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Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

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Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#51

Post by klauserc »

BxGyw2 wrote: post #26

Just the other night I was looking at the way a Windows 10 install wrote the EFI partition to some random disk it was not installed on at all, and wishing for this, the GUI installer just does ridiculous shit and is really not up to par with even some no name Linux distro's Calamares. I have no idea why people buy this shit, it's Microsoft's luck that it comes preinstalled and most users never touch it

Yeah, learnt that the hard way as well. "I'll install Windows on the new drive, copy over data from the old drive, then throw away the old drive - computer doesn't boot anymore because EFI boot partition randomly ended up on the old drive"

Since then, I always make sure to disconnect all drives except for the intended system drive when installing Windows.

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#52

Post by executesorder66 »

RedShift1 wrote: post #22
greatcircle wrote: post #13

I installed Windows 10 the other week - it kinda blew my mind how poor the install experience was. The iso contained files greater than 4GB, which breaks fat32, which I'm sure many people are still using on flash drives. So I had to use an MS cmd-line tool to split the wim files manually and edit the install files. Why doesn't the installer just use smaller archive files?

Use NTFS instead of FAT32?

No, use exFAT.

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#53

Post by SSLy »

gameoverhumans wrote: post #47
smabie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't wanna install Arch the Arch way either, and I've been running Arch for over 10yrs The Installation just sucks for no purpose. Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it

> Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it Not sure what you're referring to here. Archinstall [1] is relatively recent [2]. I used it a few weeks ago to quickly yeet a machine into Arch for some testing. Worked flawlessly and had the machine from live boot -> Arch install on root media in under 5 minutes. [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall [2]: https://www.ph…

Arch had some CLI installer ~10 years ago.

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#54

Post by worble »

smabie wrote: post #43
tucosan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't even want to install Arch the Arch way. Then don't. You're simply not part of the target audience.

I don't wanna install Arch the Arch way either, and I've been running Arch for over 10yrs The Installation just sucks for no purpose. Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it

They have a command line installer, just type archinstall and it will ask a few questions then do the rest for you.

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#55

Post by mjevans »

The very best was for last... After all the files are in place but before the reboot (or even during setup if using offline media) remain offline until you've signed in.

In fact, don't even set a _password_ initially. Change that AFTER the first boot so the installer doesn't interrogate for recovery information / etc.

""" Bypass OOBE

The Out of Box Experience is changing all the time. The requirement to be online or only use a Microsoft account. Bypass it with this command and using Shift+F10 to bring up the command prompt. NOTE: DISCONNECT FROM INTERNET before booting!

oobe\BypassNRO

System will restart after executing the command. Select Continue with limited Setup and name the device and create a local account. """

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#56

Post by vetinari »

kwanbix wrote: post #49
greatcircle wrote: post #13

I installed Windows 10 the other week - it kinda blew my mind how poor the install experience was. The iso contained files greater than 4GB, which breaks fat32, which I'm sure many people are still using on flash drives. So I had to use an MS cmd-line tool to split the wim files manually and edit the install files. Why doesn't the installer just use smaller archive files?

I imagine that very few people who use Windows have USBs on fat32. In fact, Windows format by defaults on NTFS with the option format on exFAT. There is no option fo format on FAT32, you need to use a specific tool. More so, most people just burn the iso to the usb, deleting everyhing on it.

Windows ISO files are iso9660, so you cannot "burn them" into the usb; only to optical drive.

For USB, Microsoft provides media creation tool, which will format the usb to FAT32, and then copy the files there. As said elsewhere in this thread, it will use esd instead of wim container, which has better compression, so it will fit.

The install USB can be neither NTFS nor exFAT, because neither of these filesystems are recognized by UEFI (as mandatory filesystem, by UEFI spec; yes, some implementations can recognize NTFS, but as a system vendor, you cannot rely on that). So if you want to boot it on a all systems, FAT32 is it.

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#57

Post by joemelonyeah »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #40
philwelch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are easier ways of accomplishing this.

...suggestions/ info/ links?

Personally I would follow Microsoft's guide on partitioning [1] mostly, except the recovery partition which I skip creating. If Windows needs it they will auto create it again anyways in the next major update.

Then I use WinNTSetup [2], just point it to where the Windows setup files are, and which partition is the boot partition (EFI partition) and which partition is to become C:.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu...

[2] https://msfn.org/board/topic/149612-winntsetup-v531/

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#58

Post by qalmakka »

smabie wrote: post #43
tucosan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't even want to install Arch the Arch way. Then don't. You're simply not part of the target audience.

I don't wanna install Arch the Arch way either, and I've been running Arch for over 10yrs The Installation just sucks for no purpose. Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it

They had a TUI installer which was just a rebranded `bsdinstall` from FreeBSD. They got rid of it around ~2009 IIRC because it was objectively bad and they moved away from doing releases. Nowadays they've added a new installer, and as far as people told me it's way better. I still install Arch the Arch way, of course, or rather, I haven't installed Arch since 2014, I've been `rsync`-ing stuff around for a while until 2017, and then `zfs send`-ing the same install over from one computer to another. It's faster and less annoying than setting everything up from scratch IMHO.

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#59

Post by vetinari »

gerdesj wrote: post #44
greatcircle wrote: post #13

I installed Windows 10 the other week - it kinda blew my mind how poor the install experience was. The iso contained files greater than 4GB, which breaks fat32, which I'm sure many people are still using on flash drives. So I had to use an MS cmd-line tool to split the wim files manually and edit the install files. Why doesn't the installer just use smaller archive files?

https://github.com/WoeUSB/WoeUSB - you give it an MS iso and where to put it on a USB stick and it will do the job using NTFS, which doesn't have snags with >4GB files.

You can just copy the files, there is no need for tools to prepare boot media. UEFI will look for efi/boot/bootx64.efi file (on x64 arch) on your removable drive and boot that. There are no magic boot sectors anymore.

The issue is with filesystems recognized by UEFI firmwares. The only mandatory filesystem is FAT32. Some implementations (e.g. Intel systems) can read NTFS, but unless you are targeting such a system specifically, you get to use FAT32, period.

And here comes the issue with the Microsoft's ISO files: the install.wim file is larger than 4 GB. It is possible to split it into multiple wim files, or recompress into esd archive (which is what the Microsoft's tool does), thus fitting into FAT32 limit.

Re: Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

#60

Post by vetinari »

baz00 wrote: post #17
greatcircle wrote: post #13

I installed Windows 10 the other week - it kinda blew my mind how poor the install experience was. The iso contained files greater than 4GB, which breaks fat32, which I'm sure many people are still using on flash drives. So I had to use an MS cmd-line tool to split the wim files manually and edit the install files. Why doesn't the installer just use smaller archive files?

You can make an NTFS USB stick as well then run bootsect on it and it’ll boot. That’ll take wim files of any size.

Only if:

- you want to boot in legacy mode (and your machine supports CSM)

- your UEFI firmware supports NTFS (only mandatory filesystem is FAT32).

Otherwise, if you want generic, UEFI boot media, you would have to find out how to boot from FAT32 partition and once your system runs, how to run installer from another partition.

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