Virtualizing XP with dual boot FC10/XP

[Hal Meyer]

I have FC10 and Windows dual booted on my PC and would like to
virtualize XP with KVM.

I want to be able to both boot to XP and also virtualize it in FC10
(obviously not at the same time).

When I try to install a new virtual machine the process wants to install
XP from the CD. Is there a way to just point to the XP partition on the
disk?

Vmware workstation claims to be able to do this but there seem to be
other issues with vmware and FC10.

Thanks,
Hal

[Robert L Cochran]

I just installed Windows XP Professional under KVM. I put the
installation CD in the CD drive. This is very much like installing
Windows XP on any other machine. Pop the CD in and go! Once I set up the
virtual machine for Windows XP, the installer on the CD started right up
and installed it.

I now have a virtual machine that runs Windows XP, however I am in
trouble with the Windows activation process because I can't (yet)
provide a valid product key code to the Microsoft activation server. The
installation CD is from Dell, I just bought a new laptop with a Dell
"Windows XP downgrade" and I need to ask Dell's support people how I'm
supposed to provide a valid product key for this. It may be that I have
to install Windows Vista first (because I have a Vista CD and product
key too) and then downgrade to XP, I don't know quite yet.

So what I'm saying is, you need the installation CD for Windows XP or
you need a network installation point for Windows XP which is set up the
way Microsoft says it should be. I don't think you can just point to an
Windows XP partition and install from that. Of course, I've never tried
it; I've always been mesmerized by the need for a product key and that
usually means an associated installation CD because some utilities found
on the CD are not installed by default.

The final point is -- since you are setting up a second machine with
Windows XP -- you need a product key for it meaning a proper license for
it. That is how Microsoft works, and they go to great lengths to enforce
the you-must-pay-for-Windows-it-is-not-free mindset.

Now hopefully, I can figure out how to activate my Windows XP.

Bob

Hal Meyer wrote:
> I have FC10 and Windows dual booted on my PC and would like to
> virtualize XP with KVM.
>
> I want to be able to both boot to XP and also virtualize it in FC10
> (obviously not at the same time).
>
> When I try to install a new virtual machine the process wants to install
> XP from the CD. Is there a way to just point to the XP partition on the
> disk?
>
> Vmware workstation claims to be able to do this but there seem to be
> other issues with vmware and FC10.
>
> Thanks,
> Hal

[Agile Aspect]

Robert L Cochran wrote:
> I now have a virtual machine that runs Windows XP, however I am in
> trouble with the Windows activation process because I can't (yet)
> provide a valid product key code to the Microsoft activation server. The
> installation CD is from Dell, I just bought a new laptop with a Dell
> "Windows XP downgrade" and I need to ask Dell's support people how I'm
> supposed to provide a valid product key for this. It may be that I have
> to install Windows Vista first (because I have a Vista CD and product
> key too) and then downgrade to XP, I don't know quite yet.

The valid product key for Windows on Dell laptops should be
on bottom side of the computer.

[Robert L Cochran]

Agile Aspect wrote:
> Robert L Cochran wrote:
> > I now have a virtual machine that runs Windows XP, however I am in
> > trouble with the Windows activation process because I can't (yet)
> > provide a valid product key code to the Microsoft activation server. The
> > installation CD is from Dell, I just bought a new laptop with a Dell
> > "Windows XP downgrade" and I need to ask Dell's support people how I'm
> > supposed to provide a valid product key for this. It may be that I have
> > to install Windows Vista first (because I have a Vista CD and product
> > key too) and then downgrade to XP, I don't know quite yet.
>
> The valid product key for Windows on Dell laptops should be
> on bottom side of the computer.

There is a label for Windows Vista. Remember I said this is a Windows XP
downgrade. If you look at Latitude E-Series laptops on Dell.com (their
USA website), you will see what I am talking about -- I paid an extra
$99 for the downgrade. The CD I am using also shipped with the new
computer, so it's legal, or should be. I'll ask at the Dell forums...

