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Low End Windows Templates
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Low End Windows Templates

td512td512 Member
edited December 2019 in General

Hey guys!

A while ago this post by @ihadp who runs whatuptime had some links to Windows templates for cloud providers. Had. That went well and whatuptime paywalled their templates behind a required US$10 "donation".

Anyways, so I got bored last night and I recreated some templates. These should all work perfectly on the default Oracle Cloud "always free" config. These images are stock Windows with Oracle's VirtIO drivers installed. The images are, and always will be free to download.

The installation is pretty simple. Here's how I did it:

  • Deploy an Ubuntu 18.04 instance, either will do
  • Create a console connection for said instance
  • SSH into your newly created instance, cd into /boot/efi and drop netboot.xyz's EFI in there
  • Reboot
  • Using the console connection, spam ESC until the firmware shows up. Boot from file, first disk, netboot.xyz.efi
  • Boot the Ubuntu live installer, run through the network setup, but no further.
  • Find the template you would like to use, and memorize that link
  • Execute a shell from the installer and type wget -q -O - <url you just memorized>|gunzip|dd of=/dev/sda. Be warned that this process may take up to an hour.
  • Hit enter
  • ???
  • Profit

In general the usernames and passwords for the images will be Administrator/Passw0rd!. If you find anything wrong with the images let me know and I'll update them.

These images do work on the Oracle Cloud free tier (that's what they were made for), but they also should work on other KVM providers like DigitalOcean, or Vultr. The disk is only 25GB, so on the oracle cloud you'll want to extend your disk after rebooting, but it's small enough that in the event it works on other KVM providers, it should work on their smallest size also.

RDP is enabled on all the images, and I'll be releasing 2008 R2 and possibly XP/2003 if time allows.

Other notes:

  • No license keys, cracks, etc. are included nor will be provided.
  • You should run Windows Updates once you have the template installed, there are next to no updates included with the templates!

Any questions? HMU.

Merry Christmas!

~T

(and before you complain that I forgot the TDN link... here it is)

«13

Comments

  • Looking forward for 2008 R2 and possibly XP/2003

  • Thanks for sharing this.Can you also make the template for online.net Start 2 sata server and kimsufi ks2 ?

  • @A_m_i_t said:
    Thanks for sharing this.Can you also make the template for online.net Start 2 sata server and kimsufi ks2 ?

    These should already work for those, so as long as they support UEFI booting

  • td512 said: and possibly XP

    but why?

  • td512td512 Member
    edited December 2019

    @Daniel15 said:

    td512 said: and possibly XP

    but why?

    1GB of RAM isn't a lot to play with. XP isn't the latest and greatest, but it's quite happy on 1GB. Also why not?

  • Daniel15Daniel15 Veteran
    edited December 2019

    td512 said: Also why not?

    It's pretty insecure... There's a bunch of unpatched vulnerabilities. I guarantee an XP system will become part of a botnet if exposed to the internet.

    Windows Nano server or Server Core should both work fine on 1 GB RAM.

  • td512td512 Member
    edited December 2019

    @Daniel15 said:

    td512 said: Also why not?

    It's pretty insecure... There's a bunch of unpatched vulnerabilities. I guarantee an XP system will become part of a botnet if exposed to the internet.

    Windows Nano server or Server Core should both work fine on 1 GB RAM.

    I'm only making the templates, not running them. If people choose XP they need to lock it down. There's not really much more to it than that. The "why not" was referencing the time it takes to create the templates, not why should I not offer XP. My bad

  • You're in luck, @davi

    New images are up, these introduce BIOS boot images (for those KVM providers that don't support UEFI yet), and new UEFI images for Windows Server 2008 R2. More coming soon

    ~ T

    Thanked by 1davi
  • @td512 said:
    You're in luck, @davi

    New images are up, these introduce BIOS boot images (for those KVM providers that don't support UEFI yet), and new UEFI images for Windows Server 2008 R2. More coming soon

    ~ T

    Thanks

  • New phone, who dis?

