Xen users - Apr 2007 - puting a running win98 installation under control of xen - hvm

I am trying to run win98 under xen with intel VT technology. I made a hard 
disk image from a working installation (which runs a software I don''t
want to
install again) an configured xen to use this image, using stdvga=0 and sdl=1. 
It starts booting and shows the windows screen, but hangs up very soon. When 
switching to the confirmation mode (pressing F8 to get the menu and then 
select the confirmation mode), where you have to confirm every loading of the 
next driver, it hangs when loading the himem.sys driver. Is it possible to 
get win98 running under xen-hvm, if yes is it possible to convert a running 
installation to run under xen (as I described above)?
Thanks for any help 
Thilo

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com 
> [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of 
> Thilo Riessner
> Sent: 17 April 2007 18:20
> To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: [Xen-users] puting a running win98 installation 
> under control of xen - hvm
> 
> I am trying to run win98 under xen with intel VT technology. 
> I made a hard 
> disk image from a working installation (which runs a software 
> I don''t want to 
> install again) an configured xen to use this image, using 
> stdvga=0 and sdl=1. 
> It starts booting and shows the windows screen, but hangs up 
> very soon. When 
> switching to the confirmation mode (pressing F8 to get the 
> menu and then 
> select the confirmation mode), where you have to confirm 
> every loading of the 
> next driver, it hangs when loading the himem.sys driver. 
The "himem.sys" driver is a driver that allows real-mode applications
to
access "high memory", i.e. memory above 1MB. This requires transitions
between protected mode and real-mode, which is a known problem-area for
Intel processors. There is work ongoing to fix this, but at present,
this is "difficult code" for the Intel processor, as it
doesn''t support
real-mode in virtual machines. Instead, real-mode is run in vm86-mode
(same as a "dos-box" in Windows uses - but try loading
"himem.sys" in a
dos-box, and you''ll see that that doesn''t work either,
although the
exact problem may appear slightly differently). 
> Is 
> it possible to 
> get win98 running under xen-hvm, if yes is it possible to 
> convert a running 
> installation to run under xen (as I described above)?
It appears that some people are successfully running Win98(SE) on HVM. 

As to taking an existing installation, that is the same as "changing
motherboard" on an existing windows installation, something that for
example Win98 is notorious for not happily tolerating. There are things
you can do, which involves setting the registry to "I''ve not yet
discovered what PnP devices there are". I doubt this will fix the
"himem.sys" issue described above tho'', and as far as I know,
himem.sys
is needed for booting Win98. 

--
Mats
> Thanks for any help 
> Thilo
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> 
> 
> 


_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

>
> The "himem.sys" driver is a driver that allows real-mode
applications to
> access "high memory", i.e. memory above 1MB. This requires
transitions
> between protected mode and real-mode, which is a known problem-area for
> Intel processors. There is work ongoing to fix this, but at present,
Will this fix be available in short future?
> this is "difficult code" for the Intel processor, as it
doesn''t support
> real-mode in virtual machines. Instead, real-mode is run in vm86-mode
> (same as a "dos-box" in Windows uses - but try loading
"himem.sys" in a
> dos-box, and you''ll see that that doesn''t work either,
although the
> exact problem may appear slightly differently).
>
> > Is
> > it possible to
> > get win98 running under xen-hvm, if yes is it possible to
> > convert a running
> > installation to run under xen (as I described above)?
>
> It appears that some people are successfully running Win98(SE) on HVM.
Does anybody know which versions (may be win98SE?) under which conditions are 
running under xen?

>
> As to taking an existing installation, that is the same as "changing
> motherboard" on an existing windows installation, something that for
> example Win98 is notorious for not happily tolerating.
I know about that but I don''t get even so far. I hope that if the
himem.sys
problem is solved, it will be possible to start in the "secured mode"
(don''t
know wheather it is translated right I know just the German wording of 
win98: "abgesicherter Modus") of windows 98 and "install"
the new hardware
then.
Thanks for the quick response so far.

Thilo

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@lists.xensource.com
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users