Installing Windows 7 / Ubuntu Linux 10.10 Dual Boot Capability onto a Lenovo Y560p Laptop

Edwin W. Meyer

www.edwinmeyer.com

April 10, 2011

1. Introduction

After a number of years, it has finally become time for me to buy a new computer. I wanted a laptop for business reasons, and I also wanted to use Ubuntu Linux as my primary operating system. Although a Mac has an unquantifiable “cool” factor and is the system of choice for many Ruby on Rails and other developers, I ruled it out as too pricey for my budget. Besides, I have become accustomed to Ubuntu’s clean functionality.

I decided not to buy a laptop preloaded with Linux because that would have seriously limited my choices, and also because I might need to have access to a Windows 7 OS in some situations. After some searching, I settled on a Lenovo Ideapad Y560p because it incorporates a fast four core Intel i7 processor and was priced attractively.

I didn’t want to destroy the hidden Windows 7 restore partition and the existing bootloader partition, so that if desired, I could restore the computer to its original configuration at some later time. This coupled with the fact the factory-installed configuration uses all four primary partitions, made installing dual-boot capability more complex than it otherwise might have been.

While this article applies specifically to the Lenovo Y560p, most computers come with a hidden system restore partition and likely a boot partition these days. With suitable modification, these instructions should be applicable to many recent computers. The key is to not touch the bootloader or recovery partitions, nor to change the order or the type of the partitions. Merely shrink one or more of them to make space for the new Linux partitions, which can be created inside the extended partition.

Comments are welcome. Please email me at edwin@edwinmeyer.com

Steps to Install Ubuntu

Following is an overview of the steps I took to accomplish this:

1. Create Windows 7 recovery media
   Absolutely essential unless you are willing to risk losing your Windows 7 functionality.
2. Repartition the hard drive — to make space for Ubuntu.
3. Install Ubuntu
4. Modify the Windows bootloader — to allow both OS’s to be booted.

Re-Partitioning Strategy To Make Space for Ubuntu

Converting the Lenovo Ideapad Y560p to a dual boot system is complicated by the fact that as factory-configured, the hard drive uses up the entire partition space. A PC’s hard drive can be divided into a maximum of four main partitions, and the Y560p already uses all of them for:

1. A boot partition – 200 Mb
2. the Windows 7 OS, (Drive C:) – 420 GB
3. a data partition (Drive D:) – 30 GB (embedded within an extended partition), and
4. a recovery partition – 15 GB (at the very end of the 500 GB hard drive).

The first partition is the Windows 7 bootloader. It normally boots the Windows 7 OS in the second partition. It also is capable of booting the recovery program in the hidden recovery partition (/dev/sda4) if the recovery button is pressed.

Maintaining the original geometry will maximize the likelihood that Windows 7 and the recovery features will still work after Ubuntu installation. To that end, the following partition changes will be made to provide space for Ubuntu:

1) Substantially compact the Windows 7 OS partition from 420 GB to 40 GB, making 380 GB free space available.
2) Move down the bottom of the extended partition to the new end of Drive C:
3) Ensure that the 20 GB Drive D: data partition remains abutting one end of the extended partition. Move it if necessary.

This provides 380GB free space in the extended partition, into which Ubuntu can be installed.

See Disk Partition Layout — Before and After for more details.

Windows and Linux Bootloading Strategy

To load Ubuntu, the Windows bootloader will still initially gain control, but it will be given an added option to invoke Ubuntu’s entirely separate GRUB 2 bootloader. This schema where two separate bootloaders are invoked in sequence is known as “chainloading”.

As factory-configured, the Windows bootloader, which resides in the 200 Mb active partition at the beginning of the hard drive, directly boots the Windows 7 OS that resides in the second partition. When Ubuntu is installed, its GRUB 2 bootloader will be installed into the Ubuntu /boot partition, so as to not overwrite the Windows bootloader.

When the GRUB 2 bootloader gains control, it will load Ubuntu. The Windows bootloader will still get control upon power on or a restart, but its “Boot Configuration Data” (BCD) will be modified to give it the option pass control onto the GRUB 2 bootloader. While Windows 7 provides a command line utility to modify the BCD, a free program called EasyBCD will used to perform this.

