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maharmstone / quibble

Quibble - the custom Windows bootloader
GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0
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Quibble

Quibble is the custom Windows bootloader - an open-source reimplementation of the files bootmgfw.efi and winload.efi, able to boot versions of Windows from XP to Windows 10 22H2. Unlike the official bootloader, it is extensible, allowing you to boot from other filesystems than just NTFS.

This is only a proof of concept at this stage - don't use this for anything serious.

Screenshot of Windows 10 1909 running on Btrfs:

Donations

I'm doing this for kicks and giggles, but if you want to donate it'd be appreciated:

Installation

If you're booting Windows 7 or earlier in a VM, you will need the OVMF firmware with Seabios compiled in as the Compatibility Support Module (CSM), which isn't normally included. Precompiled version are available: x86 and amd64.

This has been tested successfully in Qemu v7.2, VirtualBox v7, and on EFI version F50 of a Gigabyte motherboard. The quality of EFI implementations varies significantly, so if you're testing on real hardware it may or may not work for you.

Changelog

Compiling

On Linux:

On Windows:

FAQs

Disable CSM in your BIOS. Bear in mind that this will also stop Windows 7 and earlier from booting.

With the Btrfs driver or NTFS drivers, this should work on XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 versions 1507 to 22H2.

The included Btrfs driver, and maybe also the FAT driver that's part of the UEFI specifications. Windows XP, Vista, and 7 will work fine from a FAT volume, anything after that won't.

Drop your EFI driver in the drivers folder, and it'll load it on startup.

This means that the Registry is unclean, and our rudimentary recovery wasn't good enough. If you attach C:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM to another machine via Regedit temporarily, it'll fix it. Make sure you shut Windows down properly to avoid having to do this.

Yes - add /SUBVOL=xxx to your Options in freeldr.ini. You can find the number to use on the Properties page of your subvolume. On Linux you can use btrfs subvol list, but bear in mind that you will need to translate the number to hexadecimal.

Because Windows only loads ntfs.sys when it's booting from NTFS. To start it as a one-off, run sc start ntfs from an elevated command prompt. To get it to start every time, open regedit and change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ntfs\Start to 1.

If Windows doesn't load the FAT driver automatically, try running sc start fastfat.

The boot graphics code isn't completed yet - you won't see either the Windows logo or the progress indicator, just a few seconds of blackness.

Licences and Thanks

This is released under the LGPL. The Mersenne Twister code is by Mutsuo Saito and Makoto Matsumoto - see the header of tinymt32.c. The GNU-EFI headers are under the BSD licence.

This code incorporates FreeType, licensed under the FreeType Licence.

The included font is Jost*, from Indestructible Type.

The Btrfs EFI driver contains portions of the following software:

Zlib

Copyright (C) 1995-2017 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

  1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
  2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
  3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

LZO

btrfs-efi contains portions of an early version of lzo, which is copyright 1996 Markus Oberhumer. Modern versions are licensed under the GPL, but this was licensed under the LGPL, so I believe it is okay to use.

Zstd

Copyright (c) 2016-present, Facebook, Inc. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Harfbuzz

HarfBuzz is licensed under the so-called "Old MIT" license. Details follow. For parts of HarfBuzz that are licensed under different licenses see individual files names COPYING in subdirectories where applicable.

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For full copyright notices consult the individual files in the package.

Permission is hereby granted, without written agreement and without license or royalty fees, to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose, provided that the above copyright notice and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies of this software.

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