[Qemu-devel] Win on Win successes and problems

[<jeebs@yango.us>]

As some of you may remember, I've posted several comments in here about how poorly the Windows version of qemu works.  It wont boot any Windows guest, and even DOS has some problems.

Since the previous versions wouldn't install Win9x or XP under a XP host, I decided to try it again with the latest april 11th build from FreeOSZoo.

All I did was install.  I didn't run any major tests to see if things work right.  Just installed and booted.

1) Win98 installs!  Finally!  I didn't try going beyond booting it, but at least it now gets that far.  Who knows, it may crash the instant I try to do anything.

2) WinXP Pro:   Fails.  I tried twice and both time it stopped in the black "Please wait..." screen at the end of the install.  I do have a slower computer, so either I didn't wait long enough (2+ hours on an old P3), or it locks up.  The first time, there was no disk I/O after an hour and my system went into standby mode, so I suspect it is hanging.  (The second time I disabled standby, in case that had caused a problem.)



But at least Win98 installs.  That's a major advance for Windows hosts!  Before, we could barely boot DOS.

I haven't yet had time to run any other tests.


I did notice a few other issues, though...

1) Qemu changes the mouse movement rate and acceleration anytime qemu is in the foreground or when the qemu window changes sizes (even if qemu is in the background.)  It should only do that when qemu is in the foreground and has captured the mouse.

2) There were a couple times during testing that the qemu screen image became corrupted.  (Usually when a XP window happened to open over it.)  Switching to/from the command window didn't restore the screen.  Perhaps a command could be added to force the redrawing of the guest window?

3) For Windows users, it sure would be nice if you could have the command screen as a seperate, always visible screen, instead of switching back and forth.  Perhaps a command line switch could enable that?

4) When XP Pro asked if I wanted it to switch from 640x480 to 800x600, the screen image looked rather odd.  Lines across it, etc.  Perhaps a bug in the qemu VGA video card?


And a couple of items from the qemu-user forum.  (Just in case the developers aren't paying too much attention to what gets said there...)

1) Add scroll bars to the qemu window.  Like vmware does.  That way you can do a qemu screen larger than your physical screen.  1024x768 on an 800x600 screen, for example.  Or for that matter, even an 800x600 on an 800x600 screen, since windows has the task bar taking up some screen area, and the qemu title bar takes up a little more.

2) qemu-image can't create a raw disk image larger than 2g, even on NTFS.  This is due to 32 bit integers etc., of course.  This should either be fixed or changed to a default disk format of qcow, instead of raw.  (Or better yet, both fix and make the change.)  I don't know if qemu itself would have a similar problem reading large raw disks under XP.  (Are there any disadvantages to qcow images?  If so, perhaps make them default only at 2g and larger, and keep raw and <2g?)  (Also, the qemu-image program needs to list the image formats available in the online help.)


Also, I didn't get around to testing to see if the cd change problem had been fixed.  If not, then that needs to be worked on, because otherwise you might not even be able to install an OS, much less actually do anything with it.



So the Windows port is improving, but it still needs work to reach the same level of usability as the Linux version.