Running 3 concurrent Physical Windows to Go systems via a VM

jimbo45 · Apr 3, 2023

Hi folks

Just a little trick if your HOST VM program allows booting from a USB device.

If you've made say 3 physical Windows2Go type systems on 3 different external SSD's / HDD's -- you can (assuming you've got enough storage space and CPU power) run them all concurrently --- simply define 3 VM's and attach the USB devices as physical USB's and then in the appropriate VM just set the boot to choose the USB device. Allocate max RAM for each VM sensibly too.

I've a 64GB RAM machine with 2 physical processors in it (16 threads) so no problem there.

Watch out though for computer names as having non unique computer names will confuse your LAN.

These days with modern CPU's and hardware you should easily be able to manage running several VM's concurrently !!

Check also licensing -- if the systems are identical then they will all be active but the EULA does actually state you are only licensed to run 1 version of windows per machine -- thats a matter for you -- I doubt whether Ms would bother with HOME users experimenting a little -- what they don't want is 500 corporate users running on one version of Windows (not server) !!! etc.

Note some physical hardware might need to be dedicated to a specific machine but a whole slew of stuff is easily "shareable", Experimentation is great fun if you've time and the hardware to do it.

Cheers
jimbo

cereberus · Apr 3, 2023

I cannot think for the life of me why anybody would want to run 3 concurrent WTG sessions?

jimbo45 · Apr 4, 2023

cereberus said:
I cannot think for the life of me why anybody would want to run 3 concurrent WTG sessions?

Like climbing Mt. Everest ---- Because it's there (Or do-able).

Actually lots of uses -- particularly if you have a laptop or "Micro Cube" desktop with very limited space for internal SSD's / HDD's. A lot of new gear packs a lot of power into small spaces - but the downside is that there's usually not sufficient room for adding things like HDD's /SSD's.

Running essentially concurrent physical systems is often a better test than running "Full blown" VM's concurrently for comparing behaviour of applications etc between builds.

Also VM's - test, different languages, different users etc. I personally can't see the use for Twitter but zillions use it. There's all sorts of reasons why people find uses for things while others can't see the point.

Actually I'm wanting particularly to try this out on an ARM processor but with all these things its worth doing a POC (proof of concept) first to see if the idea works before embarking on a project.

I want something like a Raspberry PI type of device -- plenty around with 8+ cores -- which should be fun -- Still the old Engineer left in me.

Cheers
jimbo

5uck3d · Apr 5, 2023

What do you use to create Windows-to-go system? Software-wise. For hardware, I suppose most portable SSDs will work, but what exactly is the requirement for a thumb drive to house WtG?

Bree · Apr 5, 2023

jimbo45 said:
These days with modern CPU's and hardware you should easily be able to manage running several VM's concurrently !!

10 was the most I ever managed... :lmao:

jimbo45 · Apr 6, 2023

5uck3d said:
What do you use to create Windows-to-go system? Software-wise. For hardware, I suppose most portable SSDs will work, but what exactly is the requirement for a thumb drive to house WtG?

Should have enough capacity for a Windows install i.e > 48 GB and be resillient enough. External SSD's are far better for this purpose -- use SATA->USB3/USBC adaptor.

Thumb drives aren't normally fast or resilient enough for running full blown OS'es on them with standard apps like Office etc. An external SSD has no such issues.

1) Get an ISO of the Windows system you want to install -- from here is the best choice :

UUP (Unified Update Platform) Generation Project (v2.4.18) [by @rgadguard & whatever127]

This project helps you just download UUP files or download and create an ISO image in one click.

uup.rg-adguard.net

2) run the script to create the ISO

3) boot the ISO -- you can create bootable ISO via RUFUS or equivanent

4) At boot enter "repair computer" ---> Command line

5) On another external device simply create a small efi partition (100M size, format FAT 32) and another partition big enough for your Windows system e.g 60 GB or whatebver -- Format as NTFS and assign say letter W. The small 100M efi partition assign letter S -- use Diskpart to dfo this ogf course,

Now say the Windows ISO CD is letter D == exit disk part and change to the D:/sources directory

Now use DISM /ApplyImage to apply the image to the "W" partition.

After that finishes run bcdboot to install the windows bootloader e.g bcdboot w:\windows /s S: /f UEFI

Then you should be able to boot your new system -- if you created the bootable windows install iso via Rufus you can ensure its generated bypassing a load of checks and you can use a local account too.

There's loads of more detailed decent instructions on how to do this on these Forums

Note - New builds have to be installed from new although updates within exiting builds are OK for Win2Go built this way.

If your standard Windows system is activated - the Win2Go should also be automatically activated.

Have fun

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 · Apr 6, 2023

Bree said:
10 was the most I ever managed...

Hi there
did you ever try running these as "Physical OS'es" from within a VM !! and directly boot them from the physical device and not the basic VM disk. I know HYPER-V and KVM/QEMU can boot "Native devices" including USB attached drives and can also directly access other USB connected hardware (although in that case the USB is dedicated then to the appropriate "Virtual machine".

IF running as standard VM's of course the only limit is the capacity of the HOST CPU, RAM, and Graphics sub systems -- many server farms run 1000's of VM's (although commercial blade servers are a bit different to discussing VM's on domestic computers !!!).

Cheers
jimbo

Bree · Apr 6, 2023

jimbo45 said:
Hi there
did you ever try running these as "Physical OS'es" from within a VM !! and directly boot them from the physical device and not the basic VM disk....

No, I have copied their .vhdx to another physical machine and native booted it there though....

jimbo45 said:
IF running as standard VM's of course the only limit is the capacity of the HOST CPU, RAM, and Graphics sub systems -- many server farms run 1000's of VM's (although commercial blade servers are a bit different to discussing VM's on domestic computers !!!).

This was running on a cut above the average domestic laptop, a (supposedly) business class Dell Latitude 5410 with 32GB RAM. I normally never run more than two or three at once, but I wanted to see just how far I could push it....

jimbo45 said:
Like climbing Mt. Everest ---- Because it's there (Or do-able).

...precisely :wink:

jimbo45 · Apr 6, 2023

Bree said:
No, I have copied their .vhdx to another physical machine and native booted it there though....

This was running on a cut above the average domestic laptop, a (supposedly) business class Dell Latitude 5410 with 32GB RAM. I normally never run more than two or three at once, but I wanted to see just how far I could push it....

...precisely

@Bree

Great stuff !!

Have you tried also to get OS/2 Warp to run !!! great fun believe it or not. In its day was so far ahead of Windows with a genuine multi-user multi-tasking system in the tradition of IBM -- pity the row between the fledgling Ms (which was more "savvy" on personal / home systems than IBM on "corporate" stuff) at the time -- the rest though is history !!!

And as a Long time Chelsea F.C supporter from my time studying at Imperial College in London -- Great to see a Chelsea Legend Frank Lampard re-instated as manager until end of season !!!!

Happy Easter everyone.

Gleðilega páska

BTW have you had a go with getting OS/2 Warp running as a VM -- quite challenging but a lot of fun !!

Cheers
jimbo

Bree · Apr 6, 2023

jimbo45 said:
BTW have you had a go with getting OS/2 Warp running as a VM -- quite challenging but a lot of fun !!

No, not that one. But I do have a WfWG 3.11 VM and a Windows '95 VM running in VirtualBox, both with access to my network. There are some hoops to jump through to get '95 to run on modern CPUs.