2. Create Lenovo Windows 7 Recovery Disks

As is the custom today, Lenovo saves perhaps 50 cents of per unit production costs by not providing separate OS recovery media. Instead the Lenovo One Key Rescue System accessible by pressing the recovery_button can be used to create backup OS restore media. With these disks, the hard drive can be restored to its factory-loaded state regardless of any errors in performing the following steps. Omit this essential step at your own peril!

• Press the “recovery” button either while the computer is off or while Windows 7 is running.
• The “Lenovo One Key Rescue System 7.0” recovery program legend comes up. (Note: The background image shows dew-glistening green leaves.)
• Select “Create Recovery disk”, then “Factory default recovery disk”

The program states that either 17 blank CDs or 3 blank DVDs are required. Use DVDs to minimize the possibility of error or losing a disk. The Lenovo DVD drive is said to write either DVD-R or DVD+R media. (I used the DVD+R type.) The completion legend states that the DVDs were written from a “15GB hidden partition”.

If you are paranoid (like I am), you might want to perform a trial boot from the first recovery disk. Just cancel before the first disk is to be restored.

3. Modify the Disk Partitions

Shrink Windows Drive C: To Make Space for Ubuntu

The limited functionality of Windows 7 partition management will be used to perform this step. (While the partition changes could be performed entirely from an Ubuntu “Live CD” session, it’s always best to use an OS’s own utility to manipulate its partition if possible.)

• Run Windows 7
• Click the System icon at the lower left side of screen
• Click “Control panel”.
  Only a small set of consumer-level choices are shown.
• Enter ‘a’ into the ‘Search control panel’ area and see a long list of options.
• Click on ‘Create and format hard disk partitions’ in the ‘Admin Tools’ section
• Click on Drive C: (420.33 GB NTFS)
• Action | All Tasks | Shrink Volume
  The default new size is 20,361 MB, the minimum possible because of unmovable files. (This is for a virgin Windows 7 installation only. The minimum can be significantly larger if Windows 7 has had significant use.)
• Either accept the minimum or specify a larger size. (I chose 40 GB, because I might need to use Windows 7 in the future.)
• Click “Shrink”
• Exit the disk partition tool

Change the Drive Boot Order in the BIOS (optional)

I often keep a USB memory stick plugged into one of the USB ports, but this can be problematic with the Lenovo Y560p, because the default BIOS boot order gives a USB drive higher priority than either the hard drive or DVD drive. In fact, I lost a fair amount of time trying to understand why the Lenovo would repeatedly start but not complete the boot sequence. It turns out that it was trying to boot a non-existent OS from a plugged-in USB memory stick, failing, then trying again. I changed the boot order in the BIOS, and the problem disappeared. I recommend that you do that too.

Another feature (aka “gotcha”) that I encountered was that the Lenovo wouldn’t boot from the DVD drive when I placed the Ubuntu install CD in the drive. (The hard drive has a higher priority than the DVD drive in the BIOS boot menu.) After discovering that pressing the F12 key upon startup displays a BIOS boot menu, where the boot device can be specified, I decided to not touch the DVD drive boot priority.

See Booting Gotchas for more information.

Move the Extended Partition

Now that Windows Drive C: has been shrunk ( /dev/sda2 in Linux parlance), there is now about 400 GB free to be used by Ubuntu. But Ubuntu has to be placed in the extended partition (/dev/sda3), which is completely occupied by Windows Drive D: (/dev/sda5). The solution is to move down the extended partition to abut the new end of Drive C: and acquire the free space. Drive D: will remain at the top of the extended partition, abutting the lower end of the hidden recovery partition.

The Gnu GParted Partition Editor will be run within an Ubuntu Live CD session to move the partition.

• Boot the Ubuntu 10.10 install CD (which can be obtained through ubuntu.com)
  (Press F12 repeatedly upon startup to get the BIOS boot menu.)
• Select the “Live CD” option.
• Select System | Administration | GParted Partition Editor
• Highlight extended partition /dev/sda3
• Select Partition | Resize/Move
• Set free space preceding to 0. (Free space after default is 0) The new size shows as 421,630 MiB (for me.)
• Click ‘Resize/Move’ and Edit | Apply all operations.
  The extended partition /dev/sda3 grows to the bottom, leaving /dev/sda5 in present location abutting top edge.
• Exit GParted

4. Install Ubuntu 10.10

In order to install Ubuntu, you need either an install CD or DVD. You can download a CD image from ubuntu.com and burn the CD using a CD/DVD drive with write capability. Installing from a CD requires that your computer have (very preferably broadband) Internet access in order to download components from the Ubuntu software repositories. Alternatively, a free DVD which presumably has all required components can ordered from ubuntu.com, but it will take a few weeks to arrive.

