Hello Jonathan,
After no reply from dWLkR since late Aug. I had kinda shelved this one
...
So I D/L`d the ISO I had made then and checked it out again...Needs work...
The concept is functional, the GUI needs work.
I will play around with it relative to your needs, and some new ideas, and get back..
With a few tweaks, this "Puppy as a faux Windoze server" could really be useful..
This concept gives incredible power and ease over Windoze, with minimum effort..
( For instance, you can install software to the VDI once, then copy it to the various machines)
Some things:
Removing the VBox GUI. so 1024x768 (ect) is all in the screen...
Guest Additions...When you create your "Master" VDI you may want to have Guest Additions for Windows installed, but only if you want local, ( ie. HDD outside the VDI) storage access,(Probably not), Network works fine in VBox thru Puppy, as does sound.. And no matter which Puppy box you "move" your "one" VDI to, Windoze sees the same "hardware"..I use a USB drive to transfer/run them..Windoze,...on a stick...I use a full featured Puppy, rather than an "invisible" one..My Puppy, and a custom XP install on a 4gb stick.... On almost any machine. (Ram permitting)
( As for that troublesome EULA, I own my disk, and installed it to a "machine", albeit a virtual one... )
As for a clean sweep every time, easy enough, but troublesome and unnecessary.
Troublesome because some user settings are convenient (ie passwords and bookmarks) and would require a configured VDI for every user. Part of the power of this is you are one "copy/replace" command away from a fresh, (uninfected ect..) Doze.
Unnecessary because you can limit their Doze HDD size to exactly what they need / you want and no more....Also one copy to a USB and you can examine "their" Doze at your leisure on any machine, If they know that you can insert a USB stick, and have whatever they have done instantly, that alone will prohibit "errant" software installation.
Im sure this will serve your purpose well, and will be easy to do yourselves..
Pick a Puppy that will work on all your hardware....
Install VBox.on it.. Create a symlink to /root /Startup for VBox.
Create your OS VDI.. (Copy it to a USB stick)
Remaster your new Puppy including VBox and any stuff you need to make it work on every machine, to a CD.(Or the aforementioned USB stick, if your hardware will all boot from USB, (not likely on older hardware))
Install your Puppy to every machine and configure Network/Audio/ect...
Transfer the VDI from the USB stick to each machine, where your pupsave is, and load it in VBox.
Comment out the Taskbar / Menus in jwmrc/jwmrctray..Add the line "rox -p=" to xinitrc to kill Rox at boot. (Or write a script to make the changes by replacing them with new ones.)
The post by "mikeb" seems to have solved the startup/shutdown issue, Ill be checking that out..
as it looks like a better answer than this..
When you reboot the machine only VBox is accessible, and start boots Doze.
I know, seems like a lot, but its really fast and easy, well, except the initial Doze install.
But you only have to do it once. Transferring a VDI is much faster..LOL..
If you want a basic example, D/L the "Undercoverpup.iso" from the Buddapup link below and check it out...It boots to Icewm and Jwm is "invisible" so you set it up and reboot it to jwm...then save...Its really rough, but will give you an idea...
....Jay.....