Windows 7 Licensing and Immutable Disks

Discussions about using Windows guests in VirtualBox.
aidz
Posts: 1
Joined: 12. Mar 2013, 12:42

Re: Windows 7 Licensing and Immutable Disks

Post by aidz »

Hi there. Is this patch required for VB 4.2.6 and 4.2.8 versions? I thought it was included in to newer realeases?

anyway, I'm getting Error message "invalid configuration for device pcbios device (VERR_PDM_DEVINS_UNKNOWN_CFG_VALUES)."

Any ideas how could I fix this?
Thanks
Lauscher
Posts: 47
Joined: 14. Mar 2012, 14:19
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Ubuntu 7.04+10.04, Xubuntu 11.10
Location: Germany

Re: Windows 7 Licensing and Immutable Disks

Post by Lauscher »

The patch code is included in 4.2, you don't need to use the patch anymore.
Your error should be due to syntax errors.

Edit:
If you have to set a string as parameter, and it sounds for example "0001", you have to type "string:0001".
Last edited by Lauscher on 16. Mar 2013, 04:43, edited 1 time in total.
bigboiler
Posts: 1
Joined: 16. Mar 2013, 01:02
Primary OS: Ubuntu 12.04
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: WinXP, Win 7
Location: Germany

Re: Windows 7 Licensing and Immutable Disks

Post by bigboiler »

Hi,
with help of the german tutorial written by Lauscher it was straighforward to set up a Win7 Guest as RAW VM with VBox 4.2.6 on Ubuntu 12.0.4. It is interesting to read here how many work has been done before that to establish this feature, its really great, thanks a lot to all involved.

Now, I wanted to move onward to the next step:
1) Dualboot System with Win8 and Ubuntu 12.0.4, EFI Boot / GPT
2) set up Win 8 like above as RAW VM Guest with current VBox 4.2.8

I did include SLIC table and the DMI values with the scripts resp. VBoxManage setextradata ... commands, but on starting the VM I get this error

Code: Select all

VBoxManage: error: Configuration error: Querying "RamSize" as integer failed (VERR_CFGM_VALUE_NOT_FOUND)
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component Console, interface Console.
In turn I noticed the following:
1) turning to legacy BIOS boot (i.e. disable 'Enable EFI' flag) will make the VM start up and boot. Of course, boot doesn't work then, 'cause it is not in EFI mode
2) activating 'Enable EFI' and removing all extradata settings related to 'pcbios', i.e. all lines of the form

Code: Select all

ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/Dmi...

from the .vbox file will make the VM start up and boot the guest in EFI mode. \\
(Note: Boot proceeds at least unto the Win 8 Boot Menu, Win 8 itself does not yet boot completely, but i think that's a different problem)

The issue relavant for this thread is that apparently the dmi config data setting currently only works in legacy BIOS mode,
it does not work when EFI is enabled.
At east that's my observation so far. Has aynone else already tried the steps from this thread already on an EFI Boot system with Win7 or 8 ?

Greetz
-boiler
Lauscher
Posts: 47
Joined: 14. Mar 2012, 14:19
Primary OS: Ubuntu other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows XP, Ubuntu 7.04+10.04, Xubuntu 11.10
Location: Germany

Re: Windows 7 Licensing and Immutable Disks

Post by Lauscher »

Hello everyone, hello scp!

Since the bug with booting windows using the "Enable EFI" flag is fixed, I would like to make a new attempt to virtualize a physical installed UEFI-Windows 8.1 using raw disk access (as described for XP and Windows 7 in this german tutorial).

I have 2 problems associated with the patch that was developed here.

The first problem is, I have to include 2 ACPI tables into the VM, SLIC and MSDM. The patch allows only to include 1 table.
scp wrote:Yes, currently it is limited to a single table.
I already thought about supporting multiple tables, but first I will have a look if it is a good idea to use a dynamic array inside the config or just name it CustomTable1, CustomTable2 etc.
Hello scp, did you realized a support of multiple tables?

The second problem is what bigboiler described in the post above this one:
bigboiler wrote:activating 'Enable EFI' and removing all extradata settings related to 'pcbios', i.e. all lines of the form

Code: Select all

ExtraDataItem name="VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/Dmi...
from the .vbox file will make the VM start up and boot the guest in EFI mode. \\
[...]
The issue relavant for this thread is that apparently the dmi config data setting currently only works in legacy BIOS mode,
it does not work when EFI is enabled.
The problem bigboiler described is special to the parameters DmiBoardVendor, DmiBoardProduct, DmiBoardVersion, DmiBoardSerial that have been included withe the patch. dmidecode says:
Wrong DMI structures length: 608 bytes announced, structures occupy 275 bytes
scp, you said:
scp wrote:The "Wrong DMI structures length" can not be avoided currently, because it is a fixed value. But I don't think it harms the system.
At this point, when booting with "Enable EFI" flag enabled the "wrong DMI structure length" seems to harm the system als bigboiler described.
Maybe, these parameters are not needed to avoid a new activation of Windows 8, but I don't know.

I hope you can help me at this point.

Greetings, Lauscher
PCab50
Posts: 2
Joined: 2. Nov 2015, 20:25

Re: Windows 7 Licensing and Immutable Disks

Post by PCab50 »

I'm in the same situation as Lauscher, needing both SLIC and MSDM as Custom Tables. Is this the right place for a feature request?
Post Reply