The purpose of the bios files it to allow OEM:SLP activation of windows os sytems within Vmware same as normal bios mods for motherboards. To Activate via OEM:SLP certain requirements are needed. For XP ( SLP 1.0 ) you need manufacturer name in DMI area in Bios + a set of 4 matching oembios files + OEM:SLP key. For Vista ( SLP 2.0 ) you need slic string in bios + matching certificate + OEM:SLP key Windows 7 ( SLP 2.1 ) same requirements as vista.
Thank you! Things are starting to clear up a bit for me. So are there requirements irrespective of windows XP currently being installed as retail/vlk/oem? With these requirements present, would the installation of XP automatically recognize/find the key and become activated? And since the files in this thread are just the bios roms, where do i find the corresponding oembios files (the set of 4)?
First off thank you for the work put into this project. Second, I was wondering if you mind if I created a cmd line interface to install your roms? Would make things simpler/faster for me. I can make it generic so if you update your pack the cmd line interface would recognize it and still work. If you like I can share here if I get your permission to carry on with it. Others might find it easier as well. Just a thought.
Thank you so much. I was going to look into it...not trying to bug you for I know better then anyone how much time is limited. lol I will wait for your release. Take care.
Hi, I read about various VMware BIOS builds like 397, 385D, 361H, etc. How can I check that information myself? Thank you.
Thank you. I had to enable the option Boot-time Diagnostic Screen in the BIOS. Such a screen only appears for a fraction of seconds.. you gotta be fast. Regards.
If you add bios.bootDelay="6000" to your vmx file, it will delay the boot time by 6 secs. You can change the delay to anything you like, i use 6 secs since its usually enough to see post and get into bios.
The effort to mod the BIOS is great, and what's been done here is fantastic. I would like to contribute a little known trick: you can set the smbios.assettag parameter in the .vmx file to insert arbitrary text into the Asset Tag entry in the Chassis section of the DMI. For example: Code: smbios.assettag = "IBM Corporation" Inside the VM, the string ends up somewhere in the address range E000:0000 to E000:FFFF, so this is sufficient for any SLP 1.0 string that is searched for in that range (for example, IBM and HP). I have verified that this works for several manufacturers in VMware Workstation 11. In other words: to activate an OEM version of Windows XP using an SLP 1.0 string in the BIOS, for many manufacturers you don't even need a modded BIOS in VMware Player/Workstation. You can just use the smbios.assettag setting in the .vmx file to place an arbitrary string in the DMI area.
Looks interesting except for the restriction of: This only works for Windows activation if the SLIC matches the vendor ID in the host BIOS.
I don't exactly understand your response. I am not restricting anything with the modded bioses Your choices for SLIC now are: Leave your system unmodified.Use the slic.bin with the three lines in vmx, making sure that it is the same as the host or use a modded bios from the pack. It would seem that option 1 is less flexible as your host bios would have to already contain a slic or you would have to mod your host bios Option 1 would seem to be good for a production environment where modding is discouraged. For those that cant or dont want to mod their pc bios, option 2 seems the way to go. Option 2 is great for testing.
@bigfoot15 I need to check myself first, but I think its enough to match OEMTableID of the ACPI tables of host with the supplied SLIC; not necessary to have SLIC in host bios.
Wouldn't it be rare that you would only have the OEMTableID in the host bios and not its corresponding slic? I tried the passthrough with these lines added to my vmx and it worked: acpi.passthru.slic = "TRUE" acpi.passthru.slicvendor = "TRUE" SMBIOS.reflecthost = "TRUE" I can also change the acpi table to :acpi.addtable.filename = HP.BIN but then the OEMID/Table id doesn't match. I tried multiple different combinations but none worked.
Unfortunately, this is not correct. The acpi.addtable.filename solution is not very useful in practice. For it to be useful for activation, you need the host to have a valid SLIC, and you can only usefully add a SLIC in the VM that matches the host SLIC's OEM ID. The problem comes down to the OEM IDs in the other ACPI tables (RSDT, XSDT etc.) in the VM. By default, VMware sets the OEM ID of those tables to various values unrelated to the host (e.g. INTEL and PTLTD). My understanding is that specifying "acpi.passthru.slicvendor = true" makes VMware set the OEM ID of those tables to the OEM ID of the host's SLIC table. You can then have a SLIC table (with matching OEM ID) in the VM by either specifying "acpi.passthru.slic = true" (which passes the host's SLIC table) or using "acpi.addtable.filename = SLIC.BIN". The bottom line is, unless the host already contains a valid SLIC table, you have to do BIOS modding for the VM to activate Windows in the VM. I am sure this is by design.