[olug] Virtualization Question

Dan Linder dan at linder.org
Fri Apr 25 21:44:02 UTC 2008


On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:

> You've done that with VMWare years ago *booting XP*? Generally, this will
> not
> work because Windows (at least XP and newer) can only handle *minor*
> hardware
> changes, or at least forward-moving ones. Generally, the virtualizers
> emulate
> hardware older/less featured than the real system, so it can be
> problematic.
>

You're right, it was probably Windows 95.  It was done more in the spirit of
"I wonder if..." than any hard requirement, but it was good to know that it
was possible if the situation ever presented itself.  I did dual boot
between Windows and Linux on that old system quite a bit (alternating which
OS was running on bare hardware).  IIRC, a co-worker (Hi Pat!) did something
similar but was able to use the different hardware profiles within Windows
to make the transition smoother.

I wouldn't recommend this for everyone to try (be prepared to re-install
your entire system just in case your filesystem or partition table gets
garbled), but from Windows perspective this is just a number of hardware
changes and it has to install the proper drivers.  Assuming WGA doesn't bite
you, the switch between the two situations should go well.

Dan

-- 
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Satires of Juvenal
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