Difference between revisions of "Installing WA on VirtualBox"

Latest revision as of 21:20, 6 January 2011

If you cannot get Worms Armageddon working on your computer (due to e.g. hardware compatibility), you can install it in a Virtual machine. A virtual machine emulates an entire computer with all its hardware, separating the game from your real hardware/operating system and its problems or incompatibilities.

VirtualBox is a free desktop virtualization software from innotek GmbH. The following guide describes the necessary steps to set up a Windows virtual machine in VirtualBox and install Worms Armageddon on it.

Prerequisites

You will need:

1. A computer powerful enough to emulate a virtual machine (at least 512MB of RAM)
2. A working Internet connection
3. A few gigabytes of free space on your hard drive
4. A copy of Windows 2000 or newer on a CD

Setting up VirtualBox

Go to the VirtualBox download page and download the application. Install it after it has downloaded.

Creating the virtual machine

Start up VirtualBox. When the main window is displayed, click the "New" button on the toolbar to start the Create New Virtual Machine wizard. Select these options:

• Page 2: enter a name for your virtual machine and select the operating system which you will be installing.
• Page 3: increase the suggested memory size by 64 - 128 MB.
• Page 4: click New... to start the Create New Virtual Disk wizard. Answer all questions with the default settings.

After the wizard has completed, open the virtual machine's settings:

• On the CD/DVD-ROM page, check Mount CD/DVD Drive. Select the drive which you will use for installing the operating system and W:A.
• If your Windows installation CD is not bootable, on the Floppy page check Mount Floppy Drive.
• On the Audio page, check Enable Audio. Select a host audio driver other than Null Audio Driver.

Setting up the guest operating system

First, insert your Windows operating system installation CD in your CD drive.

If your CD is not bootable, you will also need to insert an MS-DOS boot floppy disk with CD-ROM support. You can create one on a computer running Windows 98 or ME. If one is not available or if it is not working properly, you can download a self-writing boot disk image from here.

Double-click your virtual machine in the virtual machine list to start it.

If your CD is bootable, the virtual machine will boot from the CD and Windows Setup should start.

If your CD is not bootable, the virtual machine will boot from the floppy drive and an MS-DOS command prompt will appear. Follow these steps to start Setup manually:

• type D: to switch to your CD-ROM drive
  • Note: some bootdisks may mount the CD-ROM drive to other letters than D: (for example X:). If entering the command above gives an error, try other drive letters.
• type CD I386 to change the current directory to D:\i386
• type WINNT to start the DOS-based installer

Installing Windows onto the virtual machine should be fairly straight-forward. If you are unsure about something, select the default option. If you encounter difficulties, please consult your operating system installation guide.

Note: all changes are being done inside your virtual machine, and do not affect your computer. The Windows installation will format your virtual hard drive, not your real one. From your computer's point of view, all changes will be made to the virtual machine files.

Follow the setup process until the virtual machine starts to your Windows desktop.

Guest Additions

The latest Beta version of W:A no longer requires Guest Additions to run. If you use the same virtual machine for other tasks, you may still wish to install them, as Guest Additions may considerably improve your experience. To install Guest Additions, select Devices → Install Guest Additions... from the VirtualBox menu.

Note: The Mouse Integration feature of Guest Additions is not compatible with W:A. To disable it, select the appropriate option from the Machine menu, or press Host+I.

Note: If you attempt to resize the VM window or enter/exit full screen while W:A is running, W:A might crash or display a black screen. Before attempting to enter or exit full screen, minimize W:A first. If you get a black screen, you can try to minimize W:A by pressing the Shift+Escape minimize hotkey.

Note: You can pause the VM and save its state, but if you do so, you may not be able to return focus to W:A. If you have additions installed, you can press Host+I twice to toggle Mouse Integration which will return proper control to the mouse.

Installing Worms Armageddon

Take out your Windows installation CD and insert your Worms Armageddon CD. W:A installation should start; install the game in your virtual machine as you would do normally.

After the game is installed, you will need to update it. In your virtual machine, open Internet Explorer and go to wa.team17.com. Click the Update button in the corner, and download and install the latest Beta update. Agree to download and install any required intermediate updates.

If you encounter difficulties, please consult the more detailed installation guides available here.

If W:A fails to detect VirtualBox, you may need to manually import the SlowFrontendWorkaround_Off registry tweak (located in the Tweaks subdirectory under the game installation directory).

After following these steps, W:A should be able to run well on the virtual machine.

Remarks

If something in this guide does not work for you, you can also try other free virtualization software:

• Installing WA on Virtual PC
• Installing WA on VMware Player