James Bannan16 December 2008, 10:00 PM
Want to get Vista up and running on your Ubuntu system? Find out how with our step-by-step tutorial.
Page 4 - Install Windows Vista
Step 4 - Install Windows Vista
There are a couple of methods available to install the OS. If you have the physical media you can insert that into the host and attach the host's optical drive to the VM. Alternatively if you have the media as an ISO you can attach that directly to the VM as the VM's optical drive.
Installing from the ISO is quicker than from CD, but it does result in more intense hard drive activity.
If you have the physical media and want to create an ISO (which is useful as it reduces wear and tear on the media), you can do this on Ubuntu using Brasero Disc Burning (Applications --> Sound & Video --> Brasero Disc Burning). Select to copy a CD/DVD and change the destination from physical media to file output. You can change the target file properties (location and name), but by default Brasero will create an ISO file in /home/username/
To mount the ISO, highlight the Windows Vista VM in VirtualBox and in the right-hand side of the screen click "CD/DVD-ROM", then tick "Mount CD/DVD Drive" and then "ISO Image". There are no images available for selection in the dropdown menu, so click the folder icon. This opens the Virtual Disk Manager - VirtualBox cleverly keeps track of all the ISOs you access regardless of where they're kept and catalogues them, making it much easier to access them later.
Click Add and browse for the Windows Vista ISO, then click Select and then OK. The ISO is now attached to the VM as the primary optical drive.
Highlight the Windows Vista VM then click Start. The system will start up and, in the absence of an operating system, will boot from the mounted ISO.
You will get a warning about the "Auto capture keyboard" setting - this causes the VM to capture keyboard input for its own use, but you can click the host key to release the capture. By default the host is the Right Ctrl key. There is a similar feature which captures the mouse input, and again pressing the host key will release the cursor back to the host. This behaviour is common across all virtualization platforms when the guest OS in a state where host integration tools have not been installed or loaded - we'll install these tools post-install.
When the Windows PE graphical interface loads, choose your language, time and currency format and keyboard layout and click Next.
Click "Install Now". Enter the product key or leave the field blank - this will install Vista in trial mode.
If applicable, choose the version of Vista you wish to install, tick "I have selected the edition of Windows that I purchased" and click Next.
Accept the Microsoft license terms and click Next.
Choose a Custom installation. On the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen, select the virtual disk and click Next.
Vista will now install.
Once the installation is completed Vista will reboot. Type in your username and password details and click Next.
Then type in a computer name and click Next. Choose the appropriate automatic update settings for your environment, then set the correct clock and time zone information and click Next.
And that's it - Vista is installed.