EvilGuinness

I have a XP SP2 RC1 including the OPK CD to test, and I got a lot of info along with it. From the manual on the SP2 OPK CD: Adding Plug and Play Device Driver Support to Windows PE You must first add Plug and Play device driver support to your Windows PE image before you can add drivers to that image. If you add only network adapter drivers, you do not need to enable Plug and Play device driver support in Windows PE. When you enable Plug and Play device driver support in Windows PE, you can directly access any Plug and Play device through the corresponding Windows device driver from within Windows PE. For example, if you copy the associated .inf and driver files for the computer's video card, the video performance of Windows PE is much faster because Windows PE uses the actual Windows video driver instead of the standard VGA driver that Windows PE usually loads. Thanks a lot for your answer, it's just what I wanted to hear Hum, last question : I have problems with 32 bits programs that don't work under PE for unknow reasons...is there anything new in the next version that says "all the 32 bits progs will work"?

Thanks for your answer, I'm now sure that I didn't miss anything. Just a question : where do you find the changes for the next release of PE? I can't find it on the Microsoft website.

It seems you simply can't do something like this...I tried lots of things, I read lots of docs, but I found nobody who worked on this, no docs (except for network/mass storage drivers), no help. It never worked. edit : I'm working on the official PE, I don't know BartPE. The only "light Windows" that can do this seems to be Windows Embedded...

That's impressive! I didn't know that someone could do something like that with PE. Did this take a long time? Erf, too bad for me, I'm not working on PE for something the users could use, just for something that does all the work automatically...so I just don't need something beautiful and user-friendly like APE.

Oh...I found it...you can read all the doc coming with PE, you won't find the word "ram drive"...yeah, you can hit me with 17'' screens, I work on it since some months, and I didn't see something as "big" as this all this time. (last "off-topic") PE is a good product, they just forgot something : the documentation. For all what I did, I found the informations I needed on this forum, and never on Microsoft website or documentation. Thanks a lot!

Him, I read here that ram drives will only be supported in the next release and I found nothing about it in my PE documentation...did I do a mistake? Where can I find information about this? I don't know how to activate it! Nevertheless, it's only a little part of my problems Edit : oh, well... http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=16886 I don't know if it's official, but it's something that uses only Microsoft products...I'll try. And sorry for the off-topic But it seems these methods don't work each time...It will be hard to say that to my boss : "I will use a method that can work...no, it doesn't come from Microsoft..."

Maybe with BartPE or with plugins for BartPE which work with the official PE. But when you can only use the official PE...you must wait for the next release! I work in a firm that uses only Microsoft products, and the technical service/hotline is something very important (and expensive..) here. If we use programs that are not in PE, Microsoft won't give the technical support. I think you understand the problem I have... Shortly, my problem is "if it's not official, I can't use". And officially, there's no ram drive in PE for the moment, and the only drivers that are supported are network and disk drivers. We have to many PC's and different configurations, we can't take any risk.

That's just what I'm trying to do : replace DOS with PE for preinstallation tasks...you're the first person I "meet" who does something like this, and I work on this since three months now I'm working with the official PE. I don't know if PE could solve your "reboot problem" but with PE, I've LOTS of problems related with drivers, for example (although PE is a very good OS for tasks like configuring installation, you can't do anything with PE itself, it's heavyly "protected"...). Now if you use BartPE, I don't know if it would be better. Using PE as replacement of DOS is something very...I don't find the word...I mean there's VERY few people that do it now, even specialised firms are just beginning to work with PE like that. Even Microsoft can't answer, for some questions about PE, and there's just one person knowing WinPE who works in HP....and we hope we don't know more about PE than him. It's very useful for OEM and simple preinstallation tasks (configuration of the sysprep/riprep image, for example), but if you want to go further with PE itself (adding drivers, or test the hardware), it will be hard for the moment (PE doesn't yet support the RAM drives for example). You can't do anything more with PE as a preinstallation environment than with DOS (hum, well, I'm exagerating a bit )

Hello, First, I'm not using VBS for web development....si I think it's the good forum I'm trying to use a software that gives the MAC adress in VBScript, and to write the result of this command in a file. Here is my line : set VLOB_WSHSH = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.shell") retour = VLOB_WSHSH.Run("d:\compname.exe /d ?m 1>>d:\adresse.txt 2>>d:\erreurs.log",1,True) But the file is never created...it's supposed to contain the MAC adress. I tried lots of things, from VLOB_WSHSH.Run("d:\compname.exe /d ?m >> d:\adresse.txt") to lines like the first I show...I can write/read on the drive, I tried to create the file before writing in it but it's useless. If someone can help me....thanks!

