Setting up an old 5Big V1

[ARHolsgrove]

This guide is to help any others who are using MacOS and wish to use the FVDW firmware and console. We will setup a virtual Windows environment to allow you to use the software.

NOTE: The guide will setup a virtual machine using mostly default options, rather than creating an optimised virtual environment for extended use. If you plan on keeping the virtual environment then you will need to pay attention to each of the setup screens and choose the best option for your needs. You may also need to change other settings not discussed in this guide. Please refer to the VirtualBox guide instead: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/

You will need:

A copy of Oracle VirtualBox from https://www.virtualbox.org/
A Windows virtual machine image from https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

For this guide, I am using VirtualBox 6.1.8 and the Windows 10 virtual machine.

Firstly, extract the Windows virtual machine image - mine is named "MSEdge.Win10.VirtualBox.zip" and extracts to a directory named "MSEdge - Win10" containing 2 files "MSEdge - Win10-disk001.vmdk" and "MSEdge - Win10.ovf"

Double click the OVF file to open VirtualBox. The OVF file contains pre-defined settings for the virtual machine. Click "Import".

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Once the new virtual machine is setup, we need to adjust the network card settings. Click the yellow settings icon, then click the "Network" icon.

The default option for Adapter 1 is to use "NAT" where your virtual machine can still communicate with your network and the internet, but from "inside" your Mac. The Bridge Adapter mode, which is what we require, will make the virtual machine appear as a real physical machine on your network - it will have its own IP address.

Select "Bridged Adapter" and make sure the "Name" is set to Ethernet "en0: Ethernet".

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The last setting to change is under "Display". Ensure you have enough video memory assigned - assigning the maximum 128MB should be fine for most modern Macs. Also change the graphics controller from the default "VBoxVGA" to "VBoxSVGA".

Click "OK" to save the network and display setting changes.

Now it's time to fire up the virtual machine. Click the green "Start" icon to launch the VM.

Once Windows has booted, you can login to the IEUser account and "Passw0rd!". If you downloaded a different virtual machine image from Microsoft, please check as you will likely have a different username & password.

NOTE: You can check your network / router DHCP to see the virtual machine listed. Mine has a hostname "MSEDGEWIN10".

Once logged-in, use the search bar at the bottom left of the screen to search for "Display Settings". Change the resolution to something more suitable for your machine (I've used the maximum 1600 x 1200).

Then the last step is to download the fvdw-sl console and firmware. Visit plugout.net!