Installer Deletes Installation!

Support
1

Not installed on OS drive.

Edit:
Installer Info

2

Good day,

Sorry to say, but your image is non accessible. Could you perhaps reupload it?

Have a nice day,

Ego

3

Image uploaded again. Sorry for earlier!

Dawson

4

Hi dawson

I managed to download and view your png. image. I was not able to load the image so I transcribed it so Ego can take a look at it to make sure I am correct. What you are seeing is the whonix.ova images being deleted after installation. This is normal behavior. Both Whonix workstation and gateway should still be on your system. You should be able to find them in VirtualBox, that is were the images are after imported.

Everything is OK

Size:     2204222976
Compressed: 1979386454
Delete file:E:\ISO\WHO!\Whonix for Windows\gateway.7z
Delete file:E:\ISO\WHO!\Whonix for Windows\workstation.7z
Delete file:E:\ISO\WHO!\Whonix for Windows\7za.exe
Delete file:E:\ISO\WHO!\Whonix for Windows\whonix_gateway.ova
Delete file:E:\ISO\WHO!\Whonix for Windows\whonix_workstation.ova
Complete
1 Like
5

Good day,

That is to be expected, as @0brand points out. Once they have been imported, the images are not required for operation any longer.

Have a nice day,

Ego

6

VirtualBox does not have Whonix loaded. I am attaching another image of Whonix shortcut made on Desktop just after finishing up installation. That resulted in this Error.

One thought that I can’t seem to make up is why the deletion? If the final installation takes place on a drive other than a user specified one, then does not that complicate/contradict the process?

What’s the purpose of a custom installation folder then?

Looking forward to your input

Dawson

7

Hi dawson

I’m not all that familiar with VBox so these are just suggestions.

  • have you tried starting Whonix directly from VBox (i.e not from the desktop shortcut)?
  • have you tired to reinstall the images as the error suggests? (may not be necessary)
  • have a looked at this thread, you could be having a similar problem which may be resolved by downloading the whoninx.ova images separately (without installer)

There are very good reason for this.

  1. If a user is having problems with the new install and has to reinstall (download) the whonix.ova images again, it would be very difficult ( if not impossible ) to tell the ‘good’ images, from the corrupted ones when they are imported into VBox. This would cause problems for the installer.
  2. If you wanted to download a new version of whonix ( e.g. you’re using Whonix 13 and want to upgrade to the new Whonix 14 when relesed ).Once aging this could cause problems for the user ( confusing the old and new images) and the installer (does not know which images to import)
8

We are limited to Wonix installation that uses an executable for the scope of this topic. I am aware about importing the images the old way to VBox. That is more like a workaround. Not a solution.

I am still confused about the upgrade procedure. How will Whonix handle a new upgrade over an old/corrupted one that are already present in VBox? And what does that have to do with the deletion of images?

Dawson

9

Good day,

Wait, so you’d like to run Whonix from a driver other than C? That is currently not supported for a variety of reasons. As the images, again, need to be imported to work, not stay in said folder, using any non system drive is currently not something managable with VBoxManage which is what is required to import the images.

Furthermore, the installer was specifically set up in such a way as that it only imports a new image, not touching any older machines present in VBox. This is done, as to ensure that no user data is deleted or lost on accident.

Have a nice day,

Ego

1 Like
10

Hi dawson

Should have been more specific. I meant images that were not already imported into VBox. ( as Ego mentioned)

Just to make sure I understand this correctly, ( I’m not very familiar with VBox or installer) after the images are imported into VBox, they are deleted to prevent confusion if user has to reinstall the images or wants to upgrade to newer Whonix version at a later date? [ I mean delete the images from the directory they were originally downloaded into]

11

Didn’t know that the Whonix installer does not support installation to other drives. Then again, why the option to choose one? Seems that above error gets generated when Whonix is not on OS drive. One more thought that crossed my mind is Whonix obviously takes a good amount of space. So it’d would be really better to have an option to install it on other drives as now (and I know this is subjective) newer machines have SSDs for OS drive. Which are not that large in terms of space.

Simple solution for the current installer is to give an error if a user chooses other drives or an initial message asking to install it on OS drive only. Unlike now where the installer still finishes the installation with a “Success!” message and then Whonix shortcut tells you to get help.

The method to import images is the only way for now for installation on other drives.

Dawson

12

Good day,

Partly, though saving disk space is also playing into this.

Am currently looking into that, though we’d have to migrate from NSIS to Inno Setup to implement something like that.

Will look into that. Thank you.

Have a nice day,

Ego

2 Likes