I followed the instructions in “How to Install Windows 10 in VirtualBox in Linux]” from It’s Foss and get as far as Installing Windows 10 but then get an error message saying a media file is missing. But it doesn’t tell me what media file and where I’m likely to find it.
I’m running Ubuntu 21.04 on a Dell PC with 16Gb RAM and a 480Gb SSD. Can anyone give me some advice please? (Other than ‘Give Up!’).
Alan
Greetings & Welcome to this forum.
If you have the possibility to use a different image and/or check if your Windows 10 image is correct and not faulty, then I would advise you to do that.
If that’s out of reach for now, you should make screenshots of what exactly you are seeing, so we can picture the issue better. 
Before I send screenshots, the ISO file I downloaded burned okay onto my disc so there were no errors in the ISO file itself. But I understand that the content may not be complete so I’ll see if I can find another ISO from a different source and let you know.
The ISO I have is Win10_21H1_EnglishInternational_x64.iso so I’ll see if I can find another one.
Well, even the most broken ISO file can still be burned fine. It’s really important to check the file’s hash after download and ideally after burning, too.
See Q6:
https://www.howtogeek.com/246332/how-to-verify-a-downloaded-linux-iso-file-wasnt-tampered-with/
You can get it from any source, as long as the hashes match, in the end.
There are like a bajillion versions. You will have a lot to choose from.
The point is, that such a similar error usually appears, when something went wrong with the ISO file. If you verify the hashes match, usually such messages go away.
Hello Alan,
I believe you followed this guide:
Please makes ure that you add the Windows ISO as an optical storage before starting the Windows installation. The step is mentioned in the tutorial:
Yes I did this. The optical drive shows but only as the drive name, not the iso name.
That’s what I’ve been talking about.
Did you follow my advice on verifying the ISO file?
Don’t do that.
You can download Windows 10 ISO from MS, it will be free of modifications by 3rd parties. If you get the iso from an unknown source, it could contain even malicious components too.
Get the iso from here (if you can’t live without Windows ):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO
That’s exactly the problem when getting that crack from Microshit.
If you download something from Github, it could also contain malicious content. So, I guess, nobody should download anything from Github.
The ISO I got is from the Microsoft site. Unfortunately I don’t know where to find the sha256sum (or the corresponding gpg) for the downloaded file. It wasn’t in the same location as the ISO file I downloaded.
I ran sha256sum (already on my system) followed by the ISO filename in Terminal and got a result but I don’t know what to compare it to.
It’s there. On the download page expand “Verify your download” and look up the relevant hash from the table.
According to that table:
English International 64-bit CB8731A17350B2F61AD1C059FC16FD6348530C25E43F631F2691768F767F75C3
English International 32-bit 6781CA16113DFE9B1117809923FFC7D390926C14F45889F80293AC70E1E8F87C
@Akito, you really want to mean, an official download source is equally safe as a cracked pirated torrented iso with hacked out activation which is still trusted by the neighbours 9 years old hardcore gamer child? Or you want to mean, something open source controlled by dozens of contributors on Github is equally dangerous, as a closed install medium, modified by someone somewhere with a who knows intention?
Or just mocking on me… 
No, I’m saying the download from crackers with 30+ years of positive reputation and experience is more trustworthy than a company with 25+ years experience screwing over customers and users with various Windows fuck ups.
There is an entire list of features that got removed from Windows, over the years. Instead of adding stuff, they remove stuff all the time.
Crackers with very high reputation usually modify the product, to make it better. For example, they remove bloat and unnecessary crap from Windows, which is put by default by Windows’ creators into that OS, for bad reasons.
Okay, now with Windows 10 it’s hard to keep up and it’s barely modified anymore, but I still remember Windows 7 and Windows XP times, where half the OS was gutted and removed, to make it quicker and better.
I still have an old DVD with Windows XP “Black Edition” here. It’s the best Windows XP possible and it’s not official.
If you open a project on Github, where do you get all the people from? There are like a trillion projects on Github that do not have seen a single 3rd party eye pair. (Not to mention, an eye pair from a 3rd party that is actually able to check the source for problematic behaviour.) They’ve just ever been looked at by the original developer and nobody else. Just because it’s possible to look at the source, it does not mean people actually do, as they maybe are not able to or do not care to do so.
What I am trying to say with all this:
It’s irrational to say “don’t download from 3rd party sources, because it could be malicious!”, because that’s like saying, nobody should ever leave their home, because crossing a street means you can get hit by a car. Every single time your child crosses a street, it can hit by a car. Yet, you still allow them to do that. Why?
Because we need to evaluate the chances and probabilities and make decisions, that still allow us to keep living, even when there is risk involved. Literally everybody’s life is just an accumulation of risks and the probability to randomly die one day, because of anything, like getting hit by a falling piano.
Same goes for those, who are beat up by propaganda the most. Corporate propaganda tries to tell consumers, they shouldn’t use aftermarket products, they shouldn’t use third party products, because it could be all dangerous, incompatible, bla bla bla bla bla…
The only reason why so many people think that crackers are so evil and just fill up your computer with malware is propaganda. It’s corporate fucking propaganda.
Literally the only time I ever had issues with a ware is when I downloaded from a suspicious source and the release was tempered with by anonymous script kiddies, who just pretended to be a reputable cracker.
All downloads from reputable crackers I have ever seen are as clean as it gets for closed source software.
If I have the choice to download from the official company/creator of the software or from a reputable cracker club with decades of reputation, I would choose the cracker club.
This is just a tiny bit of examples how companies try to squeeze out every single last penny out of customers and consumers by constantly repeating the false mantra, that everything but their own shit is good enough to be used on/in/with their products
Did you use Linux or a Windows computer to download that ISO. Some of the ISO’s from MS
require a Windows computer or the ISO will be corrupted. I use https://getintopc.com/ for a lot
of my Windows ISO’s.
