WinPE XP SP3 OPK / How does PE detectt the HAL?

[KNARZ]

Hi folks.

I have a simple question. Does anyone know how WinPE (i think it's 1.6) XP SP3 / OPK detects the hal while booting?

and in addition to this, what does the /minint switch do exactly?

Has anyone some more informations about the steps and processes while booting?!

thanks.

Edited October 23, 2009 by KNARZ

[Atheros]

i think you'll find that it doesn't. it just uses a generic one that setup uses and the HAL is built during setup.

/minint switch is Winpe

[KNARZ]

this answer is NOT satisfying at all.

because:

* system32 contains all HALs.

*In inf/sif/ini files you will find entries with hal.inf (doesn't exist at offline/cd stage)

* i want to know the process of booting / building WinPE

* to say that /minint means WinPE issn helpful... my question is: what are the operations/trigger behind this switch

[KNARZ]

does really nobody know how this bootprocess work? building the hive, detecting hal, 'create' minint and so on...?!

[joakim]

It is the setup loader that loads "PE" on nt5.x. The /minint only means "read-only registry". You can add /minint to boot.ini and have read-only registry!!

Kernel and hal can be specified in each respective config file for setupldr.bin and ntldr. Setupldr.bin load setupreg.hiv while ntldr load system, then kernel and hal will be executed, and then kernel will load rest of boot configured drivers. You can verify the order by adding /sos or attaching a debugger (ie remove setupreg.hiv while booting setupldr.bin and see what happens). You don't need to reference kernel/hal in setupreg.hiv/system.

Joakim