On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Aleksey Bragin
<aleksey@reactos.org> wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: caemyr@myopera.com
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2011 10:50 PM
To: ReactOS Development List
Subject: Re: [ros-dev] [VMWINST]
Since when vmware is the most common testing platform?:> I also agree, tha Vbox has taken up the first place...
I forgot to put on the ironic tag :) But seriously, it's one of the most popular platforms. Vbox has really taken up the first place, I suppose.
This module is not working properly, due to changes in Vmware 7 (and perhaps even earlier). Sure, you can hack around it, by providing the driver manually... but its not what this module was supposed to do in the first place?
The thing is, yes there is aproblem with autograbbing the modules, but if you put them in proper place by yourself, it works flawlessly, and automates their installation to the point when I just can choose the necessary resolution and color depth at install time and everything else is done within 5 seconds.
What's worse, it is using some ugly methode of detecting Vmware host, by probing one specific pipe. On other hosts, this attempt throws an exception. If we plan to run ROS tests with /FIRSTCHANCE this module needs to disappear.
This is not an ugly or a beautiful method, it is a method to detect presence of a VMWare virtual machine described here:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1009458
It's also smartly wrapped into a VEH which would catch the exception on other hardware (that's normal, nothing extraordinary).
Rather, it's possible to hack away all possible first chance exceptions to be able to run with /FIRSTCHANCE, but I doubt it's the right way. Are there any other cases except vmwinst when an exception happens by design?
In my opinion, VMWINST should either be fixed to deal with new Vmware, or be sent to its hard-earned retirement.
For me that would mean a substantial increase in a usual testing cycle duration, because I would need to install VMWare Tools (do they even work?) or cope with default ReactOS VESA driver (which sucks performance-wise compared to fast VMWare's one).
WBR,
Aleksey.