I have a dual head rig with VMWare Fusion, one head and virtual screen on which I run XP full screen as a guest. I think I could have it auto-boot with a script. I think I could do the same with VMWare server, without requiring a script (I think it supports "boot vm at startup" out of the box). I don't mean to push the VMWare. That's just how I do it. VirtualBox would probably also be a great option. I love VBox. I just don't remember how well it does full screen.<br>
<br>I tried to figure out how to move a physical partition to a virtual one (P2V). I couldn't. I think it came down to the windows kernel that is automatically chosen upon installation. Physical had ACPI and virtual hardware didn't or some such. So, I just did a fresh XP install.<br>
<br>Trying to mask Linux entirely, without the potential of ever ending up in a terminal, seems like a challenge. It might be easier to manage expectations and be ready to restart the VM, if need be. I expect booting into the full-screen Windows OS (as a guest) is possible, though.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 3:52 PM, Preston Boyington <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:preston.lists@gmail.com">preston.lists@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Brandon Checketts wrote:<br>
<snipped><br>
<div class="im">> Then, my though it to copy an entire existing WinXP partition to a VM<br>
> and somehow make that bootable.<br>
<br>
</div>I was going to do this myself a while back. In the docs for VirtualBox<br>
it speaks about how to do this. There is a program you have to run in<br>
Windows first to 'unlock' the OS from the disk (or similar... it's been<br>
a while).<br>
<br>
the biggest drawback I had was the lack of 'horsepower'. on the systems<br>
i played with they were very slow in a virtualized environment (speaking<br>
of laptops here) or lacked full hardware features.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
<br>
Arrant Drivel - really, it's just trash...<br>
<a href="http://www.arrantdrivel.com/" target="_blank">http://www.arrantdrivel.com/</a><br>
<br>
Where the road takes me - a highwayman's perspective<br>
<a href="http://www.prestonboyington.com/" target="_blank">http://www.prestonboyington.com/</a><br>
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