[vbox-dev] Code Submission: Enhanced BIOS settings for better Windows support

[Frank Mehnert]

Hi Hans,

On Friday 02 May 2008, Hans Holzer wrote:
> the following code submission is published under the MIT license.
>
> OEM versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista rely on certain settings
> in the BIOS dmi or ACPI area. The following code submission provides
> the capability to perform certain string values in environment
> variables. In this way for example a manufacturer name can be set or
> slic file can  be attached to the BIOS. So it is possible to use an
> OEM version of Windows XP or Windows Vista as guest without the
> further need for activation. This makes the use of such guests much
> more convenient.

Thanks for this submission.

Please could you tell me which version of VirtualBox you wrote your patch
for? Please have a look at VirtualBox 1.6.0. We added some DMI configuration
strings there. You are right that adding full support for configuration
strings includes modifying the COM interface. However, you can use

  VBoxManage setextradata VM_NAME VBoxInternal/...

to add several VM-related internal config parameters without changing
the COM API. Therefore

  VBoxManage setextradata VM_NAME 
VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiVendor "MyVendor"

would change the DMI VENDOR field. Please have a look at pcbiosPlantDMITable()
in DevPcBios.cpp of VirtualBox 1.6.0. Most of the items you added can already
be overidden with VBoxManage.

Do you have any documentation about a slic file? I cannot find any reference
in the ACPI-3.0 spec.

Thanks,

Frank
-- 
Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert    Sun Microsystems    http://www.sun.com/
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