16 ms·

Install Windows the Arch Linux Way

329 points by judiisis 3y ago

CodeCompost 3y ago
It's basically headless Windows, isn't it?
- jpgvm 3y ago
  No. This will produce a fully fledged GUI Windows install. All this is doing is bypassing the GUI install in favor of manually partitioning + formatting the disks and applying the system image to the partition, then skipping the OOBE (Out of Box Experience) so it can be configured normally with just a standard local account.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    There are easier ways of accomplishing this.
    - hooby 3y ago
      There are, but by my personal experience those other ways might stop working every other Windows update and need tweaking/changing.
      - RachelF 3y ago
        Yes, it is a continuous fight with Microsoft, though. They are pretty hostile to their end-users.
        sambazi 3y ago
        end-users don't install windows
        yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        Most users don't install Windows. Power users and tinkerers are still users.
    - Ylpertnodi 3y ago
      ...suggestions/ info/ links?
      - joemelonyeah 3y ago
        Personally I would follow Microsoft's guide on partitioning [1] mostly, except the recovery partition which I skip creating. If Windows needs it they will auto create it again anyways in the next major update. Then I use WinNTSetup [2], just point it to where the Windows setup files are, and which partition is the boot partition (EFI partition) and which partition is to become C:. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions?view=windows-11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu... [2] https://msfn.org/board/topic/149612-winntsetup-v531/ https://msfn.org/board/topic/149612-winntsetup-v531/
  - anaisbetts 3y ago
    If you create a USB install disk with Rufus, it will automatically allow you to create a local account which is pretty useful
SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
Cool. Some useful take home tricks from reading this too.
joemelonyeah 3y ago
Microsoft actually has a guide for manual partitioning, which this guide does not follow. [1] The Microsoft guide cleans the whole disk and ensures the 100MB EFI partition is before the 16MB MSR partition. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions?view=windows-11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu...
tommica 3y ago
Huh, for some reason I expected it to be more complex, but this looks quite smooth
z3t4 3y ago
I installed Windows recently and it didn't want to create a partition. Tried all kind of black magic (you can do a lot of stuff using the tools on the install media). Finally I copied the windows usb onto the hdd and booted from it, that did the trick.
- yomlica8 3y ago
  I found this worked on my newer PC but did not work on my older z77 chipset based one, even though it supports support UEFI.
jcrben 3y ago
It mentions hitting Shift+F10. Wish it mentioned how to that non-interactively.
- fodkodrasz 3y ago
  You probably don't want to go down that rabbit hole. (trust me, I've done it, it is littered with footguns and sometimes incorrect documentation, and outdated advice. Lots of things are legacy, the docs are extensive but still only scratch the surface) Search for unattended install, autounattend.xml, Windows System Image Manager, Windows Imaging Toolkit. Don't try to install WSIM from windows store, as that version doesn't work. (this alone can save half a day of debugging phantom problems). There are extensive docs on the topic, but they are sometimes incorrect, contain incorrect code, etc. You can start from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/unattend/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize...
  - pxc 3y ago
    Seconding that unattended Windows installs, or even just customized Windows install media, are a giant pain in the ass. It's kind of fun to explore once but the amount of effort required to get to something that works doesn't feel worth it by the time you get there.
- jcotton42 3y ago
  You can do this with an unattend file [0], you can use the Windows ADK [1] to build one, or 3rd-party tools like NTLite [2]. [0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/update-windows-settings-and-scripts-create-your-own-answer-file-sxs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu... [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-started/adk-install https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-start... [2] https://www.ntlite.com/ https://www.ntlite.com/
greatcircle 3y ago
I installed Windows 10 the other week - it kinda blew my mind how poor the install experience was. The iso contained files greater than 4GB, which breaks fat32, which I'm sure many people are still using on flash drives. So I had to use an MS cmd-line tool to split the wim files manually and edit the install files. Why doesn't the installer just use smaller archive files?
- jcotton42 3y ago
  So, it does... but only if it's made using the media creation tool. ISOs or USBs made with MCT use the better compressed ESD format for the install archive. Only the direct ISO download uses the less-compressed WIM.
- 0xcoffee 3y ago
  I believe Microsoft provides the Media Creation Tool for this purpose. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installat...
  - ThatMedicIsASpy 3y ago
    For Windows. I don't know if it changed but if your browsers user agent is not Windows you'll always get access to the .iso file as direct download. Windows iso these days can just be unpacked to a NTFS thumb drive.
- baz00 3y ago
  You can make an NTFS USB stick as well then run bootsect on it and it’ll boot. That’ll take wim files of any size.
  - vetinari 3y ago
    Only if: - you want to boot in legacy mode (and your machine supports CSM) - your UEFI firmware supports NTFS (only mandatory filesystem is FAT32). Otherwise, if you want generic, UEFI boot media, you would have to find out how to boot from FAT32 partition and once your system runs, how to run installer from another partition.
SanjayMehta 3y ago
I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s best to let Windows do whatever it wants on the entire drive or virtual machine. Anything out of the ordinary gets broken in the next update. Hardware is much cheaper than time.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  It's not always a question of cost. I can't stand windows for my day-to-day job, but I do need it from time to time. Yet, my work provided laptop can only take one internal drive, and there's no way I'll lug around USB drives. IME windows has worked well enough in a single-drive dual-boot config, even by evicting the original SecureBoot keys from the PC and replacing them with my own, with which I've also signed Windows' bootloader.
