Win4Lin User's Guide |
Chapter 2 -- Installing Windows |
(User's Guide Table of Contents) | (Chapter Table of Contents) |
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But before any user can install Windows for their own use, the Windows installation files must first be "loaded" into Win4Lin. This is done only once, and it must be done by the "root" user. This step copies the Windows installation files from your Windows 95 or Windows 98 installation CD into a shared location, so the actual install of Windows for each user does not require the use of the CD again. All users on the system must use the same version of Windows.
NOTE: Loading from Windows installation floppies is not supported. Also note that Windows 3.x is not supported.
This "loading" step also automatically installs MS-DOS from the Windows installation files. So this "loading" of the Windows installation CD is the first thing that must be done after Win4Lin is installed.
The amount of disk space required to load the Windows CD and for each user to install Windows is given in the following table. Note that the loaded CD files are put under /var/win4lin, and for each user, the files are installed under their home directory.
If there is not enough space in the /var filesystem, then you will have to use symbolic links to relocate /var/win4lin to another filesystem that has enough space.
The Per-User files are by default installed where the C: drive is mapped to in the Linux filesystem. The default location for this is $HOME/win. If if you do not have enough room in $HOME for this, you will have to relocate where the C: drive is mapped to. See the section Relocating the C: drive at the end of this page for instructions on how to do this.
Note: The C: drive MUST be mapped to a "local" filesystem. If your $HOME is accessed via NFS then you MUST relocate where drive C: is mapped.
Windows Version | To Load the CD | Per-User C: drive |
40 MB | 41 MB | |
69 MB | 93 MB | |
115 MB | 148 MB | |
132 MB | 195 MB |
To load the Windows 95 or 98 installation CD into Win4Lin, use the Win4Lin Setup GUI utility. You must be logged in as the "root" user to load from the CD. You must have:
The command "winsetup &" starts the Win4Lin Setup GUI utility.
From the first Win4Lin Setup window, follow these steps:
The help page for the "Load Windows CD" window has the full instructions for loading the Windows CD. Instead of duplicating that here, click here to go to to the "Load Windows CD" help page.
This page also covers the topic of the Windows boot floppy.
Installing Windows for a User
Each user needs to install their own copy of Windows.
Note: The root user is not allowed to install or run Windows.
Once the files from the Windows installation CD have been loaded, then installing Windows for individual use is very easy. All that is required is enough disk space, and the Windows "product key". You will have to enter this "product key" data as part of completing the installation of Windows. (You are responsible to have the proper number or type of Windows licenses for all the installations of Windows on your system.)
To install Windows you should be working in the Desktop environment (i.e. using X windows). The DISPLAY environment variable must be set as is normally required for X client programs.
Windows will be automatically installed in your personal C:\windows directory.
To begin the installation of Windows, start up a Win4Lin Windows session. Win4Lin detects that Windows is not installed, and automatically starts the Windows installation GUI. Follow these steps:
One prompt will be for the Windows product key. (You might first see a warning that you have entered a wrong key, even though you have not typed in anything yet. Ignore this warning, and just type in the key.) You can obtain the key value from the disk or the disk-packaging materials supplied by the manufacturer.
If Windows was originally loaded from a "Windows 95 to Windows 98 Upgrade" CD, then you also will need to put your qualifying Windows 95 CD in the drive. When prompted, enter drive "N:\" for the location of the CD.
The first way is to use the Win4Lin Setup GUI to adjust the "win" configuration's drive C mapping. The second is to use regular Linux symbolic links. In either case the first step is to create the new directory where the C: drive is to be located.
For example if you have your own directory named "/local/sally" and you want to relocate drive C from $HOME/win to "/local/sally/win", first create the new directory and make sure only you, the owner, has access to the directory. (This is needed because each user's C drive must be only writeable by the that user, and normally should be unreadable too.) Type these commands to create such a directory:
Then, to change the "win" configuration, start up the Win4Lin Setup GUI and follow the steps:
If you don't want to do the above adjustment of the "win" configuration, you can use symbolic links. If $HOME/win already exists and has files you want to keep, first move the files over to the new directory. Once you have done that and it is ready to be replaced, (or $HOME/win does not exist), do these steps: