This mostly overviews my installation of Windows 7 (pre-beta) build 6956 in VirtualBox hosted on a Windows XP machine and the problems I had.
Disclaimer:
Windows 7 pre-beta is still under heavy development. Don't install on a machine which cannot safely crash. VirtualBox installations should be safe, but who can guarantee. This software is likely not legal for just anyone to use. It expires after 30 days of use. This should be used as an educational tool, if at all.
Links:
torrent link (as of 2008.12.11)
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4561592/Windows_7_Ultimate_Beta_Build_6956_32Bit_-_Watermark_Removed
VirtualBox link
http://www.virtualbox.org/
I'm a Windows user. Not because I think Windows is superior, just because I know it. Laziness. I've considered switching to Ubuntu or something...and want to, but I game occasionally. For those who do not know, (prepare for over-simplification) games designed using Direct X don't port well to other platforms. Games designed using OpenGL are far more easily ported to other platforms. Plus I am super familiar with loads of applications for Windows. But I digress.
I downloaded Windows 7 (pre-beta build 6956) using a bit-torrent client. After a few years, I'm still not comfortable with Vista because I've not been exposed to it very frequently (when repairing other folks' computers). Also, I've not had a good reason to install it myself. That said, I've read very positive pre-reviews of Windows 7 so I thought I'd get a head start on learning my way around. As to not risk my system, I thought I'd install it using VirtualBox (PC Virtualization software -- a 'software' computer, to put it simply).
Installing Windows 7 on my XP SP3 VirtualBox Host went without any major hitches. The only problem I ran into was using VirtualBox's dynamic sized hard-drive (where your virtual hard drive starts small and 'grows' as it needs to). I had to use a static hard-drive (I picked 20 GB).
Setup was a little easier, but I think I was complicating a relatively simple problem. The VirtualBox 'network adapter' wasn't recognized by Windows 7. After a little research, I tried to use the 'Guest Additions' .iso for VirtualBox. It had helped me overcome some problem with Ubuntu in the past. Windows 7 is not supported. After some more research, and a few other failed attempts, I realized that you can (with the Virtual Windows 7 powered down) adjust the 'network adapter' used by VirtualBox. The default one didn't work, but the following steps left me with a working network adapter and no futher problems with Windows 7 on VirtualBox:
- right click the Virtual Installation (in my case, I named it Windows 7) and click settings
- go to network
- change 'network adapter' to 'Intel/PRO 1000 MT Desktop'. The other settings should not be changed
Next time Windows 7 was started, it works fine. I allocated 1GB of ram and have a mid-range dual-core system and it runs great for me.
I hope no one spends as much time as I did on this problem, but if anyone has and didn't find an answer, I hope this helps with some resolution!
6 comments:
How many Dr Peppers did this take for you to finish? I do run Ubuntu on a dual boot machine at home, have to have winders for work. But I find that I prefer Ubuntu so I rarely use winders unless forced to. At work the it dept still has us using XP too. I knew there was another winders OS out there but didn't know what it was called so Flickr comes to the rescue again ;-)
Thanks, buddy. This worked perfectly. Now I can play around with Windows 7 and be connected as well.
thanks, worked :)
Sounds cool, and thanks for taking the time to blog this.
What sort of RAM, physical and virtual, did you need to get things going?
i didn't know i ever got views...much-less comments. sorry for the delay everyone, glad for the reads and if it helped/informed anyone at all!
[Wray Post] probably more like beer than dr. pepper. ;-) i've done two 7 installations on VBox now...the second one easier than this one with no problems at all until I wanted to access the host machine files. I think i made another tutorial on that over at chapmanit.blogspot.com
yeah...other than games, i totally think the switch to Ubuntu would be a breeze. i finally got a laptop for work and since I really code far more than game, I am currently triple booting it with 7, vista (mostly for reference), and ubuntu. Ubuntu is the default and def gets the most usage. been showing off compiz to my family member and they are very impressed!
[Taylor McCleve] my pleasure. thanks for reading and taking the time to comment! check out my chapmanit.blogspot.com for similar tutorials (and not so similar ones) or my budding site chapmanit.com for a good laugh. ;-p
[dapples] glad it helped!
[zaptech] my pleasure. sorry for the delay...i thought i'd get an email or something when a comment occurred, but i guess not.
i have an amd 64 x2 6400 and 2GB DDR2 6400 ram. i think i allocated 1GB of the ram to the 7 guest install and enabled hardware graphics rendering. it ran very smoothly...not really much hesitation...it seems to be less resource needy than Vista.
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