BxGyw2 3y ago
Just the other night I was looking at the way a Windows 10 install wrote the EFI partition to some random disk it was not installed on at all, and wishing for this, the GUI installer just does ridiculous shit and is really not up to par with even some no name Linux distro's Calamares. I have no idea why people buy this shit, it's Microsoft's luck that it comes preinstalled and most users never touch it
- nottheengineer 3y ago
  I found out that it did the same to me when I installed arch. Windows on one drive, EFI partition on a completely different one that has no reason to ever have an EFI partition.
- klauserc 3y ago
  Yeah, learnt that the hard way as well. "I'll install Windows on the new drive, copy over data from the old drive, then throw away the old drive - computer doesn't boot anymore because EFI boot partition randomly ended up on the old drive" Since then, I always make sure to disconnect all drives except for the intended system drive when installing Windows.
- jwells89 3y ago
  I’ve had the Windows installer clobber the EFI partitions of Linux and macOS (hackintosh) installs on separate drives in the past, which is ridiculous. I now know to disconnect unrelated drives when installing Windows.
  - DistractionRect 3y ago
    It cuts both ways. Most *nix installers will happily use the windows Efi partition and the only way to get it to use its own is to either deflag existing efi partitions or disconnect the drives
Zetobal 3y ago
I don't even want to install Arch the Arch way.
- tucosan 3y ago
  > I don't even want to install Arch the Arch way. Then don't. You're simply not part of the target audience.
  - smabie 3y ago
    I don't wanna install Arch the Arch way either, and I've been running Arch for over 10yrs The Installation just sucks for no purpose. Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it
    - gameoverhumans 3y ago
      > Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it Not sure what you're referring to here. Archinstall [1] is relatively recent [2]. I used it a few weeks ago to quickly yeet a machine into Arch for some testing. Worked flawlessly and had the machine from live boot -> Arch install on root media in under 5 minutes. [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall [2]: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arch-Linux-Does-Archinstall https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arch-Linux-Does-Archinstall
      - SSLy 3y ago
        Arch had some CLI installer ~10 years ago.
      - Jnr 3y ago
        I remember using TUI for Arch installation 10+ years ago. I think it also was named archinstall iso back then. But it had some limitations. I do prefer the way it is right now though, it seems rather simple.
    - cdogl 3y ago
itomato 3y ago
Isn’t this technically more like the VMS or CP/M way?
pyr0hu 3y ago
Thanks for the article, just what I needed. I ran into a dreaded "Setup was unable to create a system partition" and couldn't find any solution, but with these steps, it worked!
mjevans 3y ago
The very best was for last... After all the files are in place but before the reboot (or even during setup if using offline media) remain offline until you've signed in. In fact, don't even set a _password_ initially. Change that AFTER the first boot so the installer doesn't interrogate for recovery information / etc. """ Bypass OOBE The Out of Box Experience is changing all the time. The requirement to be online or only use a Microsoft account. Bypass it with this command and using Shift+F10 to bring up the command prompt. NOTE: DISCONNECT FROM INTERNET before booting! oobe\BypassNRO System will restart after executing the command. Select Continue with limited Setup and name the device and create a local account. """
deafpolygon 3y ago
I find it funny that the title is "the Arch Linux Way". I remember a time, as young man (in my 20s) when you couldn't reasonably expect a GUI installer for Linux. When Anaconda came out, that blew everybody's mind (at the time). It really depended on which distro-sphere you frequented as I know there were newer graphical installers that came before Anaconda, but were not as widely distributed.
nullindividual 3y ago
Tip: diskpart.exe only needs the first three letters of a command: > ass letter=c Certain subcommands also support three letters, such as create partition primary: > cre par pri
runjake 3y ago
This method is obviously exploratory and tongue-in-cheek but Titus has a great, more serious Windows 11 installation and configuration post and YouTube video here: https://christitus.com/windows-11-perfect-install/ https://christitus.com/windows-11-perfect-install/
lakomen 3y ago
Why would I want that when I have a GUI?
timetraveller26 3y ago
Look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power
pyrophane 3y ago
It is nice to know that there is still a simple-ish way to bypass linking your account to a Microsoft Account at install time. A couple of days ago I was reinstalling Windows on a machine that was new enough that the wireless drivers weren't available on install, and was surprised that the installer just would not let me proceed with the install like used to. Of course, even if you manage to install Windows with a local-only account, that doesn't mean that it is going to be easy to keep it that way. At least you'll get to have your choice of username, though!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
consoomer 3y ago
The thing is, no one says, "I use Windows, btw."
yonatan8070 3y ago
If you install Windows a lot, get yourself an answer file for unattended installs (you can generate one oneline). It turns all the clicking and typing into booting the ISO (potentially through Ventoy, which would allow you to pick between answer files), and waiting for the desktop to show up
jakogut 3y ago
This reminds me of a tool I built a number of years ago to do unattended installs of Windows over PXE, for an IT services company I worked for at the time. It completed much faster than using DVDs or thumb drives, and could serve many machines at once. https://github.com/jakogut/kiwi https://github.com/jakogut/kiwi