Oh, I forgot something very useful : compname...it's a really great piece of software I discovered here and which I use every day now It can display alll what you want, such as IP or MAC adress, and lots of stuff like that....you can even change these informations. It's available on this page.

You can't use WMI in windows PE : it's not implemented, as written in the doc describing the limitations. To get the IP, you can use the ipconfig command and then take what you want in what is given in the result.

Normally you can just do what is described in the PE documentation : put the files in the right place...but it seems it doesn't work as expected, it's not the first time someone has this problem. I don't have the solution...but it's becoming a common issue :/

Hello, I'm trying to do a VBS/WSH script which gives the amount of RAM that is installed on the computer... I boot from the network on win PE and I need this information just after installing WSH. I found lots of scripts doing that, but it always uses WMI that is not implemented in the official Win PE (I can only work with the official PE). Is there a solution to my problem? (even if it's not a script, just a program, or whatever...just something that gives this information ) Thanks!

I think you'll have to write it....it's written in the documentation : windowsPE can't run 16 bits programs. I searched something to "bypass" this but I didn't find anything. The problem is that it's not a problem of plugin...there's simply no possibility to run 16 bits programs. WindowsPE doesn't have "WoW32" (windows on windows32), the software that allows this sort of thing. That's why I have a lot of problems migrating from DOS to Windows PE. Good luck :/

If I remember well, it depends on the motherboard you use : you can do this only on recent hardware. Booting off (eh, I would have said "from", I'm improving my english skills ) a USB key isn't implemented on motherboards older than 18 months or something like that... Anyone to confirm?

not at all, it's not a program I need... And moreover, in my firm, we don't use any pirated software : 100% of our software is *legal*, unlike the serial you give.

Hum...is this serial "legal"? I mean, is it a serial for complete product or just for the trial version? Because if it's for the complete version it's far from being legal :/

Thanks a lot for your answer, but there's still one problem : the printers we use are connected with USB... Nevertheless, this method should work : I'll try to send directly the data to the printer without using à driver. For the network drivers, I already did it, and I had no problem. But for devices that (which? i don't know ) are not network cards or comething related with mass storage...

Hum, well, no one seems to know this sort of thing All what I found is how to install drivers in unattended install of XP...but for PE itself, is there a way??? Thanks in advance.

Hello, first I know that this question has probably been answered somewhere here, but I can't find where... I work on windows PE since 2 months now, and some things are becoming hard to understand for me. I need to do lots of things with PE, and now, I'm confused about a simple thing... How to add drivers to PE? I mean, not network or mass storage driver, but things like printer drivers and other hardware...is there any "formal" (I don't know if it's the good english word) method to implement drivers to PE? For example I need to test a printer, and to do that I need to have the driver... I'm sorry, but I'm very confused...I don't even now if this topic should have been put in de "driver forum"...I read a lot of docs about "unattended installation" (that's not what I need, i just need the drivers under PE) and now, I'm lost :/ More precisely, I have to replace the DOS with PE for the computers deployment... Thanks a lot!

Hello, I need to do some tests under windows PE, to ensure that all the hardware is well connected. It's not very difficult for the sound, but I don't really know how to do with the printer. Is it possible to use the printer with the command line under PE? I don't even know where I could search something like this. Oh, I forgot something very important : this test must be done automatically, I mean the user doesn't touch anything to launch it. Something launched in a script, for example. Thanks. edit : hum, after looking for something that could help be, it's obvious that a simple "wordpad -p my_file" would be fine...

I don't know if I understand your question, but I reply Do you use setupmgr to create unattend.txt?

Hum, It seems that you can't download the kit without being OEM, and without the OEM licence...

I have an answer from Microsoft....Well, I don't speak English very well, but I think this message means "no, there's nothing to do to block the mouse and keyboard under the "official" windows PE" : Hi Romain, Thanks for your post. Short of not connecting a Keyboard and Mouse to the system when booting WinPE there are no supported ways to disable them. We do not support an SAK or Windows Storage Server tools or install questions in the System Builder Newsgroups. For any questions related to those products you will need to go through your Microsoft Account Manager. Regards, Erik -SBST Moreover, it seems that they don't give answer to questions like this on the newsgroups

what the hell...I tried to boot my RIS server, and it refused to boot...I have to reinstall all of it, OS, servers, OS images.... edit : I solved the problem...1 problem at least I did all what is said in the link above ( http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=16824&st=20 --> I put my drivers in a cab file), but I doesn't change anything, I don't know how to use saprep...maybe I forgot to change something...I don't have winnt.sif, so I changed ristndrd.sif in the I386 and I386\templates directories (I boot from a RIS server)...someone to help, please? (Hum, I'm off-topic, no?)