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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:

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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
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How do I uninstall Ubuntu Wubi?

I want to uninstall Ubuntu because I just don't like it... I have windows 7 and no boot disk or anything special to uninstall, when I installed Ubuntu it said easy to uninstall and I would love to know how to actually uninstall it. Thank You.
Charlie
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Windows Boot Manager: Make Ubuntu the default instead of Windows

When I boot my computer, I get the Windows Boot Manager with Vista selected and Ubuntu as the other item in the list. If I choose Ubuntu, I get the GRUB menu. I have updated GRUB menus before so I know how that works, but since Windows Boot Manager…
700 Software
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Is WUBI free to download?

Is WUBI freely available? I checked the link to download WUBI and the only way to proceed is by giving some amount as donation. I will surely do it, but I don't have a Paypal account and I am in urgent need to install Ubuntu. Can someone help me?
Zeeshan
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How do I force Wubi to download and install 32 bit version?

I am trying to install Ubuntu Natty beta 2 32bit with WUBI, but whenever I try to install it always tries to download 64 bit version. How do I ensure that it downloads 32 bit instead of 64 bit?
Madhava
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Wubi Installer Error: The boot configuration data store could not be opened

I'm trying to install Xubuntu using Wubi, however, once I start the installer, it runs all the way through (on the Installing Xubuntu-11.10 page with the two loading bars), and it gets to "Remaining time approximately 0s". Then, it gives me an error…
Bob
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How do I remove the extra Ubuntu option on the Windows Boot Manager menu?

I installed ubuntu using Wubi side by side with Windows. I decided to uninstall ubuntu and install Kubuntu, which I did successfully. However now when I boot my computer, the Windows Boot Manager displays 3 options: Windows Ubuntu Kubuntu The…
J.Hunter
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Can wubi harm my PC?

I am just wondering can wubi 11.04 make windows unbootable in anyway and what harm can it do to my PC. Also, if I force shut down in wubi ubuntu can it damage windows?
andr3w
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Is it really possible to run Linux applications within Windows using Wubi?

According to this article that I found, Wubi "has the side-effect of allowing you to run Linux apps within a Windows environment." I found this statement to be very intriguing: Is it actually possible to run Linux applications on Windows (without…
Anderson Green
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Increase space for /root in Ubuntu Wubi

Possible Duplicate: Is it possible to extend the disk space available to a wubi install? I have ubuntu 10.04 installed inside Windows 7 through Wubi. I need to increase the size of /root or root.disk. How can I do this? wubi-add-virtual-disk does…
skypemesm
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Can I use Wubi for manual installation?

Is it possible to use Wubi for Ubuntu 13.04? I read that it will not be supported in the official release due to some problems. Is this going to change in the future, and can we expect to see a future release with support for 13.04?
Carpetfizz
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Do I have the full OS installed?

I installed Ubuntu using WUBI.exe last night which is running alongside my Windows 8. When I boot up my laptop, I get given a choice between Windows or Ubuntu. Am I running the full Ubuntu OS? Every time I start my laptop into Ubuntu, my brightness…
user129796
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What are files of wubi?

I was messing up with my system files when i noticed some odd-looking files. Just wanted to know what all files are put up by wubi installed and where? Here are few files i believe to exist: wubildr.mbr - In the root partition of windows (c:\…
BhaveshDiwan
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Should I use wubi ubuntu 12.04 for my academic studies like writing docs, programming, etc?

I've installed ubuntu 12.04 LTS as a wubi installation in Windows 7, its running fairly well. will Wubi installation cause any problem, will I be able to access any files created in wubi Ubuntu in windows 7? Its said wubi is only for testing out…
Diptej
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Is it possible to run two versions of Ubuntu side by side on a single Machine using wubi?

Possible Duplicate: How to enable booting multiple Ubuntu Wubi? I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 installed using Wubi (OS: Windows 7 x64). Now Can I install 12.04 LTS on a different drive and use it side by side ? I don't want to loose all the programs I…
Curious Apprentice
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