Thanks!

Bob

[Wayne Feick]

On Sun, 2008-12-14 at 13:20 -0500, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> Agile Aspect wrote:
> > Robert L Cochran wrote:
> > > I now have a virtual machine that runs Windows XP, however I am in
> > > trouble with the Windows activation process because I can't (yet)
> > > provide a valid product key code to the Microsoft activation server. The
> > > installation CD is from Dell, I just bought a new laptop with a Dell
> > > "Windows XP downgrade" and I need to ask Dell's support people how I'm
> > > supposed to provide a valid product key for this. It may be that I have
> > > to install Windows Vista first (because I have a Vista CD and product
> > > key too) and then downgrade to XP, I don't know quite yet.
> >
> > The valid product key for Windows on Dell laptops should be
> > on bottom side of the computer.
>
> There is a label for Windows Vista. Remember I said this is a Windows XP
> downgrade. If you look at Latitude E-Series laptops on Dell.com (their
> USA website), you will see what I am talking about -- I paid an extra
> $99 for the downgrade. The CD I am using also shipped with the new
> computer, so it's legal, or should be. I'll ask at the Dell forums...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bob

Your license key may or may not work in a VM. Last time I tried to
install Dell's OEM version of XP inside VMWare (admittedly a few years
ago), it refused to activate and gave a message that it was only
licensed to run on Dell hardware.

Wayne.

[Robert L Cochran]

Wayne Feick wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-12-14 at 13:20 -0500, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> > Agile Aspect wrote:
> > > Robert L Cochran wrote:
> > > > I now have a virtual machine that runs Windows XP, however I am in
> > > > trouble with the Windows activation process because I can't (yet)
> > > > provide a valid product key code to the Microsoft activation server. The
> > > > installation CD is from Dell, I just bought a new laptop with a Dell
> > > > "Windows XP downgrade" and I need to ask Dell's support people how I'm
> > > > supposed to provide a valid product key for this. It may be that I have
> > > > to install Windows Vista first (because I have a Vista CD and product
> > > > key too) and then downgrade to XP, I don't know quite yet.
> > >
> > > The valid product key for Windows on Dell laptops should be
> > > on bottom side of the computer.
> >
> > There is a label for Windows Vista. Remember I said this is a Windows XP
> > downgrade. If you look at Latitude E-Series laptops on Dell.com (their
> > USA website), you will see what I am talking about -- I paid an extra
> > $99 for the downgrade. The CD I am using also shipped with the new
> > computer, so it's legal, or should be. I'll ask at the Dell forums...
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Bob
>
> Your license key may or may not work in a VM. Last time I tried to
> install Dell's OEM version of XP inside VMWare (admittedly a few years
> ago), it refused to activate and gave a message that it was only
> licensed to run on Dell hardware.
>
> Wayne.

I'm just getting messages that the key is incorrect. I'll recheck it
again after a belated lunch, maybe my eyes are just old and unfocused?
Thanks for the heads up though. You might be right, I will follow up on
this.

On the good side, my Fedora 10 VM is running with bridged networking. I
hope it can see things like USB and serial ports.

Bob

[Mikkel]

Robert L Cochran wrote:
> Wayne Feick wrote:
> > Your license key may or may not work in a VM. Last time I tried to
> > install Dell's OEM version of XP inside VMWare (admittedly a few years
> > ago), it refused to activate and gave a message that it was only
> > licensed to run on Dell hardware.
> >
> > Wayne.
>
> I'm just getting messages that the key is incorrect. I'll recheck it
> again after a belated lunch, maybe my eyes are just old and unfocused?
> Thanks for the heads up though. You might be right, I will follow up on
> this.
>
> On the good side, my Fedora 10 VM is running with bridged networking. I
> hope it can see things like USB and serial ports.
>
> Bob

There is a good chance that the key only works with specific machine
model. I remember something on the VirtualBox mailing list about
having to change some values in the virtual BIOS before you could
install or convert a real image to a virtual one.

