Siginet

No as far as I know it is not entirely possible. Your best bet is to get ahold of an original MSDN Media Center SP3 disk. I had plans to do a file compair on an original MSDN SP3 Media Center disk and a slipstreamed disk... but I never got around to doing it. It would be great if someone figured out an easy method to actually do it correctly. If you find anything concrete please let me know.

I'm not exactly sure what you were asking for? Windows Post-Install Wizard Here is another program: Windows Installation Helper Utility

In the next version of SetupSourceChanger I will be implementing an option to choose wether or not to convert the files back to default before adding the files (Which is what it does autamatically now) or you will be able to add changes without converting to default. What I mean is this... Lets say you want to convert Win XP Pro OEM Without Driverpacks to Win XP Pro VLK With DriverPacks. In the current version you would have to have a conversion folder with all of the files for VLK and Driverpacks. But in the next version you can have seperate conversion folders which you can add incrementally. Convert OEM to VLK... then Convert the VLK to VLK with Driverpacks. Then whenever you want to go back to the default of Win XP Pro Without DriverPacks you just select an empty conversion folder and tell it to go back to default.

You guys are free to incorporate this into your tools as well. Let me know if you need any changes.

Very cool. Thanks for the info.

In theory wouldn't it be possible to install windows xp on the usb stick and use it on multiple computers? Sort of like BartPE or WinPE... but with the full installation of windows and allowing you to install programs and so on. Or has this been done allready? I think it would be very cool to be able to boot into my own ready made windows xp on any system and use it for troubleshooting a computer. With the added benefit of allowing me to install any programs to it whenever I want just like I would in a normal install of windows xp. What are the obstacles we would need to figure out?

Updated with new version plus added a new tool to grab files for your conversion directories.

I have an update comming really soon. I went ahead and threw together a simple gui. I also made another gui to help in the gathering of files to use for conversion. Just as a note. This tool does not have to be used for only usb installs. It can also be used when you are integrating files with the RVM Integrator. If you are like me and create multiboot disks with each different type of windows on it this will come in handy as well. You can easily integrate XP Pro OEM... then copy the contents to a new directory and convert it to Retail... then do the same thing and convert it to corp and so on. Which will save time. Thanks for that new info as well Jaclaz! That is actually exactly what I was hoping for when I first mentioned converting the source files. I am very new to Grub4Dos so I will probably need some help on how to write the commands for it. Thanks a lot! BT=BOOT LS=Local Source Now that makes a lot of since.

The BT and LS folders are only needed for USB stick installs. If you use The "Install From USB" utility in this forum you will notice it makes 2 folders. The "*BT" and the "*LS". The "LS" directory is basically the windows install disk itself. Whereas the "BT" directory are the Boot files for setup. Like when you start an installation of windows xp from within windows. It dumps files on your hard drive that are needed for the install. This is the exact same thing. Or when you create a multiboot disk with XP PowerPacker. It creates a boot folder which is the same as the "BT" directory.

Those are files needed in my setups to be correct. I beleive those files are created by the Install From USB Gui when it creates the usb files? They are not needed on media center as well? In my example.. i also use driverpacks. Some of the files I have listed do not have to be put in everyones list of files. Most of them yes... but not all of them. Basically it is best for anyone wishing to do this to use a program like Beyond Compare to compare the differences in their files.

I am working on a small exe that people can use in a Preinstallation Environment. They just run it... select the files to use to convert the setup source and then select the "*$~.LS" or "*$~.BT" folders they want updated. It also should work on any directory as well. For use on a USB drive your source conversion files should have 2 folders in it. A "BT" folder and a "LS" folder... which obviouslly represents the "*$~.LS" and "*$~.BT" folders. Anything outside these folders will go to the root of your destination. When it does the conversion it will create a folder inside of the destination called "CONVERT". Inside this folder it will create an "info.ini" file which will keep track of any changes made to the original destination. Plus any files which are overwritten are backed up in here as well. I have actually successfully tested using it and it works very well. I even was able to convert my "Windows XP Pro Corp" into "Windows XP Media Center OEM"... Then to "Windows XP Pro Retail" and back to "Windows XP Pro OEM". I also think it will be handy for things like Convert to use DriverPacks or not and so on... Very Cool and Very handy for USB Setup users. I'll upload my test exe here soon. But beware it won't be pretty. lol. It does the job... but it will need a gui and a progress bar or something added to it. ================================================= I have uploaded it here: SetupSourceChanger v0.2 SetupSourceChanger.rar Here is a tool to help gather the needed files from your sources by comparing 2 Windows Install sources. ConversionFilesFinder v0.2 ConversionFilesFinder.rar ReadMe.txt: Enjoy!

