Can you create a VM with NO floppy controller?

A

automandc

Junior Member
Hi, new to the forums, but pretty sure this has not been answered before:

I want to completely eliminate non-existent devices in WinXP. Currently, no matter what I do, XP Device Manager reports the Floppy Controller as present, even after it is uninstalled and every trace of it deleted from the registry. As near as I can tell, this is a function of the virtual BIOS reporting the presence of the floppy controller, even though my VM has no floppy device attached. (Since there is no option under "Config->Boot Order that doesn't include a floppy disk, I gather that the Parallels VM at least checks a virtual floppy bus that is always present.)

Is there a way to completely hide the floppy bus from the guest OS? I believe this can be done in some BIOSes.

Great product (I'll post other comments/wishes in the appropriate forums).

Thanks
automandc
 
Hello,

did you try to open 'Configuration Editor' (Edit -> Virtual Machine) and disable or delete 'Floppy' there?

Best regards,
Stacey
 
Sorry, I thought I replied to this earlier...

There is no floppy installed in my VM (hence, nothing to disable or delete). However, even with no drive installed, the VM still identifies the Floppy bus, and thus windows tries to load a floppy driver.
 
Even when it is "disabled", Windows still recognizes it as present, and so insists on having floppy drivers. The only way to completely hide the floppy bus from Windows is to disable it in Bios (on a normal PC). I think that the VM has a virtual floppy bus that is always present (since it has a "BIOS" option to check for a floppy during the boot sequence), and there is no way remove that from the VM. This isn't a huge priority item, but I am interested in "building" a legacy-free XP install, with no PS/2, Parallel, Serial, or Floppy devices.
 
Sorry to necro the thread, but there are compelling reasons to need to do this, sometimes. In my case, I need drive letter A: available for scripts that map it (scripts that come from a PC that was imported setup in this way).

The answer is that you go into the "Hardware" section of the "Configure Machine", click on the "floppy" entry, then click on the "-" button near the bottom left.
 
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