[rescue] Re: Divide and conquer

[Gavin Hubbard]

>Frank Van Damme <frank.vandamme at student.kuleuven.ac.be> wrote:
>[...]
>> Hihi... And preferably without keyboard, mouse or monitor. Especially a
>> mouse is a powerful instrument on NT.
>> And oh wait, a PC doesn't boot without a monitor...
>
>That's news to the headless x86 boxes I have. About the only reason I might
>put a video card into them is if it's a really cruddy card that I want to
>see the back of.
>
>Obviously, said machines probably won't boot NT because of the lack of video
>card. I consider not being able to run NT a feature :)
>
>-- 
>PGP key ID E85DC776 - finger abuse at mooli.org.uk for full key


It isn't commonly known but you can actually boot any Windows NT or 2K system without a video card installed. The trick is to do an install with a card installed, then replace the system's video driver with the 'null vga' driver from from the (free) windows server appliance kit.

More info at the following:

http://snorkel.rtfm.com.au/publish/win2k/win2k.server.headless.v2.1.txt

I've tied this technique - it does work.

Regards,

Gavin