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dexter.inside

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Posts posted by dexter.inside

  1. I was wondering... If vlite can remove Media Center from Vista iso, there should be a way to add it to Windows 2008 ISO. The question is - how :rolleyes:

    There is no performace benefit in running server os, but it's very useful for laptop when you can't have access to development server and you need to test a code...

    I have already compared the list of stuff to be added against what vLite does and there are all in there. The problem is the component policy that doesn't allow you to run Media Center.

    Same codebase means same policy... when they built the distributions they opted in for a particular set of components and tied it to the policy.

    Removing is not a problem because the policy grants you the right of executing those components. But adding is quite useless if you are not allowed to run components not included in the policy.

    Btw, does anybody have any idea what wcm://Microsoft-Windows-Licensing-Server-Enterprise?version=6.0.6001.18000&language=neutral&processorArchitecture=x86&publicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35&versionScope=nonSxS&scope=allUsers does?

  2. If you're using virtualization, you must know your bindings. In this case, VMnet #2 is bridged to Internal.

    You must also have a connected cable on it, the DHCP server does not bind to disconnected networks.

    p6-010.jpg

    This is my test machine booting from the bridge on Internal:

    t6-011.jpg

    t6-012.jpg

    And I chose Windows Setup

    t6-013.jpg

    As it seems there's no driver in boot.wim for the VMware network, it must be offline-serviced into it

    t6-014.jpg

    Use Windows AIK like in KB923834. Here's my console output:

    Be sure to have your boot image offline in WDS while you do this.

    C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools>md temp

    C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools>imagex /mountrw i:\remoteinstall\boot
    \x86\images\boot.wim 2 temp

    ImageX Tool for Windows
    Copyright © Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.


    Mounting (RW): [i:\remoteinstall\boot\x86\images\boot.wim, 2] ->
    [C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\temp]

    Successfully mounted image (RW).



    C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools>peimg /?
    Preinstallation Environment Image Setup Tool for Windows
    Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    PEIMG {Command} {Image} [Flags]

    Command /import | /inf | /install | /lang | /list | /prep | /uninstall |
    /scratchspace | /targetpath | /timezone

    Flags /verbose | /quiet | /f

    Image Specifies the path to the Windows directory within the base
    Windows PE image. The image must first be applied or mounted
    to a local directory using ImageX. This can also be specified
    as /image=path.

    Commands:

    /import=

    Imports a package from a .CAB file or directory structure. The
    package will be made available for installation.

    /inf=

    Installs an INF package (typically a driver) to a Windows PE image.
    is the path to the .INF file. You can perform this on a
    Windows PE image that was previously prepared with /prep.

    /install=

    Installs a package, where denotes the package name. A list of
    available packages and their names can be obtained using the /list
    command. Wildcards can be used when specifying a package name. Any
    packages with matching long names will be installed.

    /lang= [/layerdriver=]

    Sets the locale and the UI language of a Windows PE image. The
    value is the culture name of the specified language. A
    language pack for the specified language must already be installed.
    For the ja-JP or ko-KR cultures, the /layerdriver option can be used
    to specify which keyboard layer driver should be installed. Values
    for are integers in the range 1..6 and are described in the
    documentation. You can perform this on a Windows PE image that
    was previously prepared with /prep.

    /list

    Displays a list of packages in the current image. Packages are
    displayed in short name form. In the INS column, (+) denotes
    installed packages and (-) denotes not installed. /verbose will
    display the full package names.

    /prep

    Optimizes the Windows PE image for size. This operation cannot be
    reverted, and after /prep is issued, the /install, /uninstall,
    /import, and /list commands will not function. The /lang, /inf and
    /targetpath commands will continue to function. The tool will prompt
    the user to confirm the command. To suppress this prompt for
    scripting, specify the /f flag.

    /uninstall=

    Uninstalls a package, where denotes the package name. A list
    of installed packages and their names can be obtained by using the
    /list command. In the INS column, (+) denotes installed packages.
    Wildcards can be used when specifying a package name. Any packages
    with matching long names will be uninstalled.

    /scratchspace=

    Sets the amount of scratch space available, in megabytes. Valid
    values are 32, 64, 128, 256 and 512.

