libvirt users - May 2014 - Re: convert physical windows 8 machine to virtual machine

>
> The virt-p2v project is your friend; http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v/
Yes, it seems so. I came across some readings about this
tool.
>
> Be aware that you CANNOT have a windows partition that does both
> bare-metal booting and virtual booting without risking having to
> re-register your machine at practically every boot
Hum hum, that's what I am trying to do. I found some .zip files to
apply from w8 that will modify IDE/SATA drivers. Are these driver
changes not enough ?

On 05/15/2014 06:31 AM, arnaud gaboury wrote:
>>
>> The virt-p2v project is your friend; http://libguestfs.org/virt-v2v/
> 
> Yes, it seems so. I came across some readings about this tool.
>>
>> Be aware that you CANNOT have a windows partition that does both
>> bare-metal booting and virtual booting without risking having to
>> re-register your machine at practically every boot
> 
> Hum hum, that's what I am trying to do. I found some .zip files to
> apply from w8 that will modify IDE/SATA drivers. Are these driver
> changes not enough ?
You can definitely install enough drivers so that both bare-metal and
virtual will boot.  But what you cannot do is prevent the pci bus from
changing - the bare-metal boot WILL see different hardware than the
virtual boot, and windows is picky enough that it WILL require
re-registration every time the hardware changes that drastically.
There's no way around it.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

>
> You can definitely install enough drivers so that both bare-metal and
> virtual will boot.  But what you cannot do is prevent the pci bus from
> changing - the bare-metal boot WILL see different hardware than the
> virtual boot, and windows is picky enough that it WILL require
> re-registration every time the hardware changes that drastically.
> There's no way around it.
Ok then. I was going toward mounting the w8 as loop device inside a
raw image, but I understand it will break the bare-metal boot. So
let's go with two w8 (or one VM only and no physical w8).
Thank you for your vise advices.