Is there a windows image that contains none of the hard dependencies like Edge and all stuff? I'm looking for a Windows 10/11 with every that's not necessary stripped out for a local VM for when I need Windows. Ideally things like telemetry, unnecessary apps, windows store etc all removed would be nice. I recall nLite used to be a thing for Windows XP.
Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
51–60 of 123 posts
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#52Is there a windows image that contains none of the hard dependencies like Edge and all stuff? I'm looking for a Windows 10/11 with every that's not necessary stripped out for a local VM for when I need Windows. Ideally things like telemetry, unnecessary apps, windows store etc all removed would be nice. I recall nLite used to be a thing for Windows XP.
I don't know if there's one out there right now but I think it should be possible through the UUP process for creating windows install isos. At least if it is possible that'll be how it's done these days. That might give you enough info to find it if it does exist.
edit: from another comment thread here, https://ameliorated.info/ is apparently everything you're after. Not sure of any info about it myself but that looks to be decently useful.
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
VirtualBox supports two methods of operation: (1) You supply this value in the "DeviceKey" config parameter (2) Ensure the "GetKeyFromRealSMC" boolean config parameter is enabled (not sure if it is turned on by default or not). When enabled, VirtualBox retrieves the value from the SMC of your Mac. Obviously method (2) only works if your host is a Mac. Apple doesn't supply a public API to retrieve this value, so Virtu…
I don't see why someone would opt for option 2 when virtualizing macOS on an Apple machine.
So my understanding – if you run VirtualBox on macOS, and you choose macOS as Guest OS type when creating your VM, it automatically turns GetKeyFromRealSMC on. That means you are using option (2) by default. You can always switch to option (1) instead if you want to, but if you are virtualising macOS-on-macOS, there is little reason to.
From reading the VirtualBox source code [0] – it also automatically enables GetKeyFromRealSMC if it detects Apple hardware, even if the host OS isn't macOS. So, if you install Windows on your Mac, and then create a macOS VM in VirtualBox, it will automatically select option (2) as well. (I think, they actually include the code to talk to the Apple SMC in their Windows and Linux kernel drivers too.)
(Note I haven't actually tried doing this myself, this is just what I gather from the source.)
[0] https://github.com/mdaniel/virtualbox-org-svn-vbox-trunk/blo...
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#54While I appreciate the effort, and the code is very readable. I just want to give a friendly warning that these shell scripts just download random stuff from the internet and run this random stuff without checking any integrity/signature. Apart from that, I will definitely use that project as a documentation for "how to run MacOS/Windows in KVM". Cool project :) .
It does check SHA256 for Ubuntu images, but nothing else I could see.
https://github.com/wimpysworld/quickemu/blob/af26f41440d63a0...
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#55What does this solve that isn't already solved by Vagrant?
Or even libvirt/the various virt-* utilities (eg: virt-install)
I'm not against tooling like this, but as someone already pretty familiar with KVM... I think I'd be quicker with virsh as I've been operating
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a Rot13-encoded string: "ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc". It seems to be the string that is supposed to make MacOS only run on certified systems, but it's obviously been reverse engineered and now it needs to be added to any Mac emulators to work.
Can't the emulator just patch out the code that checks for that string?
That would likely need to be built for every version of MacOS that's ever been made, it's easier to emulate the hardware and provide the key it's looking for. That part alone shouldn't violate any ToS or laws on it's own, as long as the key isn't provided by the emulator/vendor. That will still allow you to
still virtualize MacOS on the actual hardware (as is required by the license of the OS) without having a hacky patch in place that could lead to crashes or failures to boot whenever an update is applied to the guest.
disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#57While I appreciate the effort, and the code is very readable. I just want to give a friendly warning that these shell scripts just download random stuff from the internet and run this random stuff without checking any integrity/signature. Apart from that, I will definitely use that project as a documentation for "how to run MacOS/Windows in KVM". Cool project :) .
It’s a good feedback, while not open an issue to give feedback on GitHub or better, create a PR?
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#58What does this solve that isn't already solved by Vagrant?
I didn't use this, but a similar/related project that is for MacOS as host OS, https://github.com/knazarov/homebrew-qemu-virgl
Vagrant is an orthogonal tool to this, it is a VM orchestrator not an actual VM. What does this do: well, qemu doesn't have virgl support merged yet, so you need to go to some lengths to compile it for yourself.
All of the other stuff (spice, virtio) is for "it should be a nice user experience and perform well" above and beyond simply being fast enough to use. In other words, you should be able to copy and paste between the host OS and the guest. You should be able to slide your mouse across the border of the VM window and do some clicking around then simply slide it back out and use your mouse with native host-OS windows again. It should have all of the features you expect and not force you to read a bunch of tutorials to find the features you expect from your desktop VM.
These things are all not granted when you use qemu out of the box. I have this intense 25-lines "qemu" script for invoking qemu-system properly. It was enlightening but I'm not sure how much I was enriched by the process of actually figuring all this out.
Quickemu is, I guess, for making figuring out all this stuff and making it easier to do (and on Linux.)
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc
Bonus points if you also know these ones (without searching for them): K4HVD... 09 F9 11 02 9D...
I don't know them but I'm going to venture a guess that at least 1 of them is the DVD decryption key.
Re: Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Win-10,11/macOS/Linux on Linux
#60While I appreciate the effort, and the code is very readable. I just want to give a friendly warning that these shell scripts just download random stuff from the internet and run this random stuff without checking any integrity/signature. Apart from that, I will definitely use that project as a documentation for "how to run MacOS/Windows in KVM". Cool project :) .
It does check SHA256 for Ubuntu images, but nothing else I could see. https://github.com/wimpysworld/quickemu/blob/af26f41440d63a0...
It seems to be grabbing the MacOS system recovery images straight off of Apple's servers.