I actually plan on going in more depth with the compairisons. I just wanted to start a main thread for me to post my findings. Thanks for the links. I'll look into them as well. I was also going to do compairisons on the files placed on the usb drive as well so I can see all of the differences. I'm thinking it would be great if we created a tool to use that would be able to swap any different files, remove files, place files as needed between many different versions. Or possibly figure out a way to sync all of the different OSes together in one dirrectory and use multiple txtsetup files to tell setup which files are needed for each OS. I know it can't be done on a cd... but I really think it would be possible on a usb stick... which would be amazing.

I'm gonna list in here my file comparisons between the different types of Windows. Like Corp, Retail, OEM, Upgrade and so on... First I compaired XP Pro, Corp, OEM, Retail and Upgrade: XP Pro Corp vs XP Pro OEM: DPCDLL.DL_ EULA.TXT OEMBIOS.BI_ OEMBIOS.CA_ OEMBIOS.DA_ OEMBIOS.SI_ PIDGEN.DLL SETUPP.INI Other Files that may or may not be different in your files: WINNT.SIF : This will more than likley be different if you use it because each OS uses a different Product Key. SVCPACK.IN_ or SVCPACK.INF : This may be different if you install different programs through svcpack between the different OSes. mine were different because I use OEMScan on my OEM files. XP Pro OEM Vs Retail Vs Upgrade Vs Corp Retail and Upgrade seem to share all of the exact same files as of SP3. I am not sure exactly how an Upgrade disk is determined when compaired to a Retail disk in SP3. I know in SP2 and previous that an Upgrade disk had a different SETUPREG.HIV file. I am assuming now it must be determined with the setupp.ini file... but my retail and upgrade disks have the same setupp.ini file now. So I probably have an invalid Upgrade disk and need to get a valid one to be sure I am correct. Or... now you can use a retail or upgrade product key on either and it is determined by the type of product key you use. (I haven't tested this theory yet though.) Retail, OEM and Upgrade all share the exact same DPCDLL.DL_ and PIDGEN.DLL files. The only version that has different DPCDLL.DL_ and PIDGEN.DLL files is Corp. Corp, Upgrade and Retail all share the same OEMBIOS.CAT file. But OEM has a different OEMBIOS.CAT file. My quick explanation of the files: EULA.TXT is actually not very important... it is more of a visual for the user. It plays no significant part in the OS determining what type it is. But to keep things perfect this file is different. PIDGEN.DLL and DPCDLL.DLL are both used to validate the product key. I don't know exactly how... but it depends on the information found in SETUPP.INI and the type of OEMBIOS.* files. SETUPP.INI is a file that can be used to specify wether it is CORP RETAIL OEM and possibly Upgrade. So this is the MAIN file to determin the OS type. =============================================================== XP Home OEM Vs Retail Vs Upgrade The home edition follows all of the same guidelines as the Professional version except there is no Corp version (Legally anyways). =============================================================== I am sure XP Media Center Edition follows the same rules as the above as well. =============================================================== So all you need to do on your usb sticks are to save these files into corresponding folders so that you can boot into your PE environment before installing and overwrite the different files. This will save tons of space on your sticks!

Well I haven't really tested the BootSDI method much yet because it didn't load for me on my computer for some reason. But I think I know why anyone would use the BootSDI method. BootSDI loads everything into ram. If you know anything about RAM you will know that it is MUCH faster then your harddrives/usb drives. So anything you access in ram will have a much higher response time. The downsides to it would be the fact that of course you would want to use it on a computer that has a lot of ram in it. That is the main reason I wanted to have both on my usb stick. Plus I bet some computers may not work well with the BootSDI method. I could be very wrong though. Like I said... I haven't actually gotten it fully working for me yet.

I can't figure out how I add my BootSDI.img file to the boot options on my USB stick. I want to have a regular LiveXP option and a BootSDI option on the usb stick. I allready have the regular LiveXP option on the USB Stick. Thanks Chris

Wow! Now that sounds very cool. So if I understand you correctly I don't have to change the boot options in the bios? You mean I can boot into the currently installed windows and initiate windows setup from there... then the computer will reboot and perform a install from the usb? Right? That's the only way I could think of possibly installing without having to boot to a cd/dvd or usb right? But if there is no current OS installed I would still have to boot from a cd/dvd or usb stick right? That is very slick indeed.

