Carefully examining the XP boot process

[fdv]

I am sure some folks know this, it's something I have been doing for a while now and in case some are unaware of this little 'trick', I present it here.

First, you need Filemon for Windows.

Put it into your install media's $OEM$ folder (you know -- $OEM$\$$\system32 -- I'm not going to get into that here) so that on install it gets dumped into system32.

Start the install process, and as gui setup begins, hit Shift and F10 for a command prompt.

cd to system32 and type filemon.

A license agreement comes up, click ok

An error might come up, click ok

As setup runs, filemon catalogs what files are doing what during the setup process. Don't forget to click the 'save' button before the final reboot. When you save, it's going to be a LOT of data, so the save might take a while. Be patient, it doesn't mean that the program has locked up.

You also have other options during setup such as Regmon, Process Explorer, and of course, Pinball...