VDubs - Windows Setup Front-End & more

[joshiieeii]

Found out what one of my problems was, I wasn't using the newest Java files.

ok, so I thought I would test it in my normal windows, but it stops after trying to Start the Windows interface. So I also tried burning a BartPE disk with the whole Vdubs folder on it and tried the same command in there, still error. So I tried the intall.cmd and the shell actually tried to run, but I had the same error.

EDIT!!: SUCCESS!! My mistake, had to make sure that the jre, install, ect... folders were in the root of C:, after that, it worked!! yay!!

Edit2: About this App being a Bart Plugin, I think I could throw one together, it would bypass the install.cmd alltogether if I am imagining this right.

Edit 3: I have a question, is there a way in Java that would allow the Java program to run after the Command window that executed the java command was closed. Not a big deal, just is less clutter if you only have to see the command window once, then it closes and the Installer stays open.

[voltaic]

yes, if i'm understainding you correctly it can be run using javaw.exe instead of java.exe, however, i use the console to output information as to what the program is doing, so i would not reccomend it.

also if you need to get to CMD just hit the button on the GUI in vdubs.

as far as the bartpe plugin goes, you're welcome to make one and i'll include it in the distribution if you want, but i think that it would be of limited usefulness: part of the idea of vdubs is that by virtue of cdimage's -o option you can encode duplicate files only once, and can therefore have multiple distributions of windows on the cd. mkisofs does not have this feature that i know of, and that is what bartpe uses to make the image. i think i remember a way to make a plugin that might be able to change that, but at the very least you could hack bartpe to make it work with cdimage.

anyway, i'll leave that up to you.

glad it's working for you now. keep me informed as to any bugs that you find in the program... who knows, maybe someday i'll even be able to release a flawless working version!!

-Voltaic

[joshiieeii]

also if you need to get to CMD just hit the button on the GUI in vdubs.

-nah, I mean, I created a batch file to run the Installer, but if I close the dos window that the batch used to open the installer, both the installer and the dos window close.

think that it would be of limited usefulness

-My logic behind making bartPE plugin is that you could add a coupld plugins to bart to backup data, burn it to a disk, scan for viruses, ect... Then if that doesn't work, just reimage the machine using the Voltaic Installer. Plus you have to "build" BartPE before you can put it on your multi-OS CD anyway, so might as well have some other useful stuff besides only have an installer shell. The Installer could run on command just like the other progs in BartPE.

[voltaic]

ok, i see what you mean. ya, in the future i want to have a log window tab, or something like that, but for right now, i'm just outputting logging data to the console. btw the stuff that you see going on in the log window is actually being output from the java program itself which is why if you close it it closes the vdubs window.

if you do end up making a plugin though, let me know!

-voltaic

[joshiieeii]

if you do end up making a plugin though, let me know!

-voltaic

I am working on one right now, its in the Beta stages, but I think I have all the bugs worked out. Going to give it a couple more tests, then I will post it here.

[Dijital]

Dude, looks absolutely sweet!!

I can't wait to see how this develops in the fututre

[DigeratiPrime]

why havent we seen this before? This is great!

[joshiieeii]

ok, I have done some preliminary testing, and it starts out ok. It formats, but the way I have it setup, when it goes to copy the windows setup files after you click install, it trys to look to the B: drive (RamDrive, where I am running the installer prog).

Is there a way to incorporate a function to specify where the source files are (Whether that is through an added line in an .ini file or possbily a "Browse" button, but maybe have it default to something?

If there is a way, you could also do network installs via a network drive!

But for right now I need to be able to tell the install that the source files are on the CD not on the ram drive. Going to see if I can work around this, but at first look, it doesn't appear very likely.

Thanks,

Joshiieeii

[voltaic]

yes, if you are running from a path that is not on the drive where the windows installation files reside then you can use a switch on the command line to specify the drive (or even a folder) where the files reside.

java.exe -cp b:\vdubs Installer d:\pathToInstallFiles

this may even work using a UNC \\voltaic\c$ kinda thing as java supports these natively (i think) but you'll just have to give it a shot, but it will definitely work with a network drive.

oh, it actually defaults to using the root of the volume from which it was run, so that's why it didn't work from the ramdrive.

-Voltaic

[joshiieeii]

Hey Vol-tack,

Well last night I reorganized my CD a bit so I could run the installer directly off the CD and after disabling all the apps, clicking "Install", it started to do its thing!!

But after it got done copying all the windows setup files, it said it was making the sif file for unattended install, then said it was starting windows setup and just sat there. Going to investigate later on, its prolly the way I have my CD setup, but so far its coming along!

[idle.newbie]

how about specified your main class in META-INF/MENIFEST.MF, and run with java -jar yourJar.jar, that will much simpler. if your system had JRE and not associate .jar with WinRAR, you can double-click yourJar.jar to run your class.

[voltaic]

But after it got done copying all the windows setup files, it said it was making the sif file for unattended install, then said it was starting windows setup and just sat there

the only reason i can think of for this is that your setup files were wrong on the cd and were therefore copied wrong onto the hd. your directory structure should have an I386 dir that contains winnt32.exe on the root of the HD "C:"

if that was not present that explains why it did not start.

keep in mind that the folder on the root of the cd for each os type should contain an i386 dir and then under that should have all install files

eg: %cdroot%\winxphome\i386\winnt32.exe

anyway, i hope i explained that well enough.

-Voltaic

[voltaic]

how about specified your main class in META-INF/MENIFEST.MF, and run with java -jar yourJar.jar, that will much simpler. if your system had JRE and not associate .jar with WinRAR, you can double-click yourJar.jar to run your class.

i tried this when i first started to develop vdubs, but for some reason the decompression of the .jar made the system run out of memory, and would not continue. i can't really explain it since the runtime is in a highly compressed jar file as well, but that's what happened. it ran out of memory on a system with 128MB.

anyway, it's not that big of a deal to have .class files instead of a .jar file is it?

hope not, cause unless you have a pretty healthy amount of ram on any system you want to use this, that's the way it's gonna be.

-Voltaic

[joshiieeii]

Ok guys, did some further testing and relized that the hanging up was the installer trying to reboot the machine. So voltaic, can you double check the code and try to figure out if you can make it so it will reboot PE?

(BTW....its installing as we speak, no apps yet still working out install bugs)

Edit: Just an idea, possibly add a Force Reboot checkbox or something....

Thanks

[voltaic]

Edit: Just an idea, possibly add a Force Reboot checkbox or something....

will do josh.

added a to-do list to the first post to help keep track of things as they come up and so you know that feature requests are being considered.

[edit]

after checking into it, there is no easy or really good way to do this. i think the best thing to do is to have vdubs launch from a batch files, and i'll make it to where vdubs doesn't exit before windows finished installing, and just have the last line of the batch call the reboot.cmd from the bartpe installation.

if you run vdubs as shell, it will reboot after it closes anyway (windows pe just does that for some reason)

-Voltaic