I’m not aware of such crackers. However, if they really exist, I can agree.
One of the most famous cracker groups is founded some time in the 80’s. They still exist and follow the same spirit as always.
Providing software mainly for testing purposes, without restrictions or other "fuck you"s. There are also a lot of gamers on earth that are forced by the government to alternatively get games. Why? Because some games are heavily adjusted for the country (i.e. heavily censored) or completely forbidden.
Germany is, for example, an infamous country that blocked already so many games and censored even more. For example, one of my most favourite games, Wolfenstein: New Order, is heavily censored and “adjusted”, because any Nazi symbol is strictly forbidden from being shown in any shape or form in Germany. Yes, even if you cross out a swastika and surround it with middle fingers, it’s still forbidden.
As for other games, there are so-called “Low Violence Versions” specifically made for Germany. Another one of my favourite games of all time, Sleeping Dogs, is censored in this way.
Other countries, like arabic ones mainly, forbid media, like games and movies, which either show gay stuff, government critical stuff or too much sexy stuff.
So, sometimes you are even explicitly forced to use a product released by one of the cracker groups, because you have no or little choice. Sometimes there are ways to circumvent such censoring laws, but who wants to import a 5€ game from the UK for £30 or more?! This is unjust. Using cracked software is one way to regain a bit of justice.
There are a small percentage of people, who indeed never pay for software and just get it for free, that’s it. However, the truth about them is, they would never buy the software, either way. If it weren’t for the cracked version, they would just not use it at all. However, they maybe use it for maybe 1 hour and that’s it, because it was free. But they won’t pay a 100 bucks just to use it for 1 hour. So, either way, these people aren’t a problem, at all.
I still remember how I accidentally and magically received a copy of the, back then, brand new Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain game. I didn’t want to buy it back then and still wouldn’t buy it, except the best version of the game would cost less than 5 bucks.
So when was that game released? Let me look that up.
Release WW: September 1, 2015
So, I have that game since like 6 years sitting on my platter and I didn’t even touch it. I did not even install it. I just found it from time to time in my archive, when I was searching for other shit.
This was another topic, people usually talk about in this context, I responded to. I want to point out, that there is a legitimate and perfectly understandable market for warez and I support it, philosophically.
Whenever I hear someone gets thrown out of the government or some big institute for e.g. possession of child abuse images, the first thing I think about is not “what a horrible person”, but “who wanted to get rid of this guy?”.
The only legitimate plague of child abusers is mainly in churchy & religious institutes. All other scandals in other institutes are, what feels like, mostly made up to just get rid of an uncomfortable & critical person.
Just recently a guy in Mexico (or where was it? I don’t remember) got thrown out for having child abuse images on his laptop or whatever. All countries not involved in this pretty much agree, that this was staged, just to get rid of him and ruin his public life.
What about Assange?
What about that Russian opposition dude?
I forgot all those people’s names, so I can’t list all the examples, but I remember at least 5 faces of men who were displayed as very evil people, when in fact it was not proven at all, that it was the truth. It always seemed like they were just supposed to be publicly ruined, so their ideas lose credibility in the general public.
The point of this analogy is, that just because corporate propaganda repeats the same crap about crackers of how dangerous they supposedly are, over and over and over and over again, does not mean they are right about it. What they are preaching is 99% of the time a huge pile of crap.
If they would’ve been correct about their statement of how dangerous that shit supposedly is, all my friends would’ve already lost all their computers and laptops, because of that malware, etc. Somehow, that never ever happened…
Best release of Windows I ever used was “Windows XP Stripped To the Bone”…
Lightning fast, with the Windows NT 4 / Windows 2000 gui… but with USB support… I used to keep a VM of it on standby in case I ever needed a Windows “box” in a hurry…
That was done by hackers and warez groups… and 10,000x better than XP from Microsoft … I remember I gave a copy to my brother who worked in “IT” but he hated it, he wanted all the bells and whistles and swore blind it was missing something, but he couldn’t put his finger on it…
I’ve still got a VirtualBox VM OVA/OVF file somewhere, Windows XP Stripped to the Bone, with a bunch of Win16 kid’s games installed to run in 256 colours that I set up for my kids for nostalgia… I fire it up from time to time…
I think there is only one way to top this. A long time ago, a Russian friend of mine had shown me a Russian only version of Windows XP. It was called something like “Windows XP: Game Edition”. No, not the “Game Edition” you can find in English. The Russian version is unique.
It was such an extremely stripped down version of XP, you could literally not do anything, except playing games. It used tons of less resources, than stock Windows XP.
Good old times, when you could strip down Windows without it breaking and you having to re-install everything, anyway…
This stripped down version already had SP3 install too - so - it was pretty “current” at the time (i.e. mid to late 2000s)… you could run stuff like Firefox or Chrome on it no dramas, and maybe even could do IE 11 ?
I remember hacking it (a simple registry hack I think) so terminal services (remote desktop) would let multiple users at the same time (i.e. a remote desktop SERVER) have a desktop session…
Another thing I thought was pretty neat, if you had virtualization enabled in the BIOS, you could use Windows XP (stripped to the bone, 32 bit) maxed out on RAM and CPU’s and run Oracle VirtualBox and host 64 BIT VMs! Still a BETTER hypervisor than MS’s SHITE “HyperV”… hmmm - in retrospect - I think VirtualBox on XP didn’t do PAE, so you were probably limited to sharing a max of 3.5 GB of RAM with VM’s - but remember, many people in 2003 were running XP on 64 or 128 MB of RAM!