    /timezone=

    Sets the default time zone of a Windows PE image. The time zone can
    be specified either by a culture name or by a time zone name.
    Please consult the documentation for more details. You can perform this
    on a Windows PE image that was previously prepared with /prep.

    /targetpath=X:\...

    For harddisk boot scenarios, sets the location where the Windows
    PE image will reside on the disk. This path must be equal to or
    a subdirectory of X:\ (which is the default). You can only perform
    this on a Windows PE image that was previously prepared with /prep.

    Flags:

    /verbose

    Display long names for packages. Only short names are displayed by
    default.

    /quiet

    Suppress the progress bar.

    /f

    Suppress prompts for use in scripts. This flag is ignored for
    operations that would not normally prompt.

    Examples:

    REM Import a feature/update in a .CAB file
    peimg c:\winpe\windows /import=feature.cab

    REM List the installed and available packages
    peimg /list /image=c:\winpe\windows

    REM Install all available scripting packages
    peimg /install=*Scripting* c:\winpe\windows

    If this help text scrolls off of your screen, please run "peimg /? | more"


    C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools>peimg /inf="A:\Installs\Drivers\eeePC
    4G 701\Network\l260x86.inf" temp\Windows
    Preinstallation Environment Image Setup Tool for Windows
    Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    Installing INF package: A:\Installs\Drivers\eeePC 4G 701\Network\l260x86.inf

    PEIMG completed the operation successfully.

    C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools>peimg /inf="P:\program files\VMware\V
    Mware Tools\Drivers\vmxnet\win2k\vmxnet.inf" temp\Windows
    Preinstallation Environment Image Setup Tool for Windows
    Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    Installing INF package: P:\program files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers\vmxnet\win2
    k\vmxnet.inf

    PEIMG completed the operation successfully.

    C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools>peimg /inf="P:\program files\VMware\V
    Mware Tools\Drivers\vmxnet\win2k\vmware-nic.inf" temp\Windows
    Preinstallation Environment Image Setup Tool for Windows
    Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    Installing INF package: P:\program files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers\vmxnet\win2
    k\vmware-nic.inf

    PEIMG completed the operation successfully.

    C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools>imagex /unmount /commit temp

    ImageX Tool for Windows
    Copyright © Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.


    Unmounting: [C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\temp]...

    Successfully unmounted image.

    Another thing to take into consideration is network traffic caused by WDS. If you don't have 1 Gbps LAN, you can easily clug the domain controller functionality if running on the same interface:

    t6-015.jpg

    Get WDS Client network drivers for "e1000" in VMware here.

  3. 6.1. Server Configuration

    This is the current network configuration. External/Internal are Gigabit LANs, VMnet #1 and #8 are the NAT and Local-Only from VMware, and WiFi is the local intranet wireless connection. There is also a proxy that supplies internet from External to Internal.

    t6-001.jpg

    This is the Server Manager with the current configuration for the DHCP role:

    t6-002.jpg

    The 192.168.1.x and 2002:4d51:c06c:: scopes are running binded on Internal and WiFi. Your ISP might get upset if you start to give IPs to other customers using your own "rogue" DHCP.

    As for Windows Deployment Services, in this case I can configure PXE Response Settings like this to speed up things:

    p6-003.jpg

    Also, be careful to disable listening on port 67 for your WDS Server.

    p6-004.jpg

    This is the Add Image Wizard:

    p6-005.jpg

    p6-006.jpg

    p6-007.jpg

    And my configuration looks like this:

    t6-008.jpg

    I will use this WDS to install a Ultimate SP1 vLited image in my eeePC:

    p6-009.jpg

  4. Does anybody finished this project; watchting tv at server 2008 via Vista Media Center?

    Dexter: Do you have a newer/better version of this MCE.zip? I get an error when I want to add to the registery....

    I would be gratefull if some one can tell me how to do this. I just want to use the Vista Media Center on Server 2008 to stream the Live TV to my XBOX 360 elite.....

