Hello, I have dual boot, and additionally I want to be able to run Windows 7 (that installed directly on hard disk) over Linux (CentOS 5.5), but my processor doesn't support Intel VT (hardware virtualization).
I try Xen, but it doesn't work because I think it may use only hardware virtualization.
Windows 7 is closed source, so I cannot use para-virtualization. So only thing is full virtualization (application virtualization, dynamic translation) but it seems to work very slowly and only tool I know for this is VMWare, but it proprietary and I want something free.

May you suggest my the best way to virtualize installed on hard disk Windows 7 on Linux with open source program?
Thank you for ahead.

There is a Kernel based version of Xen in CentOS that may run this better, alternatively you might wanna give KVM(Kernel-based Virtual Machine) a look at... the fact the CPU doesn't support Intel VT however probably means anything that does run it, will have performance issues anyway.

I guess, I run the kernel based version:

[root@andreys-comp ~]# uname -a
Linux andreys-comp 2.6.18-194.8.1.el5xen #1 SMP Thu Jul 1 19:41:05 EDT 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

But it not helps me, I think I need to run in full virtualization? No?
If yes, how I say to Xen to activate domain in full virtualization?

if you want to run virtual windows, you'll need something like KVM/Xen with hardware-assisted virtualization (Intel VT/AMD-V) or just use full virtualization (QEMU, VirtualBox, others) which is the slowest method. You can't para-virtualize windows on linux, sadly.

Meaningless in the run of things, Xen by default runs as a hypervisor and thus all this could simply mean is the kernel loaded is one that loads the Xen Hypervisor first.

Without the CPU support you will have to use full virtualization what I am saying, is going to be horrifically slow.

1 members found this post helpful.