Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[ICPUG]

Thank you shinobar for the extra info.

I finally got the bcedit manual (original version, not the latest) in pdf form. A quick look did not help me to understand when 'device boot' was needed. Your info did!

This little extra 100M partition is a bit of a nuisance. I knew about it before and I also know it can be avoided if you install Windows 7 very carefully. Even though I used a dedicated computer retailer I find my machine has this little extra partition. Apart from wasting one of the 4 allowed primary partitions I hope that somewhere there is some info I can find which explains in detail the Win 7 boot process and what the purpose of this little extra partition is.

[noryb009]

ICPUG: I think it's so that people can't delete the boot loader, so it's easier to repair if people start deleting everything.

[ICPUG]

Thanks noryb.

I have been doing some more searching and apparently the small partition incorporates the Windows Recovery Environment. If Windows 7 does not boot properly a flag does not get reset. Next time you boot the flag is detected and you are booted into that small partition.

Since, with Windows XP, one needed an install disk to get the recovery environment, which lots of PCs didn't have, this small partition is an improvement!

If you install Windows 7 in a set way this environment will be placed in a folder on the main partition instead of creating a separate partition.

The small partition may also be used for bitlocker encryption but as I don't have an enterprise edition Windows 7 that is not something I am going to investigate!

[shinobar]

A success report from bodbozzle of the Lucid-Puppy-Quickset-511-installer.exe with Windows Xp.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60199&start=53

[olgaritmo]

lupu Quickset is a treat which revived my old laptop with no international keyboard setting hassles (the reason why I gave up lupu 511)! You made me an happy environment friendly pc user! Anyway, I tried the installer on WinME but unfortunately it didn't work.
Best regards and I'll keep in touch!
Olga Ritmo

[noryb009]

I just looked it up, and while it runs the same way as 9x, Microsoft removed the boot loader to save a few seconds on startup. This makes it almost impossible to have GRUB installed without editing the MBR, which means I will have to not support Windows ME.

[shinobar]

[emil]

Thank you noryb009,

short success-story; I used the method to make an exe installer from an 580 MB pupplet. I tested it successfully now on a XP and a Windows 7 machine.

Technically I had no problem, but I had to resize peronal storage file 2 times, because everything runs in folder /root/.wine (and you need place for puppy-sfs AND exe file)

is there any possibility to use another directory for the build process (i.e on out of the personal storage file).

Second (small) problem I had when I did "Test Installer" after the creation Process. I had Grub installed before, but this was wiped and afterwards I could only boot to XP (couldn't see my Linux partitions anymore). Luckily I had stored some Puppy iso files on my Windows Partition, so I could revive my computer via USB install. So maybe my example should be a WARNING to others.

cheers and thanks!
emil

[noryb009]

emil: Thanks a lot for helping test.

[emil]

I am also not sure what happend, the exe was created successfully.
But then I think I ran the installer in Puppy with wine still installed (or did I just press the "Test Installer" Button, I cant remember).

I had old grub (not grub4dos) installed on the machine and various puppies and also an old Windows XP install in the menu. My plan was to reboot, then start up Winows XP, and run the installer to test it. But it never entered Grub menu, it went directly to XP (first in sort of recovery mode).

So I reccomend: don't run the exe from inside puppy when you have wine installed and dont press the "Test installer" button of the nsis exe creator programm, until this is resolved.

I still have to reinstall GRUB and get my old boot options back , but no problem.

noryb09 - i think this is the easiest possibility to get puppy running on a computer (most have windows installed), in fact its much easier than burning CD's and messing with USB sticks. Big cudoz for this technique - BIG achievment !!! I think everybody can download a file and click on it!

emil

[emil]

Will there be a problem if the installer runs on a 64 Bit Windows machine?

[noryb009]

It should work with 64 bit, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't.

Ok, I'll just add that to the main post.

Thanks a lot!

[emil]

Hello, may I just ask a quick question:

I am not sure if I got it right how it works:

It checks windows/bottloader version

if xp: it changes the boot.ini
if Vista or Windows 7: it uses bcdedit to change the boot entry (like explained above)
if 9x: I dont know
if an existing grub is found: it stops and asks you to edit the menu.lst manually

then it installs grub4dos, but after the windows bootloader, so you can have 2 menus consecutive bootmenus (1.st on from windows, 2nd one from grub)

it WILL NOT change the mbr!

is this roughly right (especially the part about not changing the mbr)? Sorry about my sloppy terminology.

emil

PS; just for the reccord, while googling yesterday I found EassyBCD which is a free windows gui for editing the boot entries.
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

[noryb009]

That's roughly right. It DOES NOT change the MBR.

[ICPUG]

Emil,

Have a look at the Lin'N'Win notes to see precisely what happens for Windows 9x and Windows XP. Noryb009 has taken my manual procedure and automated it!

I will be updating Lin'N'Win soon with the Windows 7 technique of Noryb009.

The Lin'N'Win notes can be found here:
http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwin/step00-linnwin.htm