Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

AntonellaBiserka wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2024 11:25 am

mouldy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:14 am

Windows 10 loses support in 2025 so not far down the road. I rarely use it except to run yearly tax software. Again this year tried tax software in WINE. It installs, it runs, the fonts even look nice. BUT it wont let me enter activation code and it wont update. So thinking, three years away, what about win11.

I found a hacked n-lited version online, download a meager 1.6GB, tiny compared to official version. Burned the iso to dvd. Booted. LOL, the installer is in Portuguese. It gives an install option of "Ingles". So off to the races. This by way on my ancient HP DC5100 with P4 processor. Well this hacked version had been hacked to where it doesnt check hardware and at the end doesnt try to force one into a Microsoft Account. And it finally boots to desktop....

Its of course in Portuguese, I imagine the hacker person to reduce size removed all language packs except for his native one. To my eyes it looks just like variation on win10 so guessing they needed an influx of cash to bring this out. Oh I did like way its organized better than win10. But not enough to ever want to use it on daily basis. I installed the tax software and no surprise it installed fast and worked well. Just to use it once a year for tax software, dont even care that its in Portuguese, the software installed is in English.

Its funny this old computer gets yet another lease on life. Maybe 30 years old when its finally retired. It originally came with XP on it though some may even had win2000. Then the tax software sniffed for XP and refused to run one year. I think it could, they just purposefully made it check and not run on XP. That year I got tax softwaer to run in WINE but it was a painful experience for a one time use. So found out win10 could be run unactivated indefinitely so installed that. Sure wasnt going to buy it. Amazingly worked ok. No sound card driver for it in win10 but who cares. Now as win10 winds down it gets chance to continue with win11. Never would have believed it. I will of course lock it so it wont try to update. That would probably not be a good thing if MS gets more um, determined to micromanage things.

I wouldnt count on win11 continuing this lax about what it installs on. I imagine Microsoft will lock it down to where it cant be installed on older computers and eliminate the workarounds, but for now, works fine for my purposes. Yep win11 on a nearly 20 year old computer. LOL With all that bloat hacked away, it really even runs fairly reasonably, not sluggish.

How is this taking you so far? Interesting that you were able to get Windows 11 running on such an old system, even if it was a hacked version. I imagine Microsoft will likely tighten up the hardware requirements going forward, but for now it's cool that you could breathe some new life into that old PC. Just be careful about security with the hacked version - might be better to upgrade to an officially supported OS when Windows 10 support ends in 2025.

LOL, this is more of a lark than anything. I rarely use windows, mostly to run tax software once a year. And these "tiny" and "micro" versions I have recently been trying, have so much removed that they make a much smaller target. Cant attack fluff and cruft that no longer exists. No not buying into fake promises of security by Microsoft. If only you spend more and share more of your information with us.... LOL Best security revolves around good user decisions. All security software in world cant protect you from yourself.

Oh something that became apparent tracking down Wizard's problem with Rufus creating "windows to go". Rufus obviously uses some files from the windows install its running on. But it creates its own unique bootloader variation. One that neither "windows repair" nor Rufus can repair. So if you somehow depend on a Rufus "windows to go", strongly suggest you save a copy of the bootloader partition. I tried just copying the two folders but ran into it complaining it couldnt copy some "special file". So likely only way to copy the parttition would be to dd it elsewhere. dd doesnt really care about permissions or being too "special" to copy. Then if 'windows to go' cant boot, you can dd the partition to restore it.

I suppose if you run into this without having made a backup partition. That you could use Rufus and recreate the windows to go and either use that boot partition or replace the new empty windows with the partition you have been using. No idea if any of the other windows to go software out there have a way to repair things or not. But is something to consider. I looked and there is no linux script or software to create a windows to go, and honestly there is no reason such should exist. But lot creative people out there so you never know. This also explains why even if you could successfully run Rufus via WINE, such an install could never create a "windows to go" since it depends on borrowing boot loader files it snatches from the windows its run on, Something WINE wouldnt have. though sure it probably could create a bootable flash drive installer. I tried Rufus on WINE some time back. It will load, no problem, but it cant see the drives. Probably a way to do this as I got some windows dvd burner software working in WINE, but its not obvious and WINE least back then had tendency to 'forget'. So....

