running windows applications and making use of existing ms windows installation

mato gamato at users.sf.net
Tue Nov 28 00:29:24 PST 2006


On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:09:50 +0200, albi albinootje wrote
> On 10/19/06, martinko <gamato at pobox.sk> wrote:
> 
> > I've been reading for some time about VMWare, Wine, Qemu, Bochs and some
> > others, but I'm still not sure which one would (best) fit my needs:
> >
> > I've got a dual boot and I would like to make use of existing Windows
> > (XP) installation, not having to create a new virtual disk/system and
> > install everything from scratch.
> >
> > Can I use existing Windows installation with some of the existing
> > "emulation" software ??
> 
> you didn't mention whether you're using NTFS or not on the windows-
> partition, if you do use NTFS then you already have a problem 
> because you can't write to that partition by default (not sure how 
> far the rw-development is on FreeBSD)
> 
> vmware server gives you the possibility to use "raw partitions",
> i've tried that with a linux-partition on an external disc within vmware
> 
> wine is also a possibility, but wine will by default let you start
> only 1 app, YMMV
> 
> last time i tried qemu it didn't support "raw partition" access afair
> 
> if i were you i would use vmware-server and do a fresh install,
> easiest and safest


well, i don't expect write access to become available on freebsd any time
soon.  actually, i've been thinking of using the new ntfs-3g
<http://www.ntfs-3g.org/> via fuse4bsd <http://fuse4bsd.creo.hu/> but that's
not available on freebsd (yet).

regarding vmware, i've been looking forward to new vmware server, which is
free now, but haven't noticed any info on it being ported to freebsd, either.

martin


More information about the freebsd-emulation mailing list