Xen users - Dec 2008 - about the latest commits to the gplpv (windows PV drivers) hg tree

If anyone is building the gplpv drivers from the hg tree please read
this...

The way that the qemu ide and network drivers were being hidden is not
really correct from a Microsoft ''right way to do things'' point
of view.
It also did not work during Windows textmode (press F6 to load addition
drivers) install time.

I''m experimenting with getting qemu to disable the devices there,
instead of persuading Windows to ignore them, which should be a lot
safer, but obviously requires a patch to qemu. GPLPV will still disable
the qemu devices on the windows side of things for the time being, but
at the moment they appear as drivers that failed to start.

Additionally, I am removing the /GPLPV flag to boot.ini and instead am
introducing a /NOGPLPV flag (eg you need a flag to disable the drivers,
instead of adding a flag to enable them), again to support textmode
install. As per a patch from Steve Meisner, safe mode will also disable
the GPLPV drivers so there should be no ''painting yourself into a
corner''.

Finally, Windows 2000 drivers will no longer be built as part of the
installer. They didn''t work anyway, and I got tired of adding in code
to
work around the missing API functions that I needed in Windows 2000 just
to get it to build, when I knew it didn''t actually run. There is
nothing
to stop anyone building under Windows 2000 themselves though (the build
will fail but there is only once call in there currently that causes
that). With sufficient incentive I could get them working 2000, but
it''s
not a priority at the moment.

So to summarise - if you do build from hg please test carefully.

Thanks

James


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