How to add DirectX and Sound to Win PE

[Tripredacus]

Not in a way to make the WinPE an operating system, but in my quest to use it as a Burn program.

I would like to find information on how to enable sound in Win PE 2.x as well as be able to display 3d graphics. This would entail getting portions of the DirectX 9.0c redistributable into the PE and be recognized by it.

Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

Oh also, I've researched sound at least. The problem is that the PE does not contain the files in KB888111, so it is not possible to install the driver for the soundcard because the Hardware ID does not match the INF files for the device. I am not certain how to get around this.

I am more concerned on getting video to work more-so than sound.

[Tripredacus]

I have a partial guide with partial success...

To install DirectX 9.0c:

- Download the DirectX 9.0c redistributable.

- extract the contents of DXNT.CAB.

- copy all DLL and SYS files to System32

- create the path System32\DirectX\DInput and copy all PNG and INI files into there.

I need to also put the August 2008 component. Errors now battling:

- Error Initializing DirectDraw

- DirectX Direct3D version required is unavailable.

[Randomiser]

could you regsvr32 the dlls?

[Tripredacus]

The problem is, which ones to register?

I've put this project on hold for now, but hope to someday find a solution.

[Angelico_Payne]

If you are talking about WinPE2, u cant do it, Microsoft stripped that possibility from WinPE... maybe with some workaround, but haven't seen one yet. DirectX, drivers such as sound, modems, wifi, gpu,...

[Angelico_Payne]

Ok new development, I have just learned that it si possible to make sound card work in WinPE2. Company named Eurosoft has released a version of WinPE2 that supports this.

[Tripredacus]

Are you sure its a PE 2.x? The website does indeed talk about Win PE, but then right next to it has this

Longhorn is due to be released by Microsoft in 2006, and looks set to be the consumer operating system of choice.

Which makes me think it is the 1.x series instead. Especially since it talks about booting to the PE using RIS.

[Angelico_Payne]

Yes 2.x. Testing program from company named Eurosoft support testing audio,... under 2.x. So that means its possible. Microsot claims u can't register dll's so it must be some other way. Don't know how, but since drivers are loaded and work, that means there is a workaround.

[Tripredacus]

You certainly can register DLLs. Regsvr32 is present and does work. I use it in my PE script on my PXE server.

[Angelico_Payne]

Why doesn't the WinPE initialise the drivers for e.g. sound card properly? I thought it was due to dlls not being registered properly...

[Tripredacus]

I think that the entire subsystem for playing sounds is missing, but not sure. I didn't ever research how Windows plays sounds in the past, so I don't even have a starting point. However, we do know that since DirectX is missing, so is DirectSound. There are implementations of getting sound (not so much video like 3D Acceleration) to work in Win PE 1.5.

[Angelico_Payne]

That would explain why graphic card and sound card are not working. But doesn't explain why wifi card or modem is not working. I as well have info that are at best sketchy, so perhaps the best way to start about this is to go to technet forum and ask directly.

[Tripredacus]

I have found that even if you inject drivers for a device, if the PE can get away with using one of the default drivers, it won't use the ones you injected with PEIMG. The only thing it seems to use are Mass Storage and NIC drivers. I've had tried to PEIMG video drivers, but the PE doesn't use them for the video driver, it uses whatever standard VGA controller drive, the same that Vista has. And Driverload will give you an error if you try to update the driver.

I don't have better tools to be able to get a Device Manager like interface to see what drivers are actually loaded. Its kinda difficult using just the command prompt.

[Lasray]

The infrastructure of sound, video, modems, wifi etc are indeed missing from windows PE.

Devcon.exe from Microsoft is a command line tool that takes the place of Device Manager and works well within Windows PE. I have used it many times. Using the switch 'driverfiles' should help identify the drivers loaded per device.

Eurosoft do have the ability to diagnose sound for WinPE 1.5 and 2.x but it is bundled up in their software package. Since I left the company I do not think they had anyone to continue this development and doubt they would be able to help if you were thinking of asking them.