I have even run into problems like this with OEM Windows 98SE disks
that would only install on Compaq machines.

Mikkel

[Bill Davidsen]

Hal Meyer wrote:
> I have FC10 and Windows dual booted on my PC and would like to
> virtualize XP with KVM.
>
> I want to be able to both boot to XP and also virtualize it in FC10
> (obviously not at the same time).

When you boot, do you come up in a boot manager? If you tune your grub to do a 
highly visible boot setup, like 15 sec wait and hidmenu commented out, you could 
try this:

qemu-kvm -m 512 -hda /dev/sda

and just select the XT partition to boot.

Note: I do not have a way to test this, and I sure wouldn't let it accidentally 
boot the Linux partition, but I don't see a reason why it would do serious harm 
if it failed. Usual stuff said about backups and all...
> When I try to install a new virtual machine the process wants to install
> XP from the CD. Is there a way to just point to the XP partition on the
> disk?

No, you want a disk image. And I wouldn't let any install program touch this 
unless it actually said it could do such a thing. The manual run above should at 
least give you a feeling for the possibilities.
> Vmware workstation claims to be able to do this but there seem to be
> other issues with vmware and FC10.

I have seen discussion, VMware will work fine with FC10 after it has a chance to 
be tuned, but probably isn't a good choice now.

[Richard Shaw]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Bill Davidsen  wrote:
> Hal Meyer wrote:
> > When I try to install a new virtual machine the process wants to install
> > XP from the CD. Is there a way to just point to the XP partition on the
> > disk?
>
> No, you want a disk image. And I wouldn't let any install program touch this
> unless it actually said it could do such a thing. The manual run above
> should at least give you a feeling for the possibilities.

I wouldn't say that's strictly true. I have successfully booted an
existing Windows XP partition in VirtualBox but the setup is a little
complicated. I don't remember the exact command but in the VirtualBox
online documentation there is a section for it. Basically you have to
generate a .vmdk file that tells it which partitions it should have
access to. Also you'll need a MBR file since the one on your disk is
likely for Linux, not Windows (you can get this from a working Windows
XP only machine).

Then, if you want to boot the partition normally (i.e. not in a
virtual machine) then you will need to create a second hardware
profile to keep Windows from redetecting all your hardware every time
you switch from one to another. In my case I have one call Native and
one called VirtualBox.

The User Manual at virtualbox.org has all of this information. Look
for Section 9.9. The section for accessing a specific partition (not
the whole disk) and the MBR issue see section 9.9.2.

Richard

[Bill Davidsen]

Agile Aspect wrote:
> Robert L Cochran wrote:
> > I now have a virtual machine that runs Windows XP, however I am in
> > trouble with the Windows activation process because I can't (yet)
> > provide a valid product key code to the Microsoft activation server. The
> > installation CD is from Dell, I just bought a new laptop with a Dell
> > "Windows XP downgrade" and I need to ask Dell's support people how I'm
> > supposed to provide a valid product key for this. It may be that I have
> > to install Windows Vista first (because I have a Vista CD and product
> > key too) and then downgrade to XP, I don't know quite yet.
>
> The valid product key for Windows on Dell laptops should be
> on bottom side of the computer.

Just as a thought, I have a laptop with "XP pro" and Fedora on the two 
partitions which came from the factory, and of course a grub setup to boot one 
or the other. Should you have a similar setup, you might find this interesting:

As root:
   # create a COW image of the whole hard drive
   qemu-img create -b /dev/sda -f qcow2 disk_bitimage
   # and boot it
   qemu-kvm -m 700 -hda disk_bitimage

Then boot Windows... Note that the changes are only in Linux, and I have not 
remotely summoned the courage to try booting linux under this thing.