I need to use Vista to interface to certain bits of hardware (e.g. my Mobile Phone, TomTom and Siemens House Phones). As a Mandriva Linux user, I don't want to dual-boot my PC. I also want to be able to back-up the whole Vista installation onto a single DVD, which means that it has to be very small.

VirtualBox
I've decided to use VirtualBox from Sun Microsystems. There are two versions, both of which are free for personal use. The version bundled into Mandriva is open source, and does not support USB.

If you go to the Sun Virtualbox download site, you can download a closed-source version, which is subject to the Personal User and Evaluation License (PUEL). It's just a matter of clicking on the correct install release to download and install.

Installing Vista in the Virtual Machine
Fistly, in VirtualBox, you will need to create a new virtual machine:
Pretty much everything below, you can change after install - the ones you can't are marked '*'.
  • Select the 'New' icon, and give your machine a name.
  • Select Windows Vista. *
  • Select the amount of memory for the virtual machine. The memory will be shared between your Vista virtual machine, and your Linux operating system, so don't give more than 50% to vista.
  • Create a new virtual hard disk, and give it a name
  • Make sure it is dynamic , and set it to 20Gb. *
  • Select 'Finish' and your virtual machine will be created.
It's now a good time to tweak a few parameters - this makes Vista run a little more smoothly:

Select your Virtual Machine, by clicking on it once. On the right panel, you will see all of the parameters for it. Double click on 'System' and:
  • If you have multiple processors, and you want to make more of them available to Vista, Tick 'Enable IO APIC' and adust the number on the Processors tab.
  • I also tick Enable PAE/NX and Nested Paging on the Processor and Acceleration tabs too.
Mount the CDROM

There are two ways to mount CDROMs with VirtualBox.
  • The first is to put a CDROM into the CD drive, then tell VirtualBox to look at it.
  • The second is to take a copy of the CDROM using Brasero, create an ISO image, and tell VirtualBox to look at that.
I find the second method is much quicker in the long run, as you will probably go through the install process a couple of times, particularly when streamlining Vista later on.

If you do generate an ISO image, you will need to register it with VirtualBox - launch the Virtual Media Manager (on the File Menu), select CD/DVD Images, and click 'Add'.

To select a source for the CDROM, click on CD/DVD-ROM:
  • Tick /Mount CD/DVD Drive'
  • either select Host/DVD Drive
  • or select an ISO image file that you previously added with the Virtual Media Manager, from the drop-down list



Select Finish.
Create Drive Image.
Copy CDROM ISO
Mount Windows Vista CDROM ISO
Boot and install
Install Client specific library stuff
Create shared drive
Map shared drive

Making a tiny Vista release
In order to make your Vista release tiny, you will have to jump through quite a few hoops. Firstly, you will have to do a complete Vista install

Download Microsoft Windows Automated Installation Kit ISO

Install VLite
Mount Microsoft Windows Automated Installation Kit ISO
Install Microsoft Windows Automated Installation Kit
Copy wimgapi.dll from Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86 to Program Files\vLite
Run VLite