The following instructions are for an install CD, but installing from a DVD should be almost identical.

Begin the Install Procedure

To install Ubuntu you can either continue with the Live CD session or you can reboot the CD. In either case:

• Click the ‘Install Ubuntu 10.10’ button
• Select language (English)
• Check “Install this 3rd party software” (mentioning the “Fluendo MP3 plugin”)
• Check ‘download updates while installing’ if you want to speed up the installation. (I didn’t due to the possibility of obscuring problems.)
• Click ‘Forward’

Specify the Ubuntu Partitions

Next the partitions which Ubuntu will use must be specified. Because of the special partitioning requirements, it is best to specify this manually rather than let the installer create them automatically. I chose to create only boot, root, and swap partitions. One can get more creative and create separate partitions for some of the directories under the root, but I don’t recommend this, at least not initially. I also chose to allocate only 200 GB to the root directory, leaving about 200 GB free for later expansion.

• Select ‘specify partitions manually’, then click ‘Forward’
  An ‘Allocate Drive Space’ window appears, listing all existing partitions. While there is no obvious mechanism for creating a new partition, right clicking on a free space selection reveals this capability.
• For each partition to be created, select “free space”, right click, select ‘Add…’
  A ‘Create a new partition’ dialog box appears.
• For each of the following partitions, specify 1) size in MB, 2) file system type, 3) mount point, and 4) location.
  (‘Location’ specifies whether the new partition is to created abutting the beginning or end of the free space. Keep the ‘beginning’ default value for the boot and root partitions, but set the swap partition’s location to the upper end of free space.)
  • 300 MB, ext2, /boot, location: beginning
  • 200,000 MB ext4 /root, location: beginning
  • 6000 MB swap, location: end

The boot partition contains the GRUB 2 boot loader, boot configuration files, and the Ubuntu OS images. Supposedly only 100 MB is needed, but the partition is made larger because it will be hard to expand later.

The swap partition supposedly should be 1-1/2 times the size of the main memory (which for my Y560p is 4 GB) Note: You might not be able to hibernate the computer if the swap space is smaller than the main memory.

Everything else goes into the root partition. This puts /home and other hierarchies that could usefully be separated together, but I left over 200 GB free space on my hard drive, allowing me to change this later.

Complete the Ubuntu Installation

• Select /dev/sda6 (the /boot partition) as ‘Device for boot loader installation’
• Click ‘Install Now’
  The Ubuntu installer begins creating the file systems. At the same time it continues the setup dialog:
• ‘Where are you?’ — Make the appropriate selection and click ‘Forward’. (Somehow it knew enough to correctly present ‘Chicago’ as my location.)
• ‘Keyboard format’ — Select from a list if the default (‘USA’ for me) is not correct.
• ‘Who are you?’: Input your full name, a fanciful computer name (unless you accept the prosaic default), user name, and a password for this user.
• Check ‘require password to log in’ (optional)
• Check ‘encrypt my home folder’ (optional)
  File retrieval with feature explanation screens (to keep you from being bored) follows. Considerable file downloading occurs if you install from a CD, presumably from the Ubuntu repository. This might take hours if you have only a dial-up connection, but it should complete in less than 10-20 minutes if you have a broadband connection.

Upon completion, the installer offers the option to either restart or return to “live” session.

• Click ‘restart’.
  However the bootloader is not yet set up to boot Ubuntu, so unless something has gone awry, the computer will still boot into Windows 7.
  Alternately, you can turn off the computer by:
• Selecting the “return to live session” option.
• Perform a Ctl-Alt-Del (press these three keys simultaneously.) A shutdown dialog box is displayed.
• Select ‘shutdown’. Ubuntu shuts down and turns off the computer.

