Wubi

Error using Ubuntu Windows Installer on Win XP Pro (Version 2002, Service Pack 2)

Asked by Mary Hsia-Coron

I have an old laptop (Windows XP Professional, Version 2, Service Pack 2) with 1.86 GHz Pentium processor, 1.49 GB RAM that's been sitting around. I decided to recycle it by installing Ubuntu with the Windows Installer. Things initially worked: I downloaded wubi.exe, the installer asked for my password, and the Ubuntu files downloaded for over an hour. Then I got this error message: "The system cannot find the file specified".

QUESTION: Are my laptop and Windows version too old? Is it possible to install Ubuntu on my laptop? Below is an excerpt from the wubi-12.04-rev269.log file:

08-31 02:39 DEBUG TaskList: ### Finished download
08-31 02:39 DEBUG downloader: download finished (read 511417624 bytes)
08-31 02:39 DEBUG TaskList: ## Finished get_diskimage
08-31 02:39 DEBUG TaskList: ## Running extract_diskimage...
08-31 02:39 ERROR TaskList: [Errno 2] The system cannot find the file specified
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\tasklist.py", line 197, in __call__
  File "\lib\wubi\backends\win32\backend.py", line 445, in extract_diskimage
  File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\utils.py", line 52, in spawn_command
  File "\lib\subprocess.py", line 547, in __init__
  File "\lib\subprocess.py", line 701, in _execute_child
WindowsError: [Errno 2] The system cannot find the file specified
08-31 02:39 DEBUG TaskList: # Cancelling tasklist
08-31 02:39 ERROR root: [Errno 2] The system cannot find the file specified
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 58, in run
  File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 132, in select_task
  File "\lib\wubi\application.py", line 158, in run_installer
  File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\tasklist.py", line 197, in __call__
  File "\lib\wubi\backends\win32\backend.py", line 445, in extract_diskimage
  File "\lib\wubi\backends\common\utils.py", line 52, in spawn_command
  File "\lib\subprocess.py", line 547, in __init__
  File "\lib\subprocess.py", line 701, in _execute_child
WindowsError: [Errno 2] The system cannot find the file specified
08-31 02:39 DEBUG TaskList: # Finished tasklist

Thanks for your help!
Mary

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Mary Hsia-Coron (mary-hsiacoron) said : 		#1

Sorry, typo above... Should be "Version 2002, Service Pack 2"

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

You may want to get up to service pack 3.

If you download and mD5 test the Ubuntu ISO and put it in the same folder as the wubi installer, it will be used. You can alternatively install magicdisk or daemontools, mount the ISO (Windows cannot do this without3rd party tools) and run wubi from there instead.

Wubi is harder to fix if things go wrog, I sugest you resize your NTFS and install to it's own partition. It also will not be affected by the fragmentation in your OS.

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