Working on w98_slip v0.2 (error checking, automatic service pack integ

[glaurung]

I'm poking at W98_Slip some more. For version 0.2, If makecab exits with an error, I want it to generate a file containing the text of that error. That should be easy. I also want to automate the integration of the updated files in the unofficial service pack, and that's a bit more involved. (suggestions for additional changes are welcome, but remember I'm only one person with limited spare time; slipstreaming ie6 is a ways down the road yet).

I'm wondering if someone here knows the answers to a few questions about inner workings of the 98 SE service pack.

1. There are 13 files in supp.cab that are updates of files already in the windows source. I know two (shell32.dll and explorer.exe) are in supp.cab because they're resource hacked. What about the other 11? Is there a reason why I shouldn't slipstream them along with the files in sp2.cab?

2. spupdate.inf has a registerocxs section, and invokes regsvr32. I'm assuming that windows setup will handle the registration of any self-registering dlls just fine without my worrying about it. On the other hand, if the newer version of a file is self-registering and the older version wasn't, I would need to worry. Are there any files that I do need to worry about in this regard?

3. I'm not sure what I should do about the rest of the registry entries in spupdate.inf. I could be lazy and assume that none of them are needed for the proper functioning of the fixed files. Or I could just dump all the entries into a [basewinoptions] section somewhere and be done with it. On the other hand, if an important registry entry created during setup is changed by spupdate.inf, I'd have to track that entry down in the original location and change it there (cringes at the work involved ).

Spupdate.inf runs runpost.bat when it completes. Runpost.bat invokes a couple of additional inf files, and I've got some questions about those:

4. wuinfo.inf: creates registry entries so windows update will "see" the installed fixes. Suppose I blindly incorporate the registry info in wuinfo.inf into one of the windows setup .infs, and then slipstream the updated files in sp2 and supp.cab. Will windows update be fooled into thinking I've updated something that isn't? Do I need to do anything else to make windows update see all the fixes that have been slipstreamed?

5. preserve.inf: I'm not entirely clear on what this does but I think it has something to do with system file checker. I'm also assuming that if the updated files are slipstreamed, there's no need for this.

6. scr56.inf: this installs the updated windows scripting host. It has entries that wsh.inf does not, but it also lacks entries found in wsh.inf. After eliminating redundancies, can I just put everthing in scr56.inf into wsh, or do I need to take some things out of wsh?

7 Finally, on a minor point of paranoia: I can't remember for sure the rule about white space in inf files. If there's a space before a filename in a filecopy section, does that have any effect, or is it ignored? (why I ask: I've written a bit of minitrue scripting to fix the 265854 issue by fixing the inf files that put smartvsd.vxd in the wrong place. To keep the fix from being applied multiple times, I inserted a space before the relocated file name).

[Tihiy]

One smaa-al request:

Can you please parse filelist.mt and precopy.mt to see if files do exist in .\expanded and remove them from the list to make possible to remove components? If it isn't possible to do with MiniTrue or other program, i can write small program for you.

Some answers:

1. There are 13 files in supp.cab that are updates of files already in the windows source. I know two (shell32.dll and explorer.exe) are in supp.cab because they're resource hacked. What about the other 11? Is there a reason why I shouldn't slipstream them along with the files in sp2.cab?

The problem is that sp2.cab was meant to contain only files which are suitable for replacing (preserving) in original distributive, without significal registry changes. Files in SUPP.CAB are optional or no need to preserve.

2. spupdate.inf has a registerocxs section, and invokes regsvr32. I'm assuming that windows setup will handle the registration of any self-registering dlls just fine without my worrying about it. On the other hand, if the newer version of a file is self-registering and the older version wasn't, I would need to worry. Are there any files that I do need to worry about in this regard?

There is no such files i'm aware of. Self-registering files *should* be registered with regsvr32 or something else, others can't.

3. I'm not sure what I should do about the rest of the registry entries in spupdate.inf...

They're not compulsory, but highly recommended. [AddReg.Hotfixes] , registerdlls and tweaks better to be included.