Oh yeah that'll work. I hadn't tried it from within a PE environment yet. That makes it very simple. If it could be done through a script without PE that would be very cool too. Thanks

Yeah I saw that it gives me the option to add multiple OSes. Which is fantastic... but a lot of work. These are the main files needed by each type (OEM, RETAIL, CORP, UPGRADE) DPCDLL.DLL EULA.TXT OEMBIOS.BIN OEMBIOS.CAT OEMBIOS.DAT OEMBIOS.SIG PIDGEN.DLL SETUPP.INI If someone could make a small script that would copy those files from a folder on the usb drive just before installation... it would make it so simple to create multiboot usb drives with all OSes. You would only need one XP Pro disk as the main set. Then the user could provide all other disks and the program only needs to copy those 8 files. If the user provides all 4 types... then the boot menu would be able to have all of them in a fourth of the amount of time it would take to build now. Plus it would probably take up about a fourth of the space. Please think about it. I am sure it would be very simple and very popular. See... for me I currently have to integrate 4 different disks with all of my addons and updatepacks and so on... then I would add them to the usb drive. But if it were possible to do this idea it would be so much simpler. I have tried to find a way to do this on a cd/dvd... but it is impossible since setup specifically looks for setupp.ini on the disk which is read only. But on a usb drive it would be so simple to change those files.

First off... my apologies again for not having the time to help on the project in the past. I really wanted to. But my life is much different now then it was in the past. I don't even have time for my current projects anymore. I was able to try this project out this week and it works very well. Very suprising how smoothly it actually went for me. It got me to thinking about a few things that would be cool if someone could implement them. I don't know if they are possible but here's my ideas: 1. Since it allows you to install from a writeable drive... wouldn't it be awesome if we could for instance create an OS install for Windows XP Retail... then have all of the needed files which are different between OEM, CORP, UPGRADE placed somewhere on the drive as well. Then in the boot menu it would allow us to select wether we wish to install Corp, Retail, OEM, or Upgrade versions of the OS. But really we only have one OS on the USB stick in full and a few folders with the needed files from the other types. When a user selects Windows XP Professional Corp instead of running the setup... it first runs a batch file which copies the needed files into the install directory. Then it begins txtmode setup. It logically sounds possible... and very easy. But maybe I am missing something. I know there are only about 8 files that are different between the different types of OS selections. 2. Is it possible to run ISO files as a boot option? So then people who have allready created an Optimized Multiboot ISO could easily add their ISO as a boot option? Or is it possible to run ISO's like AcronisBootLoader.ISO and so on? Like I can do with BCDW? 3. If #2 is possible it would be great if I could point to a BOOT.INI file and it would automatically grab any images and add them to the boot options as well. I know I had some more ideas... I'll post em if I remember them. But all in all... very good job and much appreciated. Now that I can install from usb my installs are much faster... I can boot into bart just as fast as I boot into windows... and my installs are so much quieter now that I don't hear my dvd's constantly spinning up.

Actually this is an interesting question. I'd like to know if anyone has created a way to boot from an iso on a usb drive. I could see benefits in this. Like when creating an entire multiboot DVD with all of your OSes and Bart etc on it. The ISO can be optimized so you could cram 20 GB worth of files into like 4GB. Which would be very cool. I think it is possible with BCDW isn't it? But not on a usb drive?

That is actually one of the things on my list to do. Thanks!

I don't see why not. Actually using Direct Integration methods should allow for better Shrinkage as well. Keep us posted on your findings. Shrinkage could possibly be a feature in the future of the OI. But I'm not making any promisses yet.

I wouldn't run anything on a celeron processor. That is my opinion though. And to be honest... nothing is good for vista. Windows XP is a far superior OS. If you do decide to use vista make sure you have at least 2gb of ram for best results.

I actually plan on doing some long overdue work on PowerPacker very soon. I really want to make XP PowerPacker go final. It still amazes me that Windows XP PowerPacker still averages about 3,000 downloads a month. And I haven't released anything new for a very long time.

I may be wrong... but wouldn't doing this cause your logons and logoffs to become very slow? What I have done in the past is created a logon script that changes the security of my users profiles so that only they and myself have access rights to the files. If you are interested I may be able to dig up some examples for you.