5. Modify the Windows and Ubuntu Bootloaders to Load Ubuntu

Ubuntu has been installed, and it will load if the GRUB 2 bootloader located in the Ubuntu boot partition (/dev/sda6) can get control. But until the Windows bootloader is given an Ubuntu boot option, and it will continue to load only Windows 7. Now we need to modify the Windows “Boot Configuration Data” (BCD) to be able to do exactly that. Windows 7 provides a command line utility to modify the BCD, but using a free program called EasyBCD is more fool-proof.

After getting the Windows 7 bootloader to load the Ubuntu GRUB 2 bootloader, the next step is to make the chained bootloading process (almost) seamless to the user, by presenting the user with only one of the two boot menus. Because GRUB 2 has multiple Linux kernel boot options that may be useful, the Windows 7 boot options will be added to the Ubuntu GRUB 2 menu, and the Windows menu will be set to load the default GRUB 2 bootloader (almost) instantaneously. (Note: This feature is TO BE ADDED.)

Download & Install EasyBCD

EasyBCD is a free program written by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi. It can be downloaded from the NeoSmart Technologies web site.

From within Windows 7:

• Open http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 and click “Download” in the EasyBCD Links section
• Download ‘EasyBCD 2.0.2.exe’ (the latest version as of now) into a directory.
• Run ‘EasyBCD 2.0.2.exe’ and accept all defaults (except add desktop shortcut) to install EasyBCD in Windows 7.

Use EasyBCD to Add Ubuntu as a Windows Boot Option

From within Windows 7:

• System | All Programs | NeoSmart Technologies | EasyBCD
• Select ‘Add New Entry’ and click on ‘Linux/BCD’ tab.
• Select Type: ‘GRUB (legacy)’
• Select Device: ‘Partition 5 (Linux – 285 MiB)’
• Leave UNchecked: ‘GRUB isn’t installed to MBR/bootsector’
• Click ‘Add Entry’
• Select ‘View Settings’
• Move up ‘NeoSmart Linux’ to the top & check the ‘default’ box.
• click ‘Rename’ button to rename to ‘Ubuntu Linux 10.10’
• Change ‘Boot default OS after’ to 6 seconds (user’s option)
• Click ‘Save Settings’ & exit the application.

Booting Windows or Ubuntu

At this point, we now have a completely functional if somewhat awkward two-stage procedure for booting Windows or Linux. Windows can be booted from the first (Windows) menu. To boot Ubuntu, select Ubuntu, which loads the second (Ubuntu) menu. Select the first (Ubuntu) menu item.

Note: The defaults are set up to boot Ubuntu after a sixteen second delay if no action is taken.

The Windows Boot Menu

Upon computer power up or restart, the Windows bootloader gains control. A two item menu is presented:

• Ubuntu Linux 10.10 — load the Ubuntu boot loader and present its menu
• Windows 7 — boot Windows 7 normally.

As configured, the Ubuntu GRUB 2 loader runs after six seconds delay. Press an arrow or other key to prevent this.

The Ubuntu Boot Menu

The Ubuntu selection of the Windows 7 bootloader chainloads Ubuntu’s GRUB 2 bootloader and presents its own menu with the following selections:

• Ubuntu — the default selection, loads Ubuntu normally
  The following three selections are available to deal with problems:
• Ubuntu (recovery mode)
• Memory test
• Memory test, serial console
  The following Windows selections are available:
• Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda1) — reruns the Windows 7 loader.
• Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda4) — boots the “Lenovo One Key Rescue System 7.0” recovery program.

The “Windows Vista (loader)” selection actually boots the recovery program. The “Windows 7 (loader)” selection does not boot Windows 7, but merely cycles back to present the Windows boot menu again.

Note: The “recover” button still works to boot the “Lenovo One Key Rescue System 7.0” recovery program when the power is off. (Though you wouldn’t normally use it, because restoring a partition will totally wipe out the Ubuntu OS that we labored so mightily to install.) However, we have met the goal of installing Ubuntu without disabling any of the factory-installed Windows functionality.

Making the Booting Procedure Seamless

Note: Instructions for performing the following are not yet available.

In order to make the bootloading procedure appear seamless, we need to change both the Windows and Ubuntu boot configurations.