    :thumbup:wacko:

    I still can't find what's preventing it from working.. i'm quite sure we're missing something here, after the "policy" issue my RSoP (Resultant Set of Policy) is unusable. Any ideas? I still don't understand how the policies are related to the registry data

  5. Normally this is either a group policy setting, or setting the program access and computer defaults settings in the control panel. However i have checked these settings and they are not what is preventing the program from lauching.

    I was afraid of that too...

    Vista/Server 2008 have a internal "licensing" global policy per-component, saved somewhere in the registry that defines what internal components (a.k.a for stuff registered in WinSxS) are allowed to run. The WAIK makes changes there when modifying setup options.

    I will try to monitor changes made by WAIK to see what keys are involved. In this case it's probably a simple DWORD called Installed, that should enable MCE in the policy.

  6. everytime i try your windows studio thingy, i cant get past the browse for source screen.

    any ideas?

    damian666

    that`s because the version on sf.net is very outdated... I have to get approval for releasing new versions as open source from my company, they have to check it does not contain derived or reverse engineered code from the stuff I code for them.

    The old legal crap...

  7. Very ambitious and impressive project, I hope you stay the course! This reminds me after a fashion of Microsoft's own 'Target Designer' for their Embedded versions of Windows, but looks to have much more potential to be a more versatile tool. I hope in the coming months I'll have more time to give this a try.

    :w00t:

    Thanks for the vote of confidence :thumbup If the readers of this topic are interested, I can post a few diffs I made with the pre-alpha.

    At this point it can compare different installations/images of windows and create undo/redo scripts to add/remove a certain component present in only one of them.

    For example: Vista Business vs. Enterprise - scenario for gathering Media Center dependencies

    Vista BusinessN vs Business - scenario for gathering WMP11 dependencies

  8. Hi Guys,

    I've been playing with Hyper-V and I've got a question I'm hoping someone can answer :)

    If i have 2x servers [e.g. Web and FTP] running as Virtual Machines, in an Internal Network in Hyper-V.

    If I forward ports 80 and 21 to Server2008 can I have it forward/re-direct the ports to the individual servers on the Internal Network ?

    You should try datapipe.exe

  9. how did you examine it?

    a special prg?

    something to read out all dependencies of an executable?

    need to know for some other things to import/export!

    tired of searching everything by myself!

    :rolleyes:

    The data is extracted with my own application. I'm developing it for a very similar purpose. It has a diffing engine that compares 2 images of the OS and extrapolates specific dependencies for a given component.

    I'm still working on this particular concept for the moment, these files are something like a "proof-of-concept". It will be opensource later on.

  10. for (1), if i just leave this missing files, missing, will i be missing anything? only languages? will it be only languages i remove with nLite?

    AFAIK yes. Never had problems skipping them. There may be problems with Microsoft Multilingual User Interface (MUI) for east-asian languages though.

    for now, i did like in the guide, place Drivers in "\Windows\Driver Cache\i386" then use Sysprep Driver Scanner then sysprep -bmsd? - mass storage drivers for example will still work? is this right?

    You can use the sysprep driver scanner to scan the NLDRV folder in the installation, nLite places the drivers there. As for mass storage, you don't have a textmode portion if you are resealing to mini-setup, so you can stick to PnP mass storage.

  11. its getting harder to figure out missing files

    i think the the trivial soln is much better if file based imaging is employed

    (like dexter.inside's or vista wim based) so that the image size will not increase

    the trivial soln is to copy the full i386 dir to c:\sysprep\i386

    it will be deleted after mini setup is over , since tha same files are already present elsewhere in the drive,size

    of wim willnot increase

    but it takes extra time to copy those files to end user s/ms

    I am already considering installation caching (like WinSxS on Vista) for my next guide update :sneaky:

  12. 1) It's not imperative that you include those files, you can just hit ESC when prompted for them in mini-setup. And yes, they are on the XP cd, unless you removed their components (in your case, Microsoft Agent, Keyboards and Languages)

    2) You can either integrate your drivers in the initial disc with nLite, or add them somewhere like \Windows\Driver Cache and scan for them when building mass storage devices with sysprep. Your choice.

    If you already have them in proper order (like I do, because I use Microsoft Business Desktop Deployment) it doesn't really matter.

