Is anyone familiar with the Army Gold Master version of Windows 7?

Hello. Where I work, we currently are (forced into) using the Army Gold Master (AGM) Windows 7 version 10.0.2. For the most part, it works just fine for our needs on physical PC's. However, I am attempting to use it as virtual workstation in VMware version 5.1. Unlike the COTS installation of Win7, the AGM version is a "Lite-Touch" installation, and as such, there is no option at the start of the installation to set up the partitions. The way our systems operate, we HAVE to have a D: drive (it's a legacy thing that no one wants to fix). On physical workstations, this isn't a problem. You simply go into Disk Management and use Shrink Volume to reduce the C: drive, and then set up the D: drive from the unallocated space. Unfortunately, when doing this as a virtual machine, when I create the D: drive, the partition ends up being write-protected, obviously making it totally useless. The next thing I tried was to create the D: partition using G-Parted Live rather than Disk Management. Same result. After creating and formatting the new partition in G-Parted, I rebooted, and the D: drive was write-protected. I even tried adding in a 2nd hard drive through vSphere, but once again, after formatting the new device in Disk Management, it was write-protected. The last thing I tried was to create the VM from scratch with two hard drive devices, but it still was write-protected. It just seems to be an AGM issue within VMware. When I create Win7 VM using the COTS installation, the D: drive is writeable. I've tried some Google searches, but I'm sure there aren't too many users out there using AGM Win7 as virtual machines. I'm really not expecting anyone here to know much about it, but thought it couldn't hurt to throw it out there anyway. I'm not really sure where to go from here.

No idea what that AGM does have in difference, but seems like a fake version of Win7, perhaps with some flawed Disk Management. Anyway, is the only problem the lack of a D drive?

If so, a possible alternative would be would be to use the SUBST command to create a map from a folder to a drive letter. What it does is to make a new "drive" available, with a letter of your choice, from a folder on an existent drive, but without the need of a partition. Most likely it may be able to fool that program into thinking it's a real D drive and use that instead, while the OS silently redirects it to a normal folder elsewhere.

Knight, why bother partitioning in the Virtual Machine? Just create a second Virtual HDD and set it as the D drive. Make it as big or small as needed.

Hi Knight, welcome to the Seven Forums.

Nothing to add to Logiearth's solution, am here only to confirm that's the way to do it. Create a VHD on host Disk Management, use then VMware tools to add that vhd as D: drive for your virtual machine.

Alejandro85 said:

No idea what that AGM does have in difference, but seems like a fake version of Win7, perhaps with some flawed Disk Management. Anyway, is the only problem the lack of a D drive?

Click to expand...

Alejandro, the AGM Windows is absolutely not a fake Windows. Please check this out: https://chess.army.mil/Static/CB_RSRC_AGMSL

Kari

Hi there
the site probably is OK -- but it seems strange to me that the Military (of whatever country) should present an invalid / expired security certificate to people logging on to the site. !!!! Hope that their tactical operations are "better organised". !!!! (Unless of course they are fighting US !!).

You can reach the site though - just skip the warning by selecting continue to website. I'm running on a VM so I'm not bothered if anything strange happens --I'll just delete the VM.

Cheers
jimbo

There is nothing wrong with the certificate. It is not issued by a Root Certificate Authority. Rather by the US Department of Defense. You get the error because the DoD is not a Root CA in Windows. Its not something the consumer market would be affected by thus the US Military is not part of the Root CA.

However, you do not need a certificate from a Root CA to have a secure connection. It just means the identity is not validated by a third-party.