XLiveCD on systems where Cygwin is already installed

XLive CD is not intended to run on systems on which Cygwin is already installed. However, it is possible to do so, and this page outlines the necessary steps. Carefully read the page, and do not run XLiveCD if you are uncomfortable with any of the steps.

Before launching XLiveCD

What XLiveCD does

XLiveCD removes Cygwin file system mount points from the Windows registry (key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin) and caches them. It then places its mount points in the Windows registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin. When the X server exits normally XLiveCD removes its mount points and replaces the originals. The mount points will not be restored if the X server crashes or if something goes wrong with the cleanup script.

Restoring after a crash

If XLiveCD fails to exit cleanly, the registry needs to be restored to its original state.

  1. Remove the Windows registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin.
  2. Restore the windows registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cygnus Solutions\Cygwin that you saved before running XLiveCD. If you didn't save the key before running XLiveCD, you are out of luck.

Documentation copyright and license

Copyright (C) 2004 by The Trustees of Indiana University. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.