@mouldy

hardware - Intel dg31pr. Intel q9400 quad core, 4gb ram
-w10pro
-Windows X-Lite (22621.1928) 'Micro 11' SE By FBConan.iso (the one you recommended)

Used Rufus 3.20 to create a standard install USB = OK, no errrors

Booted X-Lite USB and installed to hdd, no errors

System fails to boot after install.

This X-Lite looks like it's a no go.

UPDATE 240413:
This w11 X-LIte did finally boot after approx an hour. Reboots are slower and response times are noticeably slower than standard W11 on this same hardware.

wizard

wizard wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2024 6:47 pm

Used Rufus 3.20 to create a standard install USB = OK, no errrors

Booted X-Lite USB and installed to hdd, no errors

System fails to boot after install.

I think I see your problem, you need to use Rufus to directly create a "windows to go" on the usb drive you want to boot. There is an option in Rufus to show ALL hard drives, not just thumbdrives or sd cards. You arent limited to thumbdrive or sd card. Use that and pick the usb drive you actually want to boot from. I dont think you can install to one drive then just willy nilly copy to another drive and expect it to boot. Well you can if you dd smaller drive to larger drive of course. Or probably some other cloning software. Downside, if you point Rufus to a usb hard drive (SSD) it will take over the whole drive for windows to go. So if you have other partitions you dont want nuked, then yea you have to create windows to go on one drive and dd it to partition on the drive you want to use. Its not Micro 11's fault, this is just limitation of Rufus created windows to go.

All I know I have two windows to go of Micro 11, one GPT, one MBR. Both on usb SSDs. Both created with Rufus running on Tiny 10. One or the other will boot on just about anything. Though I would suggest a computer that at least came with win7 originally. Some XP/Vista computers can do it, but pretty sure about all win7 and up computers can.

thinking about it wouldnt doubt somebody has come up with a way to make GRUB2 boot a standard install of windows from usb. That would be more likely than somebody creating a linux script to make windows to go. Problem is GRUB tends to chainload windows bootloader so it would somehow have to do more than that. Have to convince the windows boot loader that its in a normal internal hard drive install. Be interesting to figure out how it knows the difference. I assume Microsoft not wanting willy nilly "windows to go" has some way for it to sniff out the difference and refuse. Cause the standard windows bootloader wont load windows from usb drive. Alternatively might be somebody that has figured out how to manually modify windows bootloader to do this. Without any magic tricks from software. That would be best if one could find it.

Ventoy can do this also. This link shows three methods the first, win2usb is restricted in free version, then rufus, then ventoy. I have never tried the ventoy method. There may also be some older version win2usb floating around, they didnt used to restrict the free version that much. And you could move an actual internal drive install to a usb drive and it would boot. Nice but not worth paying for unless you have no alternative and really need it. https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-run ... -usb-drive

Lot of this stuff just takes persistence to get it working. There is always some nitpicky detail that gets overlooked or glossed over in some article.

Actually as small as it is, running something like micro 11 or atomic 11 in a virtual machine would make lot sense. Little more security. Should run as well as WINE though of course larger, though WINE anymore is really bloating up.

I still am curious why nobody is showing some manual method to make windows boot from usb. If software can do it, so should one be able to do it manually. Cant be any more frustrating than GRUB.

@mouldy

I think I see your problem, you need to use Rufus to directly create a "windows to go" on

Nope, tried that it fails, see my post from 4/12.

All I know I have two windows to go of Micro 11, one GPT, one MBR. Both on usb SSDs

And I think there is the difference, you are using USB SSD's and I'm trying to install to a USB flash drive.

Win some, lose some.

wizard

Yep, trying to install anything but Puppy-like system (or live installer) to flashdrive not great results. Windows would thrash one I think And my experiments show even full install linux is pretty slow.

I got sidetracked thinking about all this. Not sure GRUB could do it, but perhaps CLOVER. I ran across this page with lot information, lot more than I can digest at one sitting. https://woshub.com/booting-windows-7-fr ... -non-uefi/

Not even sure why I am all that interested, but its another puzzle to figure out and more interesting than solitaire or another murder mystery to read. Not like I even need more than one small install of windows for tax software. Alas people that could benefit from this stuff the most are least likely to see it or else they are so brainwashed that they can only see doing things the company way. Otherwise their computer might blow up or something. But hey never hurts (that much usually) to experiment.