fill your Ramdrive/wim image to the rim.

...used MakeScript created by Pierre LE Saint to create the script and that crashed after a couple of uses. I will look at the link you put in a reply and check it out.

Just so we're clear, you don't need to create a script for the portable! You can run portables in PE without any additional support but if you want full inclusion, like shortcuts, file associations etc. you do need one script to include all the portables supplied. Read more in that link and let me know if you have questions.

Just so we're clear, you don't need to create a script for the portable! You can run portables in PE without any additional support but if you want full inclusion, like shortcuts, file associations etc. you do need one script to include all the portables supplied. Read more in that link and let me know if you have questions.

I saw the option in Winbuilder for portable apps but did not try using it. I like to have as many desktop icons as possible since this is shared with others. There is still a lot I need to learn with Winbuilder and definitely will look at your link.

If it crashed only after a couple of uses, make sure you have enough free RAM. Chrome uses quite a lot and you have no pagefile in a PE.
Also make sure Chrome doesn't fill your Ramdrive/wim image to the rim.

I did not know there is no pagefile in PE, thanks for the information. The PC I use for creating the image and do the testing on has 4GB of ram, still have a lot to learn about PE.

If you have two arms , get one of these:
http://www.yankodesi...y-snappy-snake/
http://www.hardwares...band-usb-cable/
(or a similar thingy)

That is so gay.

My old Nokia phone had an option to behave as a "USB Storage" device to offload pictures, I wonder if I could trick it to boot GRUB4DOS...

But I use iPhone now... hmmm ... here's a thought... I do a lot of PXE work, if I install tftpd and dhcp on it, I'd have 64mb of PXE server to boot from....

/me starts hunting for an iPhone iscsi-target

Edited by sfinktah, 14 November 2011 - 12:48 AM.

I like to have as many desktop icons as possible since this is shared with others.

With ppAppsGenPE script (the only one I'm really familiar with), a separate shortcut for every portable will be created on your Desktop and/or Start menu automatically (if wanted). Program settings, including shortcut locations, are configured individually for each program.

It would be ideal if someone get interested to develop a GUI tool that can perform a typical scope of operations with VHDs. There are a number of smaller tools available, but some are buggy, other obsolete and limited in scope, so preparing to run Windows natively from a virtual drive is not really covered by ANY good comprehensive tool so far, despite this is the strategic direction where MS is going - by deep integration of Hyper-V into future systems.

You mean, like ... one of those programmer types?

Oh... hmm... I forgot which forum I was on... kind of ruined that joke.

Edited by sfinktah, 14 November 2011 - 10:53 AM.

With ppAppsGenPE script (the only one I'm really familiar with), a separate shortcut for every portable will be created on your Desktop and/or Start menu automatically (if wanted). Program settings, including shortcut locations, are configured individually for each program.

I looked at the link you sent and read the information about portable applications. When I get chance will have to create a new image using portable Chrome and see what happens,

Thanks again

I'm fiddeling here a bit with a new setup and i'm stuck. I can't decide, if to go again with a PE or to choose a full Windows to run off the USB-Stick.

I'm looking for some opinions from members with hands on experience.

What reasons are there to choose a full Windows over a PE? What can it do better? When is it actually a bad idea. Does anyone actually run his full Windows from a USB-Stick or runs it everyone exclusivly from USB-HDD?

What is your experience with your portable Windows, did you ran into any gotchas?

Win7 has myself going (or trying to) "SAFE MODE" ... which might work. Otherwise ... a complete re-install. That's why most om my work is Ubuntu derivatives (Lunbuntu 11.10), except with Win7-only programs (Servant Salamander, Dragon Naturally Speaking).

On my top-of-the-line notebook, I have esata, so I'd use a ESATA MEMORY THUMBSTICK. Faster than both USB2 & USB3. Thumbstick or flash memory card (SD usually) are much quicker than DVD, or CD. Running a complete Windows can only compete with SATA HDDs, using eSata thumbsticks.

My key-ring has micro-SD thumbsticks. So thank you for this suggestion. I'll now benchtest installing & running Win7 & Win-XP from my set of keys.

Greg Zeng, Australia.

I think, we are way offtop from presented Win7PE.vhd by the thread starter.

Anyone tested this VHD, any comments?