Libguestfs - Jun 2014 - Offline virtio installation on Windows 2012R2

Hello all,

I'm trying to automate the installation of the VirtIO drivers on a
Windows image in the same way it is done in [1] and [2].

Registering the viostor service and adding the driver under the
HKEY_LOCALE_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\CriticalDeviceDatabase
registry key, makes an Windows 2008R2 image boot if the hd is under the
virtio interface, but I cannot make this work for Windows 2012R2. As far
as I've seen, the CDDB registry keys are deprecated in newer Windows and
creating them back does not seem to make this work.

Has anybody had any luck with this? Is there any other way to do it for
newer Windows?

If this does not work out, I'll probably try to add the driver
installations process in a RunOnce registry entry, boot the image using
the ide interface and reboot it using VirtIO after the drivers have been
installed, but I wanted to know if there is an easier way to do this.

Thank you in advanced,
Nikos

[1] https://github.com/libguestfs/hivex/blob/master/sh/example6
[2]
https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/virt-v2v.git/tree/lib/Sys/VirtConvert/Converter/Windows.pm

[Matt (CC'd) can probably answer this one better than anyone ...]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 11:34:08AM +0300, Nikos Skalkotos
wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I'm trying to automate the installation of the VirtIO drivers on a
> Windows image in the same way it is done in [1] and [2].
> 
> Registering the viostor service and adding the driver under the
> HKEY_LOCALE_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\CriticalDeviceDatabase
> registry key, makes an Windows 2008R2 image boot if the hd is under the
> virtio interface, but I cannot make this work for Windows 2012R2. As far
> as I've seen, the CDDB registry keys are deprecated in newer Windows
and
> creating them back does not seem to make this work.
> 
> Has anybody had any luck with this? Is there any other way to do it for
> newer Windows?
> 
> If this does not work out, I'll probably try to add the driver
> installations process in a RunOnce registry entry, boot the image using
> the ide interface and reboot it using VirtIO after the drivers have been
> installed, but I wanted to know if there is an easier way to do this.
> 
> Thank you in advanced,
> Nikos
> 
> [1] https://github.com/libguestfs/hivex/blob/master/sh/example6
> [2]
>
https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/virt-v2v.git/tree/lib/Sys/VirtConvert/Converter/Windows.pm
Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
virt-p2v converts physical machines to virtual machines.  Boot with a
live CD or over the network (PXE) and turn machines into KVM guests.
http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v

On 13/06/14 12:51, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> [Matt (CC'd) can probably answer this one better than anyone ...]
I haven't implemented this for W2k12. Sounds like a job for Google and a
couple of weeks of experimentation :( Be prepared to find many blog
posts which are wrong.

Matt
> 
> On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 11:34:08AM +0300, Nikos Skalkotos wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm trying to automate the installation of the VirtIO drivers on a
>> Windows image in the same way it is done in [1] and [2].
>>
>> Registering the viostor service and adding the driver under the
>> HKEY_LOCALE_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\CriticalDeviceDatabase
>> registry key, makes an Windows 2008R2 image boot if the hd is under the
>> virtio interface, but I cannot make this work for Windows 2012R2. As
far
>> as I've seen, the CDDB registry keys are deprecated in newer
Windows and
>> creating them back does not seem to make this work.
>>
>> Has anybody had any luck with this? Is there any other way to do it for
>> newer Windows?
>>
>> If this does not work out, I'll probably try to add the driver
>> installations process in a RunOnce registry entry, boot the image using
>> the ide interface and reboot it using VirtIO after the drivers have
been
>> installed, but I wanted to know if there is an easier way to do this.
>>
>> Thank you in advanced,
>> Nikos
>>
>> [1] https://github.com/libguestfs/hivex/blob/master/sh/example6
>> [2]
>>
https://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/virt-v2v.git/tree/lib/Sys/VirtConvert/Converter/Windows.pm
> 
> Rich.
> 

-- 
Matthew Booth
Red Hat Engineering, Virtualisation Team

Phone: +442070094448 (UK)
GPG ID:  D33C3490
GPG FPR: 3733 612D 2D05 5458 8A8A 1600 3441 EA19 D33C 3490

I think the way we did this originally was to examine how other
installers worked and what changes they made to the Registry.

You can grab the registry content before and after running a
particular installer, eg:

  $ virt-win-reg windows.img 'HKLM\SYSTEM' > old-system.reg
  # run the installer
  $ virt-win-reg windows.img 'HKLM\SYSTEM' > new-system.reg
  $ diff -ur old-system.reg new-system.reg

You can also use virt-diff to show the differences between the entire
disk image before and after.

  http://libguestfs.org/virt-win-reg.1.html#synopsis
  http://libguestfs.org/virt-diff.1.html

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Virtualization Group, Red Hat http://people.redhat.com/~rjones
Read my programming and virtualization blog: http://rwmj.wordpress.com
virt-df lists disk usage of guests without needing to install any
software inside the virtual machine.  Supports Linux and Windows.
http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-df/

Hello Richard,

Thank you for the quick reply!

I used this:

diff <(hivexregedit --export HIVE_1 \\) <(hivexregedit --export HIVE_2 
\\)

to debug my python registry update code.  I'll also check virt-diff and 
I'll let you know if I have any news.

Nikos

On Fri 13 Jun 2014 15:03:03 EEST, Richard W.M. Jones
wrote:
> I think the way we did this originally was to examine how other
> installers worked and what changes they made to the Registry.
>
> You can grab the registry content before and after running a
> particular installer, eg:
>
>   $ virt-win-reg windows.img 'HKLM\SYSTEM' > old-system.reg
>   # run the installer
>   $ virt-win-reg windows.img 'HKLM\SYSTEM' > new-system.reg
>   $ diff -ur old-system.reg new-system.reg
>
> You can also use virt-diff to show the differences between the entire
> disk image before and after.
>
>   http://libguestfs.org/virt-win-reg.1.html#synopsis
>   http://libguestfs.org/virt-diff.1.html
>
> Rich.
>