329 points by judiisis 3y ago

CodeCompost 3y ago

It's basically headless Windows, isn't it?

jpgvm 3y ago
No. This will produce a fully fledged GUI Windows install. All this is doing is bypassing the GUI install in favor of manually partitioning + formatting the disks and applying the system image to the partition, then skipping the OOBE (Out of Box Experience) so it can be configured normally with just a standard local account.
- philwelch 3y ago
  There are easier ways of accomplishing this.
  - hooby 3y ago
    There are, but by my personal experience those other ways might stop working every other Windows update and need tweaking/changing.
    - RachelF 3y ago
      Yes, it is a continuous fight with Microsoft, though. They are pretty hostile to their end-users.
      - sambazi 3y ago
        end-users don't install windows
        yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        Most users don't install Windows. Power users and tinkerers are still users.
  - Ylpertnodi 3y ago
    ...suggestions/ info/ links?
    - joemelonyeah 3y ago
      Personally I would follow Microsoft's guide on partitioning [1] mostly, except the recovery partition which I skip creating. If Windows needs it they will auto create it again anyways in the next major update. Then I use WinNTSetup [2], just point it to where the Windows setup files are, and which partition is the boot partition (EFI partition) and which partition is to become C:. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions?view=windows-11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu... [2] https://msfn.org/board/topic/149612-winntsetup-v531/ https://msfn.org/board/topic/149612-winntsetup-v531/
- anaisbetts 3y ago
  If you create a USB install disk with Rufus, it will automatically allow you to create a local account which is pretty useful

SuperNinKenDo 3y ago

Cool. Some useful take home tricks from reading this too.

joemelonyeah 3y ago

Microsoft actually has a guide for manual partitioning, which this guide does not follow. [1] The Microsoft guide cleans the whole disk and ensures the 100MB EFI partition is before the 16MB MSR partition. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions?view=windows-11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu...

tommica 3y ago

Huh, for some reason I expected it to be more complex, but this looks quite smooth

z3t4 3y ago

I installed Windows recently and it didn't want to create a partition. Tried all kind of black magic (you can do a lot of stuff using the tools on the install media). Finally I copied the windows usb onto the hdd and booted from it, that did the trick.

