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Questions tagged [wubi]

Questions about Wubi, a way to dual boot Ubuntu and Windows without partitioning. However, it's been abandoned for years and is depreciated.

Wubi is an installer for Windows users that allows Ubuntu to be installed and uninstalled in a safe, easy way as with any other Windows application.

Wubi used to be officially supported by Canonical, but it wasn't actively maintained and didn't work on newer Windows computers that use UEFI to boot i.e. all newer computers with Windows 8 and Windows 10 that come with Secure Boot. For this reason, Wubi support was dropped by Canonical and Wubi.exe was no longer shipped from release 15.04. Technically it is still available on some long term releases, but these versions don't work anymore without manual workarounds.

Since then a community-supported fork of Wubi has been maintained that does work with UEFI and Secure Boot. The latest release is available on Github. For more information refer to the Wiki.

With Wubi, Ubuntu is installed onto a virtual disk which eliminates the requirement to repartition (required for a traditional dual-boot) or replace the Windows Bootloader. On older (non-UEFI systems) Wubi boots via the Windows Boot Manager, using a combination of GRUB4DOS (wubildr.mbr) and Grub2 (wubildr), which 'loop-mounts' the virtual disk in order to boot from it.

Notable limitations include a lack of hibernation support, a somewhat less robust filesystem (avoid hard reboots), and reliance on the Windows "parent" filesystem -- therefore, if Windows crashes, it's necessary to reboot into Windows first to have it repair the Windows filesystem before the Ubuntu filesystem. Note: it is not advisable to store important data in a Wubi install unless you also maintain current backups, because Windows' chkdsk will sometimes remove the virtual disk if it believes it is corrupted.

The minimum requirement to run Wubi is 512MB of RAM and about 6GB of disk space (Edubuntu requires about 13GB).

For more information, please refer to the Wubi Guide.

The most frequent questions are:

1261 questions
115
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9 answers

How can I install Ubuntu without CD and USB?

I want to install Ubuntu on my laptop that doesn't have a CD-ROM drive and I have no spare USB disk. I've tried Wubi, but that doesn't seem to work (since it prompts me to have the CD in the drive, which I don't have). How can I install Ubuntu,…
user294273
  • 1,161
73
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9 answers

What's the difference between Wubi and a regular "alongside Windows" installation?

At this time, Wubi does not work with Windows 8 default boot-loader. Thus at this point Wubi would not work on a new Windows 8 machine. Citation fom WubiGuide Question Recently I've learned of Wubi, a way to install Ubuntu right from…
Cesar
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52
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10 answers

How to convert Wubi install into regular install?

I have installed Ubuntu on my D: partition using Wubi. Is there any way in which I can remove my Windows from C: drive and move my existing Ubuntu installation to C: drive and make it a regular install.
User
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32
votes
2 answers

Ubuntu 14.04 not booting after error message. /tmp could not be mounted

I recently installed Ubuntu 14.04 using WUBI and after installation when it booted it showed an error: Serious errors were found while checking the disk drive for /. There were three options: press [I] to ignore, press [S] to skip mounting and…
user272877
  • 323
31
votes
5 answers

Windows installer for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS onwards

Is there any Windows installer (wubi) for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS? When I mount the .iso file with Daemon Tools and run wubi.exe, it just asks me if I want to reboot (I think that's useful only when the .iso is burned on CD), so is there no "real"…
mrgloom
  • 900
27
votes
3 answers

Can I install Ubuntu inside Windows?

Ubuntu 12.04 won't come with the Windows Installer (Wubi) pre-added. But is there any way to install 12.04 using Wubi?
Prasad RD
  • 2,043
22
votes
4 answers

What performance differences are there when installing with Wubi?

I know that Wubi is slower in disk IO, but I can't find anything about it online other than vague statements such as "slightly slower disk seeks". Has anyone done any benchmarks to quantify the speed difference?
Colin
  • 718
14
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4 answers

Recover deleted data with rm -rf on Wubi?

I accidentally deleted /home with sudo rm -rf. I tried to restore it with testdisk, but because Ubuntu is from Wubi, it cannot list the filesystem and I don't know another way to do this. How could I restore my data? It's important. I'm using 10.10…
Shogun
  • 143
14
votes
5 answers

Using a folder on an ntfs partition as /home

I use wubi to install Ubuntu 10.10 on my ntfs partition. So I want to change the home folder to a folder on the ntfs partition. I could keep the personal configuration, software and so on after reinstalling the Ubuntu. So I use ntfs-config to manage…
Kane
  • 471
13
votes
7 answers

How can I tell if I installed with wubi?

It sounds odd, but I really can not remember how I installed my ubuntu. What I am sure is, I had Windows 7 installed on the laptop in the very beginning, then I installed ubuntu so that this is a dual system 1 year ago. I need to know if the ubuntu…
SoftTimur
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11
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2 answers

Can Wubi use the ISO I already have?

The Windows Installer for Ubuntu desktop instructions say that an ISO image for Ubuntu is downloaded during the installation process. But what if I already have an ISO image for Ubuntu. Can I make the Windows Installer use that, so it doesn't have…
ssi-anik
  • 230
11
votes
1 answer

How can I load Ubuntu when all I have is Grub?

So I have upgraded Ubuntu with the latest Kernel. But after the upgrade and after I rebooted Ubuntu, all I get is GRUB. How do I load Ubuntu again when all I have is GRUB? I installed Ubuntu using wubi. Thanks heaps for the help
Joshua Partogi
  • 275
11
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4 answers

Will long-term use of ubuntu via wubi harm my PC?

I do see a part of my question being discussed already. The specific answer I'm looking for is, will LONG-TERM use of Ubuntu via Wubi harm my PC (i.e cause irrevocable h/w failure or damage my windows 7 installation)...? My daily use is a few hrs…
Linux-Fan
  • 107
10
votes
4 answers

How do I give Ubuntu more space (when installed inside Windows 7 (via wubi))?

I had installed Ubuntu inside Windows XP but then I formatted XP and installed Windows 7. EDIT1: I used Wubi for the same. I want to know which one of the two will solve my problem? creating a virtual disk or resizing root? Also is resizing root…
Pavitar
  • 173
10
votes
0 answers

Is wubi for Windows 8?

Possible Duplicate: How to boot WUBI installed Ubuntu within Windows 8? Installing Ubuntu on a Pre-Installed Windows 8 system My Dell laptop shipped with Windows 8. I installed Ubuntu 12.10(64 bit) through wubi installer, the installer worked…
Mandeep Singh
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