As you might have heard, yesterday Microsoft made Windows 7 beta available to public. Windows 7 is the next version of the Windows Client operating system after Vista. To know what is new and other features, read this…
People went crazy about downloading and testing this latest Microsoft kid. Microsoft servers could not handle the load and so Microsoft had to postpone the beta release to public.
But now everything seems OK and Microsoft has also removed the initial first 2.5 Million download availability cap as well.
Assuming you have already downloaded the .ISO file and got a key as well. I will go ahead and show you how you can try Windows 7 with Ubuntu using VirtualBox. Instructions should be same for any other Linux distro. And if you are using VirtualBox with Windows XP and Vista, then also you can follow this tutorial. (I have used Ubuntu in this tutorial.)
Preparation:
- If you haven’t already installed VirtualBox. Then go and download latest VirtualBox application (Latest version is 2.1.0 at the time of writing). It’s a 34.3 MB deb file. (Make sure you don’t have any previous version already installed. Else uninstall that first.)
The one available in Synaptic is old, so please don’t install it. - Double click the downloaded file and install the package.
- Follow the on screen prompts (if any.) That should go smooth.
- As soon as you have installed the application, reload the session. (Not a necessary step, but to be on the safer side I recommend.) A simple CTRL+ALT+Backspace should be OK.
- Go to Applications > System tools > Sun xVM VirtualBox to open the application for use.
Initial VirtualBox Setup for Windows 7:
Go through the following screencast for step by step instructions to setup VirtualBox for Windows 7. Please note the memory usage carefully. (Don’t assign more RAM for guest OS, as you host OS might become unusable.)
Installing Windows 7:
Once everything is setup in Virtualbox, you should see a item on the main screen of VirtualBox. Click on Start to start the Windows 7 installation process.
To install Windows 7, just follow the on screen prompts and everything should be self explanatory. But you can go through the screencast to see what you should see during installation:
Now once you have done all that mentioned above, you should see Windows 7 desktop with Blue Background and fish. As shown below:
But two things you won’t find working – (i) Sound and Video and (ii) Network Adapter i.e. Internet.
Installing VirtualBox Guest Additions:
To get them working, we’ll need to install VirtualBox Guest Additions. And how do you install VirtualBox Guest Additions:
- Click Devices in the menu bar, and choose Mount CD/DVD-ROM, and then choose CD/DVD-ROM Image.
- Choose VBoxGuestAdditions.iso, and click the Select button.
- The AutoPlay window should open at this point, click on Open/View files. If it doesn’t don’t panic; on your newly installed Windows 7 Desktop, click on Start and go to Computer and explore the CD Image you just mounted.
- Right-click the VBoxWindowsAdditions file and choose properties.
- In the Properties window, go to the Compatibility tab. Check the Run this program in compatibility mode for box, and choose Windows Vista in the box below it. Click OK.
- Double-click the VBoxWindowsAdditions file to run it.
- Follow on-screen prompts.
- After a few seconds, you’ll be asked if you want to install the Sun display drivers. Select the check box to trust software from “Sun Microsystems, Inc.” and click Install.
- Once the installation is finished you will be prompted to restart virtual machine. Please restart.
At this point it will become easy to move and control the mouse and you will be able to use your Virtual Machine in Full Screen mode. But you still don’t have sound or network.
Installing Hardware Drivers:
Please follow the remaining instructions to get the sound and network working.
- Please shut down your virtual machine within Windows 7.
- That should bring you back to Virtual Box application.
- While selecting the Windows 7 entry in Virtual Box application, click on settings.
- Select the downloaded Windows 7 ISO image file under CD/DVD ROM -> ISO Image.
- Change Audio and Network setting as shown below.
- Say OK.
- Start your virtual machine with Window 7.
- You should see a pop-up showing that Windows 7 has found hardware and is installing the drivers.
- Once that is done. You are ready to rock and roll with everything working on your Virtual Windows 7 installation with Ubuntu.
- If you plan to use it more than 30 days then Activate Windows by searching for ‘Activate Windows’ on the Start Menu. (Remember, if you don’t activate, you won’t be able to use Windows 7 after 30 days.)
Hope you find these instruction handy.
Over to you:
Don’t forget to tell me your installation experience and what are your views about Windows 7.
