WOALite released for Raspberry Pi!

Windows Logistics
1

WOALite x86 Edition - Version 1.0 (based on Windows 10 Insider 19536) - 25/12/2019

Still a lot to strip down and optimize before we can really get the most out of Windows 10 Lite on low-end ARM hardware; nevertheless, now would be a good time to start testing and providing feedback on features and bugs. The Lumia 950XL version will come in the New Year together with some custom RPi versions depending on what features/components you may like to vote on… Merry Christmas!

Download install.wim… (right-click > save target…)
Download instructions… (right-click > save target…)
Download apps… (right-click > save target…)
(unzip apps.zip, launch cmd as admin and run install.bat to silently install all apps listed below excluding Photoshop)

COMPONENTS PROTECTED - Raspberry Pi

x86/32-bit Intel Apps
Native ARM64/ARM32 Apps
Office 365 Pro Plus
System: Snipping Tool, Paint, Notepad, Edge, File Explorer, Start Menu, Taskbar, System Tray, Audio, USB, System Clock, Settings, Registry, Run
Network: LAN, Location service, DHCP, Remote Desktop (RDP) from another computer, Group Policy editor, DISM Servicing Stack
Windows Administrative tools: Multiple User Accounts, Secondary Login, Disk Management, PowerShell, CMD, Regedit, Task Scheduler, Disk Clean-up, Run, Settings, Control Panel, etc
Keyboards: non-Asian IME only (default is English GB; other keyboards installable on demand)
Security: NTFS Permissions / Acccess Control Lists (ACL), BitLocker
Settings: Show hidden files & extensions; File Explorer = This PC, Hide People, Taskview, Search, Transparency; Taskbar = never combine; Adjusted for Best Performance; Increased mouse speed
Bult-in Drivers: Raspberry Pi core with USB support (02/2019), viostor for RPi4 KVM
Automated Unattended OOBE: uses local administrator/administrator account

RECOMMENDED APPLICATIONS

Office: Office 365 Pro Plus (32-bit)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49117 or https://www.office.com/

File Archiver: 7-Zip (32-bit)
https://www.7-zip.org/

Search: AgentRansack (32-bit)
https://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/download/

Web Browser: built-in Edge (ARM64) for YouTube videos coupled with Firefox Nightly (ARM64) for browsing or even the new Chromium
https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/ (Dev or Canary)
https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-central/
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bfjh5g4yd2mn9nz/AABBqF4eAVdKai914GR-DaPwa?dl=0

Notes: Notepad2 (ARM64) instead of Notepad

Audio Player: ? (maybe Spotify web or Winamp Classic or just use VLC)
http://www.winamp.com/

Photo Viewer: HoneyView (32-bit) - anything else is too slow
https://en.bandisoft.com/honeyview/

Media Player: VLC Media Player (ARM64)
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.en-GB.html (choose ARM64 version from drop-down)

Video Editor: AviDemux (32-bit)
http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/download.html

Photo Converter: XnConvert (32-bit)
https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/#downloads

Audio Editor: Audacity (ARM64)

BitTorrent client: qBittorrent (32-bit)

PDF Viewer: Adobe Reader (32-bit) or SumatraPDF (32-bit)
https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/enterprise/ (edit: may not work properly or crash)

FTP CLient: FileZilla (32-bit)
https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?platform=win32

Create bootable USB: Rufus (ARM64)

Video Converter: Need somebody to compile ARM64 ffmpeg (Handbrake doesn’t work)

Photo Editor: Photoshop (32-bit)




COMPONENTS EXCLUDED (vote to be included in the next WOALite release!)

  • Windows Updates, KMS, Languages besides English GB, Speech recognition API, Fonts besides default, Cortana
  • UWP Apps / Microsoft Store
  • Internet Explorer 11, Visual Studio
  • Windows Defender / Security Center / Smartscreen
  • Windows Search
  • Printing / Scanning, Webcam support
  • VPN, RDP to another computer, Share files/folders, Remote Assistance, Remote Manage, Remote Registry, OpenSSH, Telnet, TPTP client, Active Directory integration
  • Windows lock screen wallpaper, Windows logon animation
  • UAC, Certificate tools, Credential Manager, Payments Manager, Windows Firewall
  • MTP file transfer for cameras, Windows Media Player + codecs
  • Xbox support / Game Explorer, System Sounds
  • OneDrive, Offline Files / Sync Center, Encrypting File System (EFS)
  • Action Center, Network and Sharing Center
  • Windows Troubleshooter/Diagnostics
  • Local Security Policy editor, Biometric / Passport / Windows Hello / Picture password, Pin sign-in, Smartcards, several other P&P hardware device drivers etc.
  • Windows Error reporting / Event Viewer / Logs, Defrag, WinSAT
  • Character Map, Wordpad, Sticky Notes, Themes, Power Option profiles
  • Hyper-V / Virtual Machine Platform (not working on Lumia), Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) - not working on Lumia
  • System Reset, Send To Mail and Desktop, AutoPlay
  • Help File support, Performance Counters, MSConfig, MSInfo32, Parental Controls, Superfetch

0 voters

2

a little confused on the Pi4 version…
I run that kvm.bat file on my windows 10 PC?
do I need to create the c:\users\first.last\Desktop folder and copy everything into that?
and is this creating the image on an SSD?