yomlica8 3y ago
I found this worked on my newer PC but did not work on my older z77 chipset based one, even though it supports support UEFI.

jcrben 3y ago

It mentions hitting Shift+F10. Wish it mentioned how to that non-interactively.

fodkodrasz 3y ago
You probably don't want to go down that rabbit hole. (trust me, I've done it, it is littered with footguns and sometimes incorrect documentation, and outdated advice. Lots of things are legacy, the docs are extensive but still only scratch the surface) Search for unattended install, autounattend.xml, Windows System Image Manager, Windows Imaging Toolkit. Don't try to install WSIM from windows store, as that version doesn't work. (this alone can save half a day of debugging phantom problems). There are extensive docs on the topic, but they are sometimes incorrect, contain incorrect code, etc. You can start from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize/desktop/unattend/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/customize...
- pxc 3y ago
  Seconding that unattended Windows installs, or even just customized Windows install media, are a giant pain in the ass. It's kind of fun to explore once but the amount of effort required to get to something that works doesn't feel worth it by the time you get there.
jcotton42 3y ago
You can do this with an unattend file [0], you can use the Windows ADK [1] to build one, or 3rd-party tools like NTLite [2]. [0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/update-windows-settings-and-scripts-create-your-own-answer-file-sxs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu... [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-started/adk-install https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-start... [2] https://www.ntlite.com/ https://www.ntlite.com/

greatcircle 3y ago

I installed Windows 10 the other week - it kinda blew my mind how poor the install experience was. The iso contained files greater than 4GB, which breaks fat32, which I'm sure many people are still using on flash drives. So I had to use an MS cmd-line tool to split the wim files manually and edit the install files. Why doesn't the installer just use smaller archive files?

jcotton42 3y ago
So, it does... but only if it's made using the media creation tool. ISOs or USBs made with MCT use the better compressed ESD format for the install archive. Only the direct ISO download uses the less-compressed WIM.
0xcoffee 3y ago
I believe Microsoft provides the Media Creation Tool for this purpose. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installat...
- ThatMedicIsASpy 3y ago
  For Windows. I don't know if it changed but if your browsers user agent is not Windows you'll always get access to the .iso file as direct download. Windows iso these days can just be unpacked to a NTFS thumb drive.
baz00 3y ago
You can make an NTFS USB stick as well then run bootsect on it and it’ll boot. That’ll take wim files of any size.
- vetinari 3y ago
  Only if: - you want to boot in legacy mode (and your machine supports CSM) - your UEFI firmware supports NTFS (only mandatory filesystem is FAT32). Otherwise, if you want generic, UEFI boot media, you would have to find out how to boot from FAT32 partition and once your system runs, how to run installer from another partition.

SanjayMehta 3y ago

I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s best to let Windows do whatever it wants on the entire drive or virtual machine. Anything out of the ordinary gets broken in the next update. Hardware is much cheaper than time.

vladvasiliu 3y ago
It's not always a question of cost. I can't stand windows for my day-to-day job, but I do need it from time to time. Yet, my work provided laptop can only take one internal drive, and there's no way I'll lug around USB drives. IME windows has worked well enough in a single-drive dual-boot config, even by evicting the original SecureBoot keys from the PC and replacing them with my own, with which I've also signed Windows' bootloader.

BxGyw2 3y ago

Just the other night I was looking at the way a Windows 10 install wrote the EFI partition to some random disk it was not installed on at all, and wishing for this, the GUI installer just does ridiculous shit and is really not up to par with even some no name Linux distro's Calamares. I have no idea why people buy this shit, it's Microsoft's luck that it comes preinstalled and most users never touch it

nottheengineer 3y ago
I found out that it did the same to me when I installed arch. Windows on one drive, EFI partition on a completely different one that has no reason to ever have an EFI partition.
klauserc 3y ago
Yeah, learnt that the hard way as well. "I'll install Windows on the new drive, copy over data from the old drive, then throw away the old drive - computer doesn't boot anymore because EFI boot partition randomly ended up on the old drive" Since then, I always make sure to disconnect all drives except for the intended system drive when installing Windows.
jwells89 3y ago
I’ve had the Windows installer clobber the EFI partitions of Linux and macOS (hackintosh) installs on separate drives in the past, which is ridiculous. I now know to disconnect unrelated drives when installing Windows.
- DistractionRect 3y ago
  It cuts both ways. Most *nix installers will happily use the windows Efi partition and the only way to get it to use its own is to either deflag existing efi partitions or disconnect the drives

