Existing Windows Install in QEMU

Garibaldi3489 · 01-11-2007, 07:49 AM

I remember reading about this awhile ago, has there been any progress on being able to boot an existing windows XP install on the hard drive in QEMU under linux? This way you could run your existing windows install/apps right in linux through the emulator. Can this be done?
Thanks

PTrenholme · 01-11-2007, 09:13 AM

I don't know about QEMU, but you can do that now with wine. Just change the symlink in .wine/dosdevices/c: to point to your Windows C: drive.

Note: If you're using the NTFS, mount the file system with the ntfs-3g type unless your distribution already supports rw mounts of NTFS file systems.

Note2: Of course, not all Windows programs will run correctly in wine, so this may not be a solution for you.

Garibaldi3489 · 01-11-2007, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTrenholme

I don't know about QEMU, but you can do that now with wine. Just change the symlink in .wine/dosdevices/c: to point to your Windows C: drive.

Note: If you're using the NTFS, mount the file system with the ntfs-3g type unless your distribution already supports rw mounts of NTFS file systems.

Note2: Of course, not all Windows programs will run correctly in wine, so this may not be a solution for you.

I already use wine and have successfully been running a couple windows programs but I do want Photoshop 7, Notepad++, TMPGENC DVD Author, and iTunes 7 to work and I haven't had success with them yet. I have not configured my wine to point to my c drive, but I have nagivated to C and just opened the executables from there. I will try changing the sym link and see if that helps. Also where is the config file in the new builds of wine? I can't find it in the /.wine/ folder where it was before. I am using Kubuntu 6.1, which I don't think supports writing to NTFS. Is the ntfs-3g driver safe to use for NTFS writin now? Last I heard there was no good way to write to NTFS from linux.

If I decide that I need to go the emulation route, can I use something other than QEMU, maybe the free version of VMWare or Xen? Does anyone have any info/experience with setting any of these virtualization programs up with an existing windows install?

What about something like this:
http://news.u32.net/articles/tag/windows

Thanks

PTrenholme · 01-11-2007, 08:21 PM

I neither know nor use Kubuntu, but the ntfs-3g file type, which requires the fuse kernel module be installed, seems to permit rw access to NTFS file systems with few problems. I'd suspect that it would work well on an Ubuntu system.

From my fstab:

Code:

$ cat /etc/fstab | grep WinXP
/dev/hda1               /mnt/WinXP/c            ntfs-3g rw,uid=root,gid=disk 0 0
/dev/hda2               /mnt/WinXP/d            vfat    uid=root,gid=disk 1 2

On the other issues you raise, I have no suggestions.