Re: [Qemu-devel] Sucessfully installed Windows XP in qemu.

[Nathan Hand]

On Sat, 2004-05-01 at 10:10 -0400, Jim C. Brown wrote:
> On Sat, May 01, 2004 at 09:22:27PM +1000, Nathan Hand wrote:
> > On Thu, 2004-04-29 at 17:31 +0200, Renzo Davoli wrote:
> > > On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 07:51:30PM +0300, Hetz Ben Hamo wrote:
> > > > > In latest CVS it's possible to install Windows XP (at least i can).
> > > 
> > > I have installed XP without any kind of problem but when I try
> > > to do my first login as administrator I get:
> > > 
> > > A problem is preventing Windows from accurately checking the license for
> > > this computer. Error Code: 0x800703e6.
> > > 
> > > Do you know what's that and how to find a workaround?
> > > 
> > > XP works perfectly when booting XP in safe mode, but I have no way to
> > > run it in normal mode.
> > 
> > I'm seeing the same error message. Some people have booted XP without
> > this error so it might be due to different settings. How about an
> > informal poll to find the common settings that lead to this problem?
> > 
> > The 0x800703e6 also occurs in Safe Mode With Networking although it
> > boots in Safe Mode, as you say. I'm using TUN networking.
> 
> I've heard that if you update the hardware for an already-installed XP, it
> needs to be re-activated. I.e. If you install XP w/ no networking, and then
> enable tuntap networking, you might have to reactivate it. I hope this is not
> true, but if it is that might explain your problem.

I installed and have booted XP with TUN enabled at all times.

> On a side note, Windows (not just XP mind you, iirc this started with Win98)
> creates a identification number unique to the installation. If you have a
> network card, the id number would be generated from the MAC. If you didn't, 
> then
> the number was randomly generated. I'm not sure if thats how things still work
> (I haven't looked at Windows in a long time).

I find it interesting that Safe Mode works but Safe Mode With Networking
generates the error message. That suggests that the Windows XP is indeed
using the NE2000 card for activation and there is some limitation of the
NE2000 emulation that is tripping XP up. But it's something that affects
some people and not others. That's why I thought a poll might help; find
out if there's a common thread through the "failures". Perhaps something
simple like it always fails on PPC (ie, an endian issue).

The MAC address doesn't change between QEMU instances, unless overridden
on the command line, so a changing MAC isn't the cause. 

I just tried setting nb_nics=0 and still get the 0x800703e6. I'll try to
reinstall with no NIC and see if that makes a difference.

I'll also try installing on an x86 host and see if that fixes it.