  13. Would it be possible to copy over vista media center to ws2008??

    I copied the ehome folder over, but am guessing you need to do more than just this,

    maybe some services need starting and some reg enteries need adding.

    Anybody tried?

    I did, have a look at this:

    MCE.zip

    You have a * - Add.reg to add registry settings to run MCE, a * - Remove.reg to undo that you added (if you mess it up) and a txt file containing all file dependencies you need.

  14. The Enterprise Server - Core I have used before comes from diffing for unique items between Core and non-Core Server 2008 EE. What can be seen in registry here is most likely common for both.

    Let's have a look - from a quick search, I discover "Microsoft Windows Server Core Package" and dependencies in CBS. By analysing each entry here, my 'Enterprise Server - Core" (supernode) can be split in several smaller components (nodes) for each type of functionality.

    th_83736_P004_122_242lo.jpg

    It is difficult to do this:

    th_83936_P005_122_182lo.jpg

    So I have to revert to the registry in install.wim to continue this.

    As expected, oclist.exe is not available because it was removed by Enterprise Server - Core package. I will add it in a separate component, for analysis purposes.

    This shows the exact packages that are to be made by splitting the Enterprise Server - Core.

    th_85150_P006_122_1101lo.jpg

  15. I have removed Languages from Server 2008 Core RC1 with vLite 1.1 RC and install.wim size is now down to ~190 MB.

    th_82032_P001_122_1113lo.jpg

    There are 30 components left in vLite (34 total with Languages). I've checked this way that my method does not break vLite compatibility.

    th_82038_P002_122_964lo.jpg

    Installed in 6 minutes (VMware Workstation 6.0.2, 768 MB allocated memory, RAID-0, 2 CPUs @ 2100 Mhz).

    After installation, I reduced memory to 192 MB, out of which is now using 134.

    th_82506_P003_122_769lo.jpg

  16. This week I am making a comparative scenario using 4 vLited images: Ultimate RTM (6000.16386), Ultimate SP1 RC1 (6001.17052), Enterprise RC1 (6001.17051) and Enterprise Core RC1 (6001.17051).

    My intention is to obtain a minimal Core installation of Server 2008 RC1 onto which I will add Vista Ultimate components (either manually, or using my app).

    It will be useful if somebody could confirm this way that vLite is removing all the files from the Server platform. You can browse my SVN to see the latest versions of reg files.

    Note for testers: At the moment there are 3 ways of using these reg files:

    1) offline sources

    - mount the WIM as RW before creating the ISO and load COMPONENTS and SOFTWARE hives in HKEY_USERS.

    - apply the reg file (* - Add.reg or * - Remove.reg)

    - add or delete files in the *.txt file (manually or through batch scripting)

    - unload the hives

    - /unmount /commit the WIM

    - create the ISO and install it

    or 2) offline virtual disk

    - mount a virtual disk containing the installation and load COMPONENTS and SOFTWARE in HKEY_USERS.

    - apply the reg file (* - Add.reg or * - Remove.reg)

    - add or delete files in the *.txt file (manually or through batch scripting)

    - unload the hives

    - dismount the virtual disk

    - boot

    or 3) hot-add

    - replace HKEY_USERS with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE in * - Add.reg

    - add the files through administrative shares in their proper locations (\\machinename\C$)

    - apply the reg file in that machine

    I will post screenshots with this procedure. Hopefully, it should solve vLite compatibility issues with the server platform.

    Edit: Quick delete method for file list: for /f %i in (foo.txt) do del "mountpath%i" /s /q

    where foo.txt is list of files from component and mountpath is where you mounted the WIM / disk

    Hint: If you are doing this on Core, also remove *.log? , *.TM.blf and *.regtrans-ms from \WINDOWS\System32\config to save ~35 MB of space.

  17. That's just the Designer branch (which is quite old)... I was developing functionality in the Shell branch. I didn't release a new compiled package because I made some changes in functionality. Of course, when the procedure works in the Shell, I will add that code in the Designer.

    Scripting is not that fast and time is an issue here... using these pre-made reg files should help save a lot of time. The Designer would scan the x86 folder and present you with options to add/remove. Should get this working in a new release.

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