FreeBSD 9 and Windows XP

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Mon, 2013-03-11 at 12:25 -0600, Warren Block wrote:
> Booting the same Windows install alternately in a VM and then on real 
> hardware may trigger the "Genuine Advantage" annoyance.

This is true, but for some exceptional cases perhaps untrue.

I wasn't aware about this possibility, but it does sound interesting to
me.

I run Windows in VBox only to use an iPad I won and to transfer
documents from my *nix to the iPad.

So my exceptional cases is, that I've got something useful I didn't buy
myself. This thing, the iPad, has a lot of disadvantages, I don't pay
for apps etc., but it's useful as a reader and for some other tasks. I
don't need and I don't use Windows, with this exception (to use the
"reader"/iPad). It's a XP without admin account and service pack 2 only,
I don't give a damn about the state of this Windows or the state of the
"reader". Ok, I made some snapshots, I use this advantage, but I could
live without snapshots.

I'm a *nix only user, the iPad and regarding to this, Windows XP too,
fall into my lap. iPad and Windows aren't important for me, I don't need
the security advantages of the virtual machine. I chose it, to avoid
issues with installing Windows to a real partition, no primary was free
and fixing the boot loader is work and I wish to access iTunes from my
*nix ... however, since *nix tend to be problematic regarding to
hardware, it can't harm to have a Windows to test hardware that does
cause issues with *nix, to ensure that the hardware isn't broken.

In my very exceptional, individual case it might be really interesting
to share a "real" Windows install, directly booted and booted as guest
in VBox. I'm thinking of making a backup of the virtual partition and to
restore it on a real, primary ntfs partition or something similar,
perhaps I can copy just the iTunes data and make a new Windows
install ... OTOH I didn't use a Windows install before, disk space isn't
expensive, so I'm uncertain, if I really want a real Windows install and
if I should wish to have one, it's not to share it with VBox, but keep a
separated version in VBox. I'm not sure that it's really easy to test
hardware when booting it directly and to have completely different
_virtual_ hardware by VBox. What would happen, if for the _virtual_ boot
of XP, the professional audio card is missing? The setups might be that
different, that it perhaps can't switch between a _real_ and a _virtual_
boot without much editing.