I never though of using Ubuntu as Dom0 all of the documentation I read when getting everything setup recommended letting the installer create Dom0 for you.

Isn't that best practice, rather than installing your own Dom0?

Wouldn't that Ubuntu distro take away from your baremetal resources though in comparison to just letting the Xen installer do its thing?

oh and Scott at my home lab I setup Xen to a 16GB flash without any issues at all, it was very, very easy to do.

Like with any other linux distro it's built in with version 6.5

If we setup our Hypervisor with a baseline Ubuntu Server Distro, and then apt-get Xen, the Ubuntu server would then be overhead.

The installer it's self creates the required VM to run the hypervisor.

And we didn't want to install Ubuntu Server or some other distro and install Xen into that because of the previously mentioned setup.

That would be extra overhead.

"Spinning rust"

Gonna have to remember that one

We got it from : http://xenserver.org/overview-xenserver-open-source-virtualization/download.html and installed directly to a dedicated drive that we threw into out VM Host

We specifically didn't want to use a Thumb drive to run the Distro.

But thinking about it afterwards it would probably be easier to make a clone of a Thumb Drive ISO for backup purposes.

XenServer has a Live CD that you can install directly to a dedicated drive. Which builds Dom0, Dom0 the resides on that disk as an 8GB partition.

Oh just as a heads up I did a direct install of Xen, no overhead for another OS, directly into a dedicated (cheapo) hard drive. If I really wanted I could have used an 8GB Thumb drive to run the OS on.

Keep all of your local storage for storage.

NAUBackup is a great script for Xen. GitHub Link

Anyways just wget into /patcher and it can be run right from there with just some small adjustments to the file paths.

When I started using it I even made some recommendations to the comments to clear up what was being said. If you have questions don't hesitate to ask.

Scott I will try that tonight.

10 Last night, being as it's a free upgrade which also asked for a product key. Which is why it's likely that the downloader Microsoft has is providing the Retail Installer

It is stored in BIOS but I can't find the field as is its a hidden record using a special chip designed by microsoft for just this purpose.

Using a retail ISO or CD will never pull the BIOS OEM key.

Yeah that's what I'm already using.

I'm downloading an ISO now for Windows 8.1 and will try again when I get home this afternoon. But last night it asked for a product key, which sucks.

Of course she has no recovery media of her own.

Yeah she said she liked Ubuntu design compared to a few others I showed her so I installed that. But if she really wants Windows 8 then I'll see what I can do, but the Make your own Media from Windows still requires a product key, it doesn't pull it in from BIOS.

I took a look around for the windows 8 ISO and couldn't find it. I'll take a look again, unless of course you have the link right there in front of you.

And Linux would probably be a lot better for what she uses the device for, Web surfing exclusively.

As much as I disdain Windows 8, I have a niece who loves it.

Well she destroyed her windows partition, and oddly the system doesn't have a recovery partition built in. Anyhoo are there any linux distro's that mimic the Windows 8 theme that anyone is aware of?

So then whoever made the comment about purchasing old NSA equipment and taking that key is outside of bounds in Microsoft's Eyes...

Just sayin'

I thought it was against the terms of service to strip a product key off of an already assembled computer to re-purpose it as a VM..

Maybe I was wrong with that but I'm almost certain I read that on an OEM Agreement for Windows 7.

Well I didn't say they had it, I just wouldn't say they "don't have a T3 support number"

If I did then I'd be lying.