suggestion: make Win XP installed by WIM

[aviv00]

is that possible to make the installation of Windows XP installed like vista does

with WIM Image Format?

vista take about 30 min for 7giga of files

why not make xp the same its will run faster as ever

[Legolash2o]

that would be very useful, it possible but you'll seriously have to know what your doing

Edited October 14, 2007 by legolash2o

[ChrisKuhli]

There's another Forum under Unattended Windows Discussion & Support in this Board in which your request can be carefully answered Windows PE

[matrixv]

There's an idea/solution from Dexter_Inside (see here: http://uberplay.org/Documents/oemguide.html). It sound very interesting and simple, the author make it successful then I tried but it never success.

So, any one should try and discard more.

[Innocent Devil]

Dexter_Inside's guide works, I tried and created my own wim for XP install, LH installer install xp flawlessly and the end result is gr8, i get my xp with all my apps installed and configured

I think it is very helpful fo ppl installing XP for large num of s/ms

But i want only to install on my machine. so i did it without sysprep, ie just wiming my xp C: drive

wen i want to reinstall, just put the dvd with winpe and imagex boot 2 winpe and apply the image, reboot

My system is ready

wim technology is much better than cloning (Ghost like apps) entire drive or disk.

[Oleg_II]

I think it is very helpful fo ppl installing XP for large num of s/ms

Yes, that works

But... When you are deploying to computers with similar hardware (mostly with the same HAL but some mass storage devices may interfire too).

wim technology is much better than cloning (Ghost like apps) entire drive or disk.

Basically it's the same technology: system in WIM file was pre-installed, syspreped and cloned into image. When using Ghost there is no sysprep. But as I remember some versions of Ghost included the utility to change SID?

WIM has its own pluses but in this case it's just clonning with Ghost like apps

[Innocent Devil]

WIM is not like Ghost

WIM uses file based imaging while Ghost uses sector based imaging of the hd

with wim u can apply the image to a non empty partition and at the end u have both old files in tha partition and the files from wim

but for ghost it wipes out old files and u only have new files, it doest cares for files but to harddisk sectors it requested to copy

[Oleg_II]

Innocent Devil

WIM is not like Ghost

In this case it acts nearly the same way (I agree with some of your points but continue to read

while Ghost uses sector based imaging of the hd

but for ghost it wipes out old files and u only have new files, it doest cares for files but to harddisk sectors it requested to copy

Not exectly right. Agree as for part with wiping. Ghost has sector to sector copy function (using switches it copies even deleted from hard drive files into image for heavy recovery or forensic purposes) but it usually copies only files on disk and doesn't copy all sectors by default. It is implying file system structure and boot sector but it is not sector per sector copy

with wim u can apply the image to a non empty partition and at the end u have both old files in tha partition and the files from wim

To appy wim image you have to load PE evironment, right? But if you add to your PE compilation some archivator, say freeware 7zip, you can use it to zip/unzip files to a non empty partition without damaging already existing files and folders

Wim VS 7zip

[dexter.inside]

with wim u can apply the image to a non empty partition and at the end u have both old files in tha partition and the files from wim. To appy wim image you have to load PE evironment, right? But if you add to your PE compilation some archivator, say freeware 7zip, you can use it to zip/unzip files to a non empty partition without damaging already existing files and folders

Wim VS 7zip

1) Yes, you can unzip files to a non empty partition, but that's just the easy part. You can't mount a 4 Gb 7z archive as a NTFS junction and service it offline. You have no integrity checking when capturing over network. The 7z algorithm is suitable just for heavy packing / unpacking, the LZX algoritm is suitable for more precise purposes like this one. And the SDK for WIM technology is freeware too.

2) WIM technology also allows easy diffing / differential packaging, suitable for Embedded purposes. A componentized XP / Vista will benefit the most from this type of packaging, due to the very efficient system of single instance storage. Each package would contain the entire file dependencies for the executables, but add only a little header to the entire WIM file. I am studying the posibilities of this method now, and it seems even more promicing. Let's say I were to divide the OS in several hundred packages, out of which only a handful were really critical, and the user would choose at setup time what functionality is needed. WinFLP was the first attempt towards this goal, but I don't see Microsoft adopting the style anytime soon

3) The limitations in this procedure are caused by the PE-based setup, not by the WIM. When I will have available something like Symantec's SRESHELL to do the setup, but in opensource, things will change

[Oleg_II]

dexter.inside

I'm not saying that WIM technology is bad. But it's not easy and comfordable at the moment (and when it will be, if ever, there will be more alternatives I just showed how it could be replaced with known appz.

You can't mount a 4 Gb 7z archive as a NTFS junction and service it offline.

Use image browser to open image. And using latest version of PowerQuest products - Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery for example, not sure but with Image Explorer from Ghost v12 should work the same way - you can mount images as virtual hard drives and serve them as you wish

You can use third party appz for moounting 7zip archive like a virtual disk (commercial app - Winmount, can even mount Ghost images by the way and uses very low resources). Sorry, I can't give you a freeware example as I'm not using this (using Ghost like imaging - DeployCenter).

You have no integrity checking when capturing over network.

Use Image Explorer to verify image integrity.

2) WIM technology also allows easy diffing / differential packaging, suitable for Embedded purposes. A componentized XP / Vista will benefit the most from this type of packaging, due to the very efficient system of single instance storage.

Make a 7zip archive with a few folders inside for each component.

PS What I was pointing to: I'm not saying that using Ghost is better, but it is not right to say "it's completely different". For this purpose - imploying system - the implementation is nearly the same.

Edited October 16, 2007 by Oleg_II

[dexter.inside]

PS What I was pointing to: I'm not saying that using Ghost is better, but it is not right to say "it's completely different". For this purpose - imploying system - the implementation is nearly the same.

The implementation may be the same, true, but if I were to code a new setup routine to install the OS from 7z it would take a lot more work. WIM is already optimal for programatic control. And let's not discard the fact that WIM technology could be the best piece of software Microsoft did in the last 10 years . And unlike WIM and VMDK formats, Symantec hasn't taken too many steps towards publishing specs for theirs.

[Innocent Devil]

unless u have a poweful h/w set replacing the lzx algo with 7z is tideous task

of coz 7z yield best possible compression algo in terms of the archive size

but imaging u 7zipping 12gb parition 512 mb p4 presscot

or even in core2 with 2gb requre more time than simple wim-ing

to some extend (in time taken) wim does the job

but as the h/w bcome more and more powerful someday m$ will probably employ it (we hope so)

Consider the squashfs in linux ,it can implement LZMA compression with a patch in the code

(most of the live cd distros uses squashfs to squash the root fs)

[Oleg_II]

And unlike WIM and VMDK formats, Symantec hasn't taken too many steps towards publishing specs for theirs.

Yes, it's proprietary code. But it's not bad because of that

Innocent Devil

It is not about what you can do or can't. I replied to your "better then Ghost-like". 7zip is not Ghost-like but it also can do the job (I'm not discussing how, yes it will be more resource taking). If you are comparing with Ghost like, I can't agree - I use DeployCenter, can make highly compressed images in DOS and fomr PE, can restore disk with all partitions, restore separate partitions or individual files and folders with ease and with more comfort then with WIM. WIM is not better then Ghost-like

Edited October 16, 2007 by Oleg_II