Something like Wubi, but stand-alone

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Joined: Jun 30, 2008
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Posted Aug 06, 2008 at 2:07:32 AM
Subject: Something like Wubi, but stand-alone
Hi. Where I currently work, I am (quite unfortunately) forced to work at computer that has Windows installed. It would be really cool if I could install Wubi, so that I could have, at least, Windows inside of Linux. However, they won't give me administrative access to the computer so that I can install it. Is there a stand-alone version of Wubi (or something similar) that I could just install to my home directory or to USB, without needing admin priviledges? I remember seeing once that Fedora had something like that which ran from a USB stick... but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. (I'm trying to get them to install VMWare, but I haven't succeeded yet. Also, booting into Linux -- LiveCD or USB -- isn't really practical in this case because I need quick access to a few Windows programs.)

PerlCoder (http://indicium.us)

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PerlCoder
Joined Jun 30, 2008
Posts: 148

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Posted: Aug 06, 2008 2:18:22 AM
Probably a dumb question. I imagine the application would have a pretty hard time getting hold of network addresses and system hardware and such if it didn't have admin access at some point.

PerlCoder (http://indicium.us)

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Bob
Joined Apr 11, 2008
Posts: 93
Location:San Francisco, CA

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Posted: Aug 08, 2008 7:16:58 PM
You can run Qemu virtual machines without Win admin rights, though kqemu would apparently require them. Accessing shared storage is another challenge though, as you noted. If your folder is already shared in the Win domain, you may be set though - using Samba to access it. Maybe your admins would install VirtualBox? (at least the cost barrier is eliminated) refs: http://qemu-forum.ipi.fi/viewtopic.php?t=3047 http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/f/topic-3-18-10653-0.html http://qemu-forum.ipi.fi/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4527 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8808 (shared folder)
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PerlCoder
Joined Jun 30, 2008
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Posted: Aug 24, 2008 4:27:57 AM
I just thought I'd mention that, much to my amazement, I was able to get them to install VirtualBox. I think they did it as a sort of concession, so that I'd be a bit quieter about some of the other things I was complaining about. Having VirtualBox on the machine is awesome! The first thing that it did was set up a VM with the latest Mandriva ISO. Since Mandriva comes with decent Samba tools, I am able to do all my work from within the VM running fullscreen. (Well... there was that one time I needed to open an Illustrator document...) The only downside is that the computer is rather old, and there was only room left on the harddrive for a 4GB virtual disk. But, hey... I've got Linux all day now!

PerlCoder (http://indicium.us)

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