Only thing which I was not able to figure out myself was the network adapter configuration because of which I was not able to connect to internet.
I am looking for some instruction on that, as soon as I find something I will update this article. Meanwhile if you guys know how to do it, please point me to some wiki or blog article. (The article has been updated with details after reading the Virtual Box manual carefully.)
If you find any step confusing, let me know in the comments. Your feedback will be highly appreciated.
Else enjoy Windows 7 Beta till August 2009.
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How to install Windows 7 with Ubuntu – http://tinyurl.com/8k9n57 http://ff.im/-zuZP
Install Windows 7 with Ubuntu using VirtualBox http://ff.im/-A3tg
Completed instruction tutorial for installing Window 7 using VirtualBox on Ubuntu – http://tinyurl.com/8k9n57
Install Windows 7 with Ubuntu using VirtualBox http://ff.im/-BClb
Did you install the 32 or 64 bit version of windows 7? I am running ubuntu 8.10 with the latest virtualbox that you are using. I get an error when its installing about using an unsupported architecture… I’ve tried in both an ubuntu x86 and a 64 bit host with no luck.
@Matt:
I am using the 32-bit architecture on Ubuntu 8.10 i386. Didn’t give me any error at all.
When installing guest additions for the 64-bit version of Windows 7 in a 64-bit virtualBox (ubuntu 8.10), it’s necessary to adjust the compatibility settings of vBoxWindowsAdditions-amd64 and run that instead of the generic vBoxWindowsAdditions. At least on my setup, when an attempt was made to follow the guest additions installation procedure by the book, I was never asked about the video driver and the installation failed. Great post!
Thanks for adding the information about 64-bit.
I installed 32-bit on Intel, so had no clue about this step.
Cheers
Anurag Bansal
I can’t really get widescreen (1280×800 in my case) to work. None of the assorted solutions searching on google comes up with seem to help, though installing the guest drivers gave a few more options (including 6400×1200 o.O).
nevermind, figured it out. installed the drivers manually the first time (pointed the device manager at the guest additions 32bit stuff), but I tried it your way and it worked, thanks
As soon as you install the VBoxGuestAdditions, you should see that option.
In fact, then you will be able to use Windows 7 in full screen mode too.
There is no trick. Hope it helps.
Cheers
Anurag Bansal
I’m using VirtualBox 2.1 on Ubuntu 8.10 and followed your instructions carefully. I had no problems running Windows 7 without the GuestAdditions but after installing them and restarting the virtual machine Windows 7 seems to boot forever showing the pulsating windows-logo and “Starting Windows © Microsoft Corporation”.
Any Hints?
i followed all the above processes but the graphics of windows are not working
it seems like in safe mode , how to get the graphics
RT @tweetmeme Knowliz: Install Windows 7 with Ubuntu using VirtualBox http://bit.ly/44dBKS
Hi all
I had difficulties to make audio work under Windows 7 in VirtualBox 3.0.
The following solution worked:
1. download and install the realtek ac97 drivers in Windows 7.
2. set audio in the virtualbox as follows:
2. a. enable audio
2. b. Host Audio Driver: OSS Audio Driver
2. c. ICH AC97
Windows 7 will recognize the realtek ac97 drivers, install them, and restart.
Note: PulseAudio does NOT work.
How much of ram and processing power would be required to run win 7 and office 2010 upon it in ubuntu through virtualbox?
I have Win7 working under Ubuntu 9.10 with VBox perfectly – with Guest additions of course.
However, one thing I am getting stuck with, is that I can't get the Windows to recognise other drives on my hard disks.
It would be nice to recognise Ubuntu data drives, but I also have a Windows Data partition on one of my computer drives and I can't even get it to see that.
Yes, that's a very common problem with VBox. I will have to check what settings will be required to fix that. So please stay tuned, let me do some digging to find an answer for you.
One question though, are these your external HDD or the internal partitions on Windows and Ubuntu you don't see.
Thanks for that, I'd be very grateful, or I am going to have to do a lot of DVD copying
Currently Browsing: http://is.gd/8yqxG
a little off-topic but the screenshot-slidershows in this tutorial are genius!
a little off-topic but the screenshot-slidershows in this tutorial are genius!