Windows Vista (Feb CTP 5308) and hosting/mounting the WinFX ISO with Daemon tools.

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At the weekend I set up a Toshiba M3 to run Vista with an intention of doing Windows Workflow Foundation development on it.

The setup of Vista went without issues as did installing Office 2003, Visual Studio 2005 and Feb WinFX runtime and VS extensions. The only real issue I had was installing the Feb CTP of the Windows SDK containing WinFX documentation and samples. This comes as a ".img" file. My normal approach is to:

  • Rename the ".img" to a ".iso"
  • Mount the ".iso" with Daemon Tools or Microsofts own VirtualCD
  • Run setup and install.

Unfortunately turns out I could not get the latest version of Daemon Tools to install (endless setup loop of "restart to complete"), nor would VirtualCD mount the image.

Turns out I was not alone. I was glad to find this post as I was about to try other software and versions - turned out someone else had done it for me. The conclusion - cut a DVD with the ISO and install from that. Please drop me a line if anyone else has had more success.

This was one chaps summary (thanks!):

Daemon Tools 3.02 msi
( Install without problem, Emulates but no protection emulation )

- Daemon Tools 3.47
( Install without problem, Impossible to load at least 1 virtual drive : Error! )

- Daemon Tools 4.00
( Impossible to install, reboots the pc over and over )

- Daemon Tools 4.03
( Impossible to install, reboots the pc over and over )

- Alcohol 120%
( Impossible to install, Error while install ) didn't try the 1.9.5.3823 build yet!

- Gamejack 5
( Install without problem, Emulates but no protection emulation ) Gamejack includes a version of Daemon's virtual drive but doesn't seem to work!

- Virtual Drive Pro 10
( Installs with errors and doesn't emulate too good )

- Starport
( Install without problems and emulates but no protection bypass ) Interesting prog !!!!

- Nero 7
( Install with errors and virtual drive is not worth it )