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

[Hans Holzer]

Hi Frank,

thank your for the detailed feedback. My patch was written for 1.5.6.
The day I submitted the code 1.6.0 was released. If this had been out
before I would have waited and integrated for 1.6.0. I am keen to see
what's new in 1.6.0 and if some of my changes are absolete now, even
better. I will have a look at the new version, but this will take me
some time.

Thanks as well for your hints regarding the config interface. Sounds
good what you mention, I will need to have a closer look at this one
too.

Regarding the SLIC table. Hm that's really interesting that it is not
(yet?) part of the ACPI spec. The SLIC table is a mechanism for
providing pre-activation of OEM Windows (SLP 2.0 System Locked
Preactivation). For an explanation look for example here :
http://www.walkernews.net/2007/05/06/slp-hack-to-activate-windows-vista-permanently/
http://keznews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6990

And a final remark due to the arguable source of those links. Cracking
and license violation is not my motivation. But MS for example has
changed the license agreements for Vista allowing everyone to run a
copy of Vista in a VM. Phone or Internet activation is not a feasible
solution for VMs. These changes make it much more convenient to use
Windows guests for home users / small offices where OEM versions are
often in use. Some forum posts indicate that there is demand for such
a change. Yes it can be misused for cracking purposes as well.

I could only test it on a Windows host, but my preactivated Vista runs
fine. It woud be interesting if someone can verify this for a Unix
host as well (it should work).

I will follow-up if I have news with the 1.6.0 stuff. Thanks again.

HansH


> 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/
>