3

Yeah, that’s right.

Once you’ve setup a connection to your Pi4 from your Windows PC (on the same network) then via kvm.bat you can automatically create, copy and run the VM/VHDX exclusively from your Windows 10 PC:
Pi4 Gentoo Desktop shared via Samba = \pi64\Desktop
Pi4 Gentoo Desktop shared via VNC = pi64:1
Pi4 Qemu output shared via VNC = pi64:0
Pi4 Windows guest shared via RDP = pi64:5555

After installing the above services on the Pi4 Gentoo you only need copy the UEFI bios file to the desktop. The rest is stored entirely on your PC.

The kvm.bat automatically kills the last Qemu session and replaces the VM/VHDX with any new install.wim file that you place on your desktop.

Indeed you need to fill in a few gaps in the kvm.bat script for it to work properly - and at the same time you need to be conscious of how many hard drives you have and to make sure you select the right drive for Pi3; Pi4 KVM does not use any SSD - only the Gentoo micro-sd coupled with a VHDX (temporarily added to Disk Management) that gets automatically deleted/recreated/copied from your PC to the Gentoo Desktop share.

C:\Users\first.last = replace with your windows profile path throughout the scripts or choose a custom path
HOSTIP:192.168.1.66 = replace with your windows ip address (may not be necessary)
select disk X = the SSD disk number for Pi3; in case of the Pi4 KVM it’s the disk number assigned to the VHDX
select volume 5, select volume 6 = need check this by running through manually first time around; the more disks/partitions you have in total the higher/lower these numbers will be; again, they represent either the SSD partitions or VHDX partitions (when temporarily assigned to Disk Management)
woalite.vhdx maximum=17000 you can increase the size of the VHDX if you wish.
-m 3G you can lower the RAM allocated to your VM if you have a Pi4 that has less than 4GB in total.

That’s pretty much it I think!

4

There are tools that can install Windows on the Pi without having to deal with the command prompt, such as https://www.worproject.ml

Bundling the WIM image with drivers may cause trouble while using the tool above. So I think it’s a good idea to remove them in a future version.

Also, the RaspberryPiPkg UEFI is outdated. New versions can be found here: https://github.com/pbatard/RPi3

5

WOR Deployer works fine with the duplicated drivers, but takes at least 30 minutes to write to micro-SD card, and the screen has borders and Windows runs at half CPU speed, so some tweaking is still required with the UEFI partition. However, using micro-SD-only is significantly slower compared to the manual/hybrid Micro-SD+SSD solution I proposed with drivers pre-injected.

Any ideas what’s new or improved with the updated UEFI drivers?

BTW, I’ve uploaded a mixture of ARM64/x86 apps that can be installed in one fell swoop after deploying the install.wim and running c:\script - rpi.bat following the instructions in the opening post; you just have to then run the install.bat script via an elevated command prompt after extracting apps.zip, and it will install 17 apps to test, including the latest version of Office 365 Pro Plus (gets downloaded automatically).

Has anyone been able to get Chrome Sync API to work with ARM64 Chromium so that you can sign-in with a Google account and sync bookmarks with Chrome on other devices?

6

The screen border can be removed by adding the “disable_overscan=1” line to the config.txt editor on the Configuration page. I’ll add this line by default in a future version of WoR.

With the latest UEFI you don’t have to manually set the boot order. It will boot from the SD card by default.

7

FYI: The Lumia 950 / XL version of WOALite has been released here:
https://www.woaproject.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=130

No pre-injected drivers this time - only post-injection.

Now I can concentrate on trying to improve both.

1 Like
8

So i tested it for the pi 3B+ how can i enable memory compression? Over powershell they are only errors showing up. Without memory compression its prettsy useless because 76 % RAM clean installation without installing anything.

662×584 23.4 KB

Its better than the 1909 version which was over 90 % of RAM (with memory compression enabled) any ideas? Because if i install my programs i will run out of ram pretty fast.

9

I’ll look into it… thanks.

10

I installed it on a usb stick maybe thats the issue. Iam not sure.

11

Have you thought about creating .ffu file instead of .wim?

12

:+1:
Thanks for ur effort

13

http://surviving2023.com/woalite/install.wim the link is broken

1 Like
14

Would you happen to have the install.wim still? I am finding this post today and the install.wim link in broken. If you do, would you mind uploading it to google drive or another site and sharing the link? Many thanks :slight_smile:

15

Did you happen to download the install.wim? I am finding this post today and the install.wim link is broken. If you did and you still have it, would you mind uploading it to google drive or another site and sharing the link? Many thanks :slight_smile:

16

I didn’t get a chance to download it