QWT and win updates

Franz

unread,

Mar 12, 2019, 3:53:17 PM3/12/19

to qubes-users

I installed again windows following this https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows-vm/#xen-pv-drivers-and-qubes-windows-tools

Windows now is working and fully updated but no additional driver is installed.

Reading this tutorial many times, for me, it is not yet clear what the following means:

"If you plan to update your newly installed Windows VM it is recommended that you do so before installing Qubes Windows Tools (QWT). If QWT are installed, you should temporarily re-enable the standard VGA adapter in Windows and disable Qubes’ (see the section above)."

Does it mean that once QWT is installed I can no more regularly update my system, unless every time remember to do some strange and not well understood VGA tweaking?

This seems very strange because on 3.2 I always updated windows even if QWT was already installed, with no issues.

So did this really change with Qubes 4.0

Best

unman

unread,

Mar 13, 2019, 7:12:46 AM3/13/19

to qubes-users

On Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 04:53:02PM -0300, Franz wrote:
> I installed again windows following this
> https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows-vm/#xen-pv-drivers-and-qubes-windows-tools
>
> Windows now is working and fully updated but no additional driver is
> installed.
>
> Reading this tutorial many times, for me, it is not yet clear what the
> following means:
>
> "If you plan to update your newly installed Windows VM it is recommended

> that you do so *before* installing Qubes Windows Tools (QWT). If QWT are

> installed, you should temporarily re-enable the standard VGA adapter in
> Windows and disable Qubes’ (see the section above)."
>
> Does it mean that once QWT is installed I can no more regularly update my
> system, unless every time remember to do some strange and not well
> understood VGA tweaking?
>
> This seems very strange because on 3.2 I always updated windows even if QWT
> was already installed, with no issues.
>
> So did this really change with Qubes 4.0
>
> Best

That is the implication.
You could test this by updating *without* changing the adapter.
If everything works as expected, head over to
www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows-vm and edit that page.
You can help improve Qubes by doing this.

Hugo Costa

unread,

Mar 13, 2019, 9:56:03 AM3/13/19

to qubes-users

I believe the "don't update" message has always been there, it didn't change from Q3.2 to Q4.x. But, obviously, the processes used to provide Qubes integration may stop working due to a certain update, so it's a valid warning.

unman

unread,

Mar 13, 2019, 11:32:19 AM3/13/19

to qubes-users

I dont think that this is true - there was not a "dont update"
message and there isnt one now.
In the past there used to be a recommendation to re-enable the VGA adapter when
updating, so really I dont think that anything has changed.

unman

Franz

unread,

Mar 13, 2019, 11:48:42 AM3/13/19

to unman, qubes-users

I never saw this alert before.

Anyway I recovered the old windows VM installed under 3.2 and it is still working even if network is not connected anymore.

How do you re-enable the VGA adaptor?

unman

unread,

Mar 14, 2019, 10:29:52 AM3/14/19

to qubes-users

I dont think the warning on that page has changed since early last year.

You can re-enable the VGA adapter by reversing the process in Windows
control panel, or by 'qvm-features --unset video-model' as appropriate.

Reply all

Reply to author

Forward