Some tweaks for bootmgr

[joakim]

You can read more about customization of bootmgr here;

http://sanbarrow.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=7472#7472

Stuff like changing the menu colour, toggle maximum menu entries and how to local boot the pxe version of bootmgr (bootmgr.exe)..

Joakim

[jaclaz]

Nice.

If you are into this kind of things, and still are bored/have some spare time, what do you think of checking and then adding this info to your thread on sanbarrow's:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11395

jaclaz

[joakim]

You don't have to "hack" anything to accomplish that. It is an option available when setting "optionsedit on" on a specific bcd entry. If you do so you will get the tweakable options listed on a command line, where you can edit them to your likes, and have to press enter when done. That means the boot process will halt at the edit screen, so you only want to do this in very specific cases. However it may help you to "translate" bcd entries into boot.ini equivalents, as they are presented on the edit screen in such a way as they were in boot.ini. The optionsedit setting is also documented by MS in the bcd reference.

Only in ntldr you would need to "hack" to activate the optionsedit function. Details already in the referenced thread.

Joakim

[Kullenen_Ask]

better you stay here. he will probably find somethings to tease. enjoy freedom.

[jaclaz]

You don't have to "hack" anything to accomplish that.

I know.

The linked to topic contains TWO things:

- something about the F10 editing (which in my ignorance of anything Vista and 7 related seemed to me not "widely reknown")

- something about not definite reports of BOOTMGR also reading BOOT.INI (which I haven't found any definite report about)

I was just asking, since you are fiddling with those things if you were interested in these things and possibly write a few lines of confirmation.

I didn't get it was "hacking only".

better you stay here. he will probably find somethings to tease. enjoy freedom.

Hallo, Kullenen_Ask, nice to see you still have a lot of free time.

jaclaz

[Kullenen_Ask]

yes. lots of. enjoy it. it turns back with developments. maybe will add later. or your winbuilder close to die because of no development. probably joakim and sanbarrow doesn't write in bootland because of they don't like it like me, also when they created moa and loader from negative feedbacks. also i came here because of negative feedbacks of winbuilder team. i don't know why jfx doesn't want to be in boot-land or joshua or somebody else who i don't know. maybe can be because of your selfish comments. i don't have any idea about moa or loader and i can't say i like them but i registered and like to be in sanbarrow. if i have enemy behaviours from there because of i can breavely say (i don't like) i will stop write in there too. For me important is knowlegde not third party software. Where the knowledge is i will be in there. can like or dislike to be but i will. I like msfn because it is not related to any kind of sotware and nobody gets angry to you when you say you don't like it

Edited August 31, 2010 by Kullenen_Ask

[jaclaz]

or your winbuilder close to die because of no development.

Just for the record and FYI, I am probably the *only* boot-land member that doesn't use Winbuilder, finding it overly complex and the .script format/syntax an actual obstacle to knowledge.

Just to show how I hold your findings in the highest esteem:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11850&st=58

@joakim

Sorry for the OT.

jaclaz

Edited August 31, 2010 by jaclaz

[joakim]

We have also discussed how to the change the boot animation, etc;

http://www.sevenforums.com/customization/106861-how-change-boot-animation-windows-7-a.html

In case you keep rebooting a lot and got bored of the default animation, image and text..

Joakim

[joakim]

User hgiova contacted me about a month ago and asked about the possibility to integrate several images inside boot.wim, and choose which one to boot. I just recently started on this, and believe it should be possible to boot a "non-bootable image" inside a wim. By "non-bootable image" I mean an image contained in the wim that is not specified as the boot image in the wim header.

Details here on the state of the research; http://forum.sanbarrow.com/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=15

The point is that it could be rather interesting to have this task solved, and be able to integrate many nt6 based PE's in the same wim (of course not for PXE). Several hundred megabytes could be saved in space.

I am rather sure that we must use grub4dos and map bootmgr to the (rd) device and patch it there. I am getting closer to finding the correct VA to patch (and what to patch it with), but if any assembler knowledgable people would join in, it could possibly speed up the process quite a bit. Basically (I think) it's just a matter of patching the resource offset as specified in the wim header (found in a given register, ie esp+68h). I doubt 0x78 is read at all, but patching that too probably doesn't hurt.

If someone knows about an easy way of retrieving the resource offset for a given image, let me know.

Note that it is obviously not possible to use the compressed bootmgr.exe when patching this way. Use uncompressed bootmgr.exe, otherwise known as the pxe version. Hmm, and you will need to do some additional hacks to acomplish this. I'll post that later if necessary. Nevermind, I just saw that I already gave a link for that in the first post.

Joakim

Edited October 25, 2010 by joakim