Unattended Secret: Reducