Setting up a VM for ISTA+ and ISTA-P and other tools

[Driftit 2078]

Found my HDD was too small the other day when I was installing ISTA-P.

So I wondered if those systems would run on a VM.  Had a bit of a search and it seems someone has done it on another Bimmer forum.

Does anyone here have the capability and resources to build one for Bimmersport?

[eliongater 718]

Suspect finding a way to make it run on Windows 10 might be simpler for the general audience? As the pass through settings will likely be different depending on what your virtualisation software is. Didn’t someone recently post a link to an installer on here?

 

Which guest OS were you thinking anyway? XP, 7 or 10?

[Driftit 2078]

I was thinking we keep it 10.

https://www.bimmerdiagnostics.com/ do a one click install that works on all platforms for 15 quid.

Though I could imagine all the different cables could cause an issue.  I will have a play around and see if I can get it working locally first.

My VM knowledge is limited though.

[M3AN 4016]

How will running it in a VM help with your hard drive space? It will actually take more space.'

 

[wrs 120]

Maybe he means a cloud VM for everyone to share??

[M3AN 4016]

14 minutes ago, wrs said:

Maybe he means a cloud VM for everyone to share??

Perhaps. If so,  good luck with the networking. ?

[wrs 120]

Yep, nightmare!!!!

Could also mean a VM on a USB stick...

[M3AN 4016]

2 minutes ago, wrs said:

Yep, nightmare!!!!

Could also mean a VM on a USB stick...

Not necessarily a silly idea...

[wrs 120]

Yeah, download the VM image onto a USB stick and plug it in when you need it... I've got some VM experience with ESXi but not enough to even think about attempting this - can see hours and hours disappearing...

[eliongater 718]

Could quite feasibly create an ISO/Zip of sone portable virtualisation software With a preconfigured VM on. E.g. burn this ISO to a disk or extract this zip to a USB stick, then run XYZ. 
Though sharing a VM with windows installed in it could be questionable legality wise (even if it’s unlicensed). The advantage of a VM rather some instructions and installers for you host OS is you could have a 32bit OS (assuming that’s better for what we’re trying to achieve given that was the standard in 2000...) with all the multitude of tweaks completed to get the software working. Though again, pass through could be interesting.

 

As @M3AN pointed out a VM will take significantly more hard drive space than just installing it normally.

@wrs a cloud based VM sounds like absolute hell in terms of getting USB to talk to it and would potentially require more configuration than it’s worth at the client end.

[M3AN 4016]

Yes, more local storage is the solution for @Driftit and once the VM is built it can be distributed (responsibly, for redundancy and backup purposes only, to be tested regularly). Remote support is easy these days should it be required when building the image.

 

[balancerider 758]

Another VM option for running ISTA that has been recommended for us Mac users is Virtualbox https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox

Haven’t tried this yet but keen to give it a go as there are no windows computers at my place...

 

[M3AN 4016]

Win 10, Pro at least, has a native hypervisor built in, even has Linux kernels, it's where I run Ubuntu. If you use that then there will be no Win 10 licensing implications (although I imagine licensing is low on the priority list).

I have ISTA running on my laptop, I'll try and rebuild it inside Hyper-V (edit: when I get time, probably not short term).

 

Edited July 11, 2020 by M3AN

[Driftit 2078]

Cloud based was what I was thinking.

But as mentioned the USB side of things would be a nightmare.  This is what I want to test and see how much of a nightmare.  But my main computer is in another location at the moment and working on a single 13" screen and track pad is driving me nuts.  Will grab the proper computer tomorrow and have a play.

[Jacko 2156]

ISTA Is a bit of pig with real virtual com ports, I can imagine it being even more of a pig with virtual virtual com ports  

[polley 916]

What about using an icom unit? Uses Ethernet instead of USB. Might be easier instead of trying to setup USB to a cloud vm. 

[Driftit 2078]

1 hour ago, polley said:

What about using an icom unit? Uses Ethernet instead of USB. Might be easier instead of trying to setup USB to a cloud vm. 

I was hoping to set something up that works with what most people have.
I haven't used ICOM before.  It has quite a few advantages over DCAN/KCAN but is unknown to me.

[Willy Sea 46]

Subbed for this. About to toss the trusty Toshiba satellite pro hdd and switch in ssd, running win10.

[M3_Power 636]

ISTA is slow enough on a capable laptop with ssd with a genuine ICOM (I have one), I’d say it would be painfully slow on a cloud system especially if you do programming (slow on a system already with FASTA turned off)

 

having said that though BMW does offer an online option with annual subscription for ISTA next ... not sure how it works as I’ve never used it on a subscription.

[Driftit 2078]

30 minutes ago, M3_Power said:

ISTA is slow enough on a capable laptop with ssd with a genuine ICOM (I have one), I’d say it would be painfully slow on a cloud system especially if you do programming (slow on a system already with FASTA turned off)

 

having said that though BMW does offer an online option with annual subscription for ISTA next ... not sure how it works as I’ve never used it on a subscription.

I'm only new to ISTA.  And my "genuine" FTDI chip cable died on the weekend so I haven't done any programming with it.

I thinking latency is going to be an issue.  Many of these cables require the port latency to be set to 1ms or they just don't work.