    A new update has been pushed! This update includes:

    • Windows Vista
    • Windows 7
    • Windows 8
    • Windows 8.1
    • Windows Server 2008

    As usual, more to come soon

  • Can evaluation versions be converted to licenced version later or requires reinstall with non-evaluation version?

  • @TimboJones said:
    Can evaluation versions be converted to licenced version later or requires reinstall with non-evaluation version?

    The client editions and Server 2008 are simply installed from retail disks. The rest of the images are built from eval disks. The process differs per edition, but in general you can convert the OS.

    For 2008 R2 this is as easy as slui.exe 0x3 and entering your key. For evaluations later than that the process is a bit different, but should be as easy as:

    • DISM /Online /Get-TargetEditions
    • DISM /Online /Set-Edition:<edition ID> /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX /AcceptEula
    Thanked by 1TimboJones
  • td512td512 Member
    edited January 2020

    Probably the final update, oh what the hell. I'll let someone else do it!

    Everyone should be thanking @hiimcody1 for this coming update. He's done a lot of work behind the scenes, be it adding quotes to the site, or these last templates.

    I'll leave it to him though!

  • Alright, so it appears that Cody is having trouble posting. No problem.

    We now have XP (x86, retail) and Windows Server 2003 R2 (x86 and x64 with SP1). Again, this couldn't have been done without @hiimcody1 doing extensive testing on the images.

    These images can't be used on the Oracle Cloud, as they don't have UEFI support. They do however work on Vultr, and should work on any other cloud also.

    Have fun!

    ~ T

    Psst @davi I think this is what you were looking forward to?

    Thanked by 1davi
  • Was waiting on account approval, but if there are any other images that you may want, please be sure to let us know and we will see if we can get them running. We ran into some driver issues with 64-bit XP that aren't allowing for it unfortunately.

    Thanked by 1NanoG6
  • vpsGODvpsGOD Member, Host Rep

    @hiimcody1 welcome to LET
    You can describe the exact issue with screenshot so that @td512 able to address and fix the it

  • @td512 said:
    New phone, who dis?

    A new update has been pushed! This update includes:

    • Windows Vista
    • Windows 7
    • Windows 8
    • Windows 8.1
    • Windows Server 2008

    As usual, more to come soon

    Which one is preferred for lightweight development server?

  • Just curious, how do you secure windows server?

  • @NanoG6 said:

    Which one is preferred for lightweight development server?

    Linux? But if you must use Windows, 7 or above

  • Comparing between Win7 and Server 2008, which one will run smooth on Oracle Cloud 1G?
    By the way, tried installing using above steps, but stuck on checksum, or is it indeed takes a long time?

  • @greattomeetyou said:
    Just curious, how do you secure windows server?

    AV, lock down the firewall, change the password, or better, create a new admin account and use that

  • @NanoG6 said:
    Comparing between Win7 and Server 2008, which one will run smooth on Oracle Cloud 1G?
    By the way, tried installing using above steps, but stuck on checksum, or is it indeed takes a long time?

    Reboot and try again. Windows 7 is recommended

  • stormstorm Member
    edited January 2020

    @greattomeetyou said:
    Just curious, how do you secure windows server?

    Create a new account with a hard-to-guess username and password and add it to the administrators group. Login to the new account and disable the administrator account and any other users created by default.

  • @NanoG6 said:
    I'm stuck here, any workaround except restart?

    You could probably just disable signature verification...

  • Signature checks? Done that.. I set to false

  • @NanoG6 unfortunately I can't help much further. If it doesn't work, maybe try with another instance?

    Otherwise you need to find another way to write the image to disk

  • I just signed up with Oracle Cloud. I've got netboot.xyz booted up. I went to Live CDs and tried some different flavors of Ubuntu and Mint, and I keep getting a kernel panic. What am I missing?

  • @storm said:
    I just signed up with Oracle Cloud. I've got netboot.xyz booted up. I went to Live CDs and tried some different flavors of Ubuntu and Mint, and I keep getting a kernel panic. What am I missing?

    I honestly couldn't tell you. @NanoG6, @storm what regions are you deploying in?

  • @td512 said:
    what regions are you deploying in?

    Ashburn

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