virtio-win-pkg-scripts
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virtio-win
Installer placement on the ISO filesystem can lead to user confusion
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
The virtio-win-gt-x64.msi and virtio-win-gt-x86.msi installers are in the root directory of the ISO filesystem, even though they don't install all drivers like the virtio-win-guest-tools.exe installer does. That can create confusion among new users and cause them to install the wrong file.
Describe the solution you'd like
Move the virtio-*.msi installers to a subdirectory so it's clear the virtio-win-guest-tools.exe installer should be ran.
Describe alternatives you've considered
Make the virtio-*.msi installers return an error directing to run virtio-win-guest-tools.exe if they are ran directly by the user (by using a command line switch for example; not sure if it's technically possible or not).
Additional context None.
I never knew this! What kind of drivers does the .exe install that the .msi does not?
I thought the .exe installed the tools for communicating with the Guest Agent, but if you dont use that feature, you are not missing any drivers AFAIK.
In addition to virtio-win msi the virtio-win tools bundle installs qemu guest and spice agents. But we are planing to remove spice from the bundle in the next release.
FWIW, the spice agent was dropped in https://github.com/virtio-win/virtio-win-guest-tools-installer/commit/926dbaca56b03507ecdb6c624e3bb95204f6904a
@vrozenfe can you please explain why it was removed?
@rgl The short answer is because we (Red Hat) don't support SPICE/qxl anymore.
The long answer is because currently we use almost the same building scripts and infrastructure to build both upstream and downstream virtio-win packages. And since our downstream package doesn't need SPICE and QXL both of them were removed from the bundle. The same changes were done for both downstream and upstream packages.
Since this question was asked several times in the past, it looks as some upstream users still prefer to have SPICE and QXL components installed automatically. I will try to bring them back in the upstream installer in the next or one of the following releases.
Vadim.
@vrozenfe, that would be nice! thank you!
Is qxl/spice being replaced with something else?
Is there other combination that has an equivalent feature set (e.g. resizable desktop, copy&paste)?
@rgl qxl can be replaced with virtio-gpu (viogpudo.sys). There is no replacement for spice/copy&paste feature, But dynamic desktop resolution feature can be activated by installing vgpusrv service. It should work for VMs running locally and over VNC.
Cheers, Vadim.
This was a super weird decision, almost intentionally evil. For the longest time, I had no idea why my Windows guest wasn't performing correctly.
can you please confirm that the spice agent, removed in https://github.com/virtio-win/virtio-win-guest-tools-installer/commit/926dbaca56b03507ecdb6c624e3bb95204f6904a, was re-introduced in https://github.com/virtio-win/virtio-win-pkg-scripts/commit/62c74d124bac4bf8422bf54a97a10702a8f5b938 and included in https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/virtio-win-0.1.262-2/? if so, maybe this issue can be closed?
@rgl conformed. spice and qxldod are back now and included in virtio-win bundle.
Vadim.