GRUB 2 configuration changes:

• “Windows 7 (loader)” entry — change target from the bootloader at /dev/sda1 to the actual OS on /dev/sda2 and remove “loader” from the label
• “Windows Vista (loader)” entry — change the label to “Windows Rescue System”
• (optional) change the timeout from 10 seconds to a lesser value, perhaps 6 seconds

From Windows, rerun EasyBCD to set the timeout to zero. Now the Windows menu will be invisible (or immediately fly by), and all boot selections are available in the GRUB 2 menu.

While the required changes to the GRUB 2 menu are seemingly simple, figuring out the idiosyncratic procedure for creating menu components which are then compiled into a single GRUB 2 configuration file is now more complex. These instructions will be added later. However I didn’t want to wait to post this article.

This completes the installation of Ubuntu onto the Lenovo Y560p laptop computer, while maintaining Windows 7 dual boot capability. Hopefully this will help to get started with Ubuntu Linux without needing to abandon a Windows 7 safety net.

6. Miscellaneous Topics

Disk Partition Layout — Before and After

The Gnu Linux GParted graphical partition editor was used to obtain the following partition info.

Factory-Installed Disk Partitions

Partition  File System Label        Size        Used       Flags
/dev/sda1  ntfs                     200.00 MiB  66.92 MiB  boot   -- The bootloader partition
/dev/sda2  ntfs                     420.33 GiB  19.77 GiB         -- Windows 7 Drive C: - contains the OS & applications
/dev/sda3  extended                  30.48 GiB  --         lba
/dev/sda5  ntfs       LENOVO         30.48 GiB   3.01 GiB         -- Windows 7 Drive D: - contains only device drivers
/dev/sda4  ntfs       LENOVO_PART    14.75 GiB   9.18 GiB  diag   -- The hidden recovery partition

Note: GParted reports the size of the entire drive (/dev/sda/) as 465.76 GiB. The “Disk Utility” application claims “500 GiB == 500,107,862,106 bytes”.

Post-Install Disk Partitions

Partition     File Sys  Mount Pt/Label  Size        Used       Flags
/dev/sda1      ntfs                     200.00 MiB  66.92 MiB  boot
/dev/sda2      ntfs                      39.06 GiB  21.06 GiB
/dev/sda3      extended                 411.75 GiB  --         lba
  /dev/sda6    ext2        /boot        285.00 MiB  41.61 MiB
  /dev/sda8    ext4        /            186.26 GiB   5.59 GiB
  unallocated                           189.13 GiB
  /dev/sda7    linux-swap                 5.59 GiB
  unallocated                             5.00 MiB
  /dev/sda5     ntfs       LENOVO        30.48 GiB   3.00 GiB
/dev/sda4       ntfs       LENOVO_PART   14.75 GiB   9.18 GiB  diag ("Disk Utility" describes as "Compaq diagnostics" 0x12)

Booting Gotchas

There are two “features” of the default Lenovo BIOS boot order that may seem like “gotchas” to the unwary:

1. The DVD drive has a lower priority than the IDE hard drive, meaning that even with a CD in the drive, the computer will boot from the hard disk. This is OK — if you want to boot from the DVD drive, repeatedly press F12 during startup, and the BIOS will present a boot device menu. Here you can select the DVD drive.

2. With the default BIOS settings, a USB device has a higher priority than the IDE hard drive, meaning that the computer will attempt to boot from a USB memory stick if one is inserted. This is NOT OK for me, since I often leave a one inserted into a USB port. (I was baffled why the computer would repeatedly go through the boot cycle until I realized it was attempting to boot a non-existent OS from the USB memory stick. The solution is to press F2 repeatedly upon startup to go into the BIOS and move the IDE drive up to the very first device in boot order. (Select the Boot tab and follow instructions.)

The Recovery Button and the “Lenovo One Key Rescue System”

The Lenovo Y560p has a small “recovery” button located immediately above the power button on the left side. If this button is pressed when the power is off, the bootloader loads the “Lenovo One Key Rescue System 7.0” recovery program (actually a special version of Windows Vista) stored in the hidden partition. The recovery program provides three options:

1. System Backup — useful only for performing Windows 7 backups.
2. System Recovery — This can restore the hard disk to its initial factory configuration if the hidden recovery partition is intact. But make sure that you have backed up your Ubuntu partition files beforehand, unless you want to discard the Ubuntu installation.
3. Create Recovery Disc — This will create a set of CDs or DVDs which you can use to restore the factory configuration instead of relying on the recovery partition.

Pressing the recovery button while Windows 7 is running also starts the recovery program. Pressing it while Ubuntu is running has no effect.

The Gnu Linux GParted Graphical Partition Editor

The GParted graphical partition editor can be run from the Ubuntu Live CD Session to obtain partition information prior to installing Ubuntu. However, GParted is not one of the default applications in the installed Ubuntu OS and needs to be specifically installed.

Install GParted

(Not necessary when running an Ubuntu Live CD session)

• From the top panel, Select Applications | Ubuntu Software Center
• Type “gparted” into the search box.
• Click on the “Gnome Partition Editor” item that appears
• Click the “Install” button
  

Running GParted

• From the top panel, Select Administration | GParted Partition Editor
• Enter the password you established for your username (not applicable to the Live CD session)

Note: The first user to be set up becomes the administrator by default

The partition data for the hard disk(s) as presented above is displayed.

• To modify or delete a partition:
  • Right click on the partition
  • Select one of the available actions. (All unavailable actions will be grayed out)
  • Input the desired change into any displayed dialog and click the continue button (e.g. “move/resize”)
  • Select Edit | Apply All Operations to actually make the requested change(s) (Or click one of the “Undo” selections to abandon either the last or all pending operations.)

Perform a Trial Boot To Test Recovery Disk #1

The recovery system claims that it verifies each recovery disk just after writing it. Still, if you’re like me, you might want to perform a trial boot to heighten your confidence that the recovery disks will work if you need them.

• Turn on the computer or perform a shutdown & restart from an existing OS session.
• To enter the BIOS level Boot Menu, put your finger over the F12 button and immediately press it repeatedly when the “Lenovo” legend appears. (The BIOS apparently does not compensate for the speedy Intel i7 processor, and the opportunity to enter the Boot Menu passes quickly.)
• Place the first disk of the recovery DVD or CD set you created into the DVD drive.
• Select the “IDE CD” boot option (using the arrow keys) and press Enter. The computer will boot the OS found on the CD/DVD.
• Press a key when the “press any key legend” appears. The “OneKey Recovery” system loads. This as far as you can get without actually overwriting the hard drive. If you proceed, the hard drive will be restored to the factory partitioning, and the Ubuntu installation will be deleted.
• Click “Exit” to stop the restore, then click either “Shut down” or “Reboot”
  
  

Hibernation Mode in Ubuntu

The Ubuntu OS is capable of putting the Lenovo Y560p into hibernation mode (aka “put to sleep”), depending upon how it is configured in the System | Power Management dialog. (The default is after 30 min. inactivity for on battery power only.) To restore the OS, press the power button to turn on the computer. Upon startup, the computer executes the normal boot sequence with both boot manager menus, but when Ubuntu loads, the previous session is restored

Home Directory Encryption

I selected the “encrypt home directory option”, and upon the first login, a dialog box is presented offering to disclose a strong passphrase that can be used to recover the data manually in special cases. (Normally logging in with the user password is sufficient.) This information can also be recovered by running ‘ecryptfs-unwrap-passphrase’ from a command line.

Anomalies

• Ubuntu momentarily displays a multi-colored “RGB hash” upon boot before presenting the login dialog on a normal background.
• The Windows 7 “Disk Management” utility incorrectly displays both the /dev/sda6 (Linux /boot) and /dev/sda8 (Linux root) partitions as primary partitions, and not in the extended partition where they actually reside. Note: An ancient legacy restriction allows a physical drive to be divided into only four primary or three primary partitions and one extended partition (which can encompass an unlimited number of subpartitions.)

Other Notes

• If the computer should become unresponsive, holding down the power button for 4+ sec. usually turns it off. As a last resort, remove both the battery and the power plug.

References

I found the following web resources helpful in preparing this article:

• apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm?page=2
• forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=210027
• rohithv.livejournal.com/14398.html
• www.fanhow.com/knowhow:Dual_Boot_Windows_7_with_Linux_52005519
• www.iceflatline.com/2009/09/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-and-linux-using-bcdedit/
• www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html — Contains an excellent discussion of the boot loading process (mostly from the Windows viewpoint)