Disk images

WiNspire needs a flat raw IDE disk image (.img) with an MBR and active partition. Simply renaming an ISO, VHD, VHDX, etc. won't do.

Some useful resources

PCjs Machines has disk images for Windows 1.x through 95 compatible with WiNspire. Simply navigate to the version of Windows catching your fancy and click SAVE HD.

Mouse support in early Windows

Disk images for early Windows versions generally come with a Microsoft Bus/Serial mouse driver instead of the PS/2 WiNspire expects. If you wish to have touchpad input you must install a compatible PS/2 driver onto the disk.

Make your own disk image from install media

First, source your installation media (ISOs, floppies, etc.).

WinWorldPC and the Internet Archive have a good collection of installation media for various Windows releases.

Install QEMU

Install QEMU and add it to your PATH.

Verify with:

qemu-img --version
qemu-system-i386 --version

Creating a disk image with QEMU

Create a flat raw image:

qemu-img create -f raw windows.img 2G

Boot install media

Replace windows-install.iso with the filename of your ISO, then run:

qemu-system-i386 -m 64 -cpu pentium -drive file=windows.img,format=raw -cdrom windows-install.iso -boot d -nic none -machine pc,accel=tcg,acpi=off,hpet=off

Proceed normally with Windows setup.

Many Win9x install CDs are not bootable. Boot from the accompanying boot floppy instead:

qemu-system-i386 -m 64 -cpu pentium -drive file=windows.img,format=raw -drive file=windows-floppy.img,format=raw,if=floppy -cdrom windows-install.iso -boot a -nic none -machine pc,accel=tcg,acpi=off,hpet=off

Replace windows-floppy.img with the filename of your floppy. Continue with setup as usual.

warning

Windows 2000 must use the Standard PC PIC HAL to boot successfully. Do NOT install with an ACPI or APIC HAL.

During the Windows 2000 text-mode setup, press F5 at this screen, then select Standard PC. Continue normally.

Complete the first boot and shut Windows down normally. The resulting disk image is ready to use!

Windows 1.x through 3.x

Windows 1.x through 3.x install on top of DOS. Create the hard disk using the instructions above and install DOS to it first and then install Windows. It is much simpler to use the PCjs images directly.

Converting another format to RAW

If you already possess an existing VDI, VHD, VHDX, VMDK, or QCOW2 disk image, you can convert it to RAW using

qemu-img convert -p -f existing_format -O raw existing_filename windows.img

Replace the existing_format and existing_filename placeholders.

Use your created image with WiNspire!

XP Embedded

Creating an XP Embedded image is a slightly different process. Follow the instructions at Creating an XPe image