Zetobal 3y ago

I don't even want to install Arch the Arch way.

tucosan 3y ago
> I don't even want to install Arch the Arch way. Then don't. You're simply not part of the target audience.
- smabie 3y ago
  I don't wanna install Arch the Arch way either, and I've been running Arch for over 10yrs The Installation just sucks for no purpose. Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it
  - gameoverhumans 3y ago
    > Actually it's worse than that they used to have a TUI installer but then removed it Not sure what you're referring to here. Archinstall [1] is relatively recent [2]. I used it a few weeks ago to quickly yeet a machine into Arch for some testing. Worked flawlessly and had the machine from live boot -> Arch install on root media in under 5 minutes. [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archinstall [2]: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arch-Linux-Does-Archinstall https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arch-Linux-Does-Archinstall
    - SSLy 3y ago
      Arch had some CLI installer ~10 years ago.
    - Jnr 3y ago
      I remember using TUI for Arch installation 10+ years ago. I think it also was named archinstall iso back then. But it had some limitations. I do prefer the way it is right now though, it seems rather simple.
  - cdogl 3y ago

itomato 3y ago

Isn’t this technically more like the VMS or CP/M way?

pyr0hu 3y ago

Thanks for the article, just what I needed. I ran into a dreaded "Setup was unable to create a system partition" and couldn't find any solution, but with these steps, it worked!

mjevans 3y ago

The very best was for last... After all the files are in place but before the reboot (or even during setup if using offline media) remain offline until you've signed in. In fact, don't even set a _password_ initially. Change that AFTER the first boot so the installer doesn't interrogate for recovery information / etc. """ Bypass OOBE The Out of Box Experience is changing all the time. The requirement to be online or only use a Microsoft account. Bypass it with this command and using Shift+F10 to bring up the command prompt. NOTE: DISCONNECT FROM INTERNET before booting! oobe\BypassNRO System will restart after executing the command. Select Continue with limited Setup and name the device and create a local account. """

deafpolygon 3y ago

I find it funny that the title is "the Arch Linux Way". I remember a time, as young man (in my 20s) when you couldn't reasonably expect a GUI installer for Linux. When Anaconda came out, that blew everybody's mind (at the time). It really depended on which distro-sphere you frequented as I know there were newer graphical installers that came before Anaconda, but were not as widely distributed.

nullindividual 3y ago

Tip: diskpart.exe only needs the first three letters of a command: > ass letter=c Certain subcommands also support three letters, such as create partition primary: > cre par pri

runjake 3y ago

This method is obviously exploratory and tongue-in-cheek but Titus has a great, more serious Windows 11 installation and configuration post and YouTube video here: https://christitus.com/windows-11-perfect-install/ https://christitus.com/windows-11-perfect-install/

lakomen 3y ago

Why would I want that when I have a GUI?

timetraveller26 3y ago

Look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power

pyrophane 3y ago

It is nice to know that there is still a simple-ish way to bypass linking your account to a Microsoft Account at install time. A couple of days ago I was reinstalling Windows on a machine that was new enough that the wireless drivers weren't available on install, and was surprised that the installer just would not let me proceed with the install like used to. Of course, even if you manage to install Windows with a local-only account, that doesn't mean that it is going to be easy to keep it that way. At least you'll get to have your choice of username, though!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

consoomer 3y ago

The thing is, no one says, "I use Windows, btw."

yonatan8070 3y ago

If you install Windows a lot, get yourself an answer file for unattended installs (you can generate one oneline). It turns all the clicking and typing into booting the ISO (potentially through Ventoy, which would allow you to pick between answer files), and waiting for the desktop to show up

jakogut 3y ago

This reminds me of a tool I built a number of years ago to do unattended installs of Windows over PXE, for an IT services company I worked for at the time. It completed much faster than using DVDs or thumb drives, and could serve many machines at once. https://github.com/jakogut/kiwi https://github.com/jakogut/kiwi