Bug 921114 - Add a topic about using the VFD to install Windows on virtio devices
Summary: Add a topic about using the VFD to install Windows on virtio devices
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager
Classification: Red Hat
Component: Documentation
Version: 3.3.0
Hardware: All
OS: All
unspecified
low
Target Milestone: ---
: 3.3.0
Assignee: Tim Hildred
QA Contact: ecs-bugs
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: 998182
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2013-03-13 13:53 UTC by Daniele
Modified: 2019-04-28 13:21 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
: 998182 (view as bug list)
Environment:
Last Closed: 2014-04-07 03:05:41 UTC
oVirt Team: Docs
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Daniele 2013-03-13 13:53:38 UTC
Description of problem:
The documentation doesn't mention it but in the Windows2008 directory, on the virtio drivers installation floppy, there's no disk driver.
The one to be used is in the Windows2008R2 directory, but there's no mention about it in the docs.

Is it possible to mention it somewhere?

Comment 1 Tim Hildred 2013-03-14 04:13:09 UTC
Hey Daniele,

Is this a case of, some of the drivers are in the Windows2008 directory, except for the disk driver, which is in the Windoows 2008R2 directory?

Or its all in the same directory, but not the one some users might expect?

Comment 2 Daniele 2013-03-19 11:09:18 UTC
The Windows2008R2 directory contains disk and ethernet driver, while the Windows2008 directory only contains the ethernet driver.
The disk driver contained in the Windows2008R2 is the one to be used on Windows2008.

I see 2 possible solutions here:
  1. let there be a copy of the file in both directories
  2. document the fact that you need to use the disk driver contained in Windows2008R2

Comment 3 Tim Hildred 2013-05-09 09:30:28 UTC
For the next release, I'd say we'll try and add a topic called: 
Installing Windows Drivers from the Virtual Floppy (or something like that) where we cover the contents of the floppy, and how to attach it to a virtual machine.

Comment 4 Tim Hildred 2013-07-25 07:37:44 UTC
Related to:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=975634

Comment 5 Tim Hildred 2013-07-31 04:57:47 UTC
Hey Daniele

I've just checked in RHEVM 3.2 and 3.3, and this here is the contents of the virtio-win floppy disk image:

[root@ecs-cloud-rhevm ~]# mount -o loop /usr/share/virtio-win/virtio-win.vfd /mnt

RHEVM 3.2:
[root@ecs-cloud-rhevm ~]# ls /mnt/amd64/
Win2003  Win2008  Win7
[root@ecs-cloud-rhevm ~]# ls /mnt/i386/
Win2003  Win2008  Win7  WinXP

RHEVM 3.3:
[root@localhost mnt]# ls i386/
Win2003  Win2008  Win7  Win8  WinXP

[root@localhost mnt]# ls
disk1         i386/         txtsetup.oem

The directory mentioned in the original bug report doesn't seem to exist anymore.

I'll still add a topic about using the virtio-win.vfd during Windows installations to use optimized virtual hardware drivers.

Comment 6 Tim Hildred 2013-07-31 05:08:41 UTC
To address this bug, a new topic called:
Installing Windows on Optimized Virtual Devices
- The virtio-win.vfd floppy image contains Windows drivers for virtio optimized disk and network devices. Using these drivers instead of the emulated device drivers gives increased performance.
- Task: Attaching the virtio-win.vfd floppy image to Windows virtual machines during installation.


This content will be in the Virtual Machines chapter of the Administration Guide, after "8.4.6. Installing a Guest Operating System onto a Virtual Machine"

Comment 10 Tim Hildred 2013-08-13 07:38:04 UTC
Typos fixed, thanks Alision.


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