Most of us who are using Microsoft Windows as our primary operating system, but love Ubuntu as well, used to install Ubuntu inside Windows. For that Ubuntu provides wubi.exe installer and when it is executed inside Windows it normally provides two installation options (figure 1) as
1. Demo and Full Installation
2. Install Inside Windows.
The second option allows us to install (and also uninstall) Ubuntu in the same manner a normal program works in Windows.
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Figure 1 (before Ubuntu 12.04) |
But surprisingly in the latest Ubuntu release, Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, wubi.exe provides only one installation option (figure 2). It only provides the facility to perform a full installation i.e. install Ubuntu alongside Windows but not inside. This ubuntu-devel mailing list post by Canonical’s Rick Spencer explains the reasons for that decision.
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Figure 2 (in Ubuntu 12.04) |
But don’t worry! There is still a way to bypass this hobbled Ubuntu 12.04 wubi.exe to get the missing option back. The only thing to do is instead of executing the wubi.exe by double clicking on it, you have to execute it using commnad prompt with a parameter.
For example if your CD-ROM is E:, execute the following command on the command prompt.
E:wubi.exe --force-wubi
Now you will get the missing option BACK!!!
This was very helpful — thank you so much!!!