Voodooprojects

Chameleon => Feature Requests => Topic started by: vplamondon on April 05, 2011, 04:36:24 AM

Title: Windows HAL and NTOSKRNL detection and repair
Post by: vplamondon on April 05, 2011, 04:36:24 AM

Windows is a pain to copy an image from one computer to another if the new computer needs a different HAL.DLL or uses a different NTOSKRNL. How about a repair option for windows detected systems for chameleon to determine which HAL.DLL should be installed and which NTOSKRNL should be used, restore correct HAL.DLL from a backup in the EFI partition, and fix any issues with the Windows bootloader.

Title: Re: Windows HAL and NTOSKRNL detection and repair
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on April 05, 2011, 05:12:10 AM

I think it's safe to say that that's never going to happen, for a number of reasons.

To begin with, moving a Windows installation to a different PC than the one it was installed on is a very bad idea.

There are many, many versions of NTOSKRNL and HAL.dll, depending on Windows version, which service pack version and other updates was installed, what hardware Windows was installed on, I believe even depending on your ACPI settings in the BIOS when Windows was installed.

I don't know much about the internal workings of Windows but I'm pretty sure that what you're asking isn't even technically possible. How would you determine, from outside of Windows, which versions of those files were the right ones?

The team can't ship Chameleon with files that are copyrighted by Microsoft.

From where do you propose to get copies of NTOSKRNL and Hal.dll?

Would you volunteer to host and maintain an online repository of these files, knowing full well that it was illegal?

Would you volunteer to maintain a database of PC hardware and Windows updates that can be used to determine which versions of NTOSKRNL and Hal.dll to install?

Chameleon is a boot loader designed primarily to boot OS X on a PC, it is not a Windows recovery/repair tool.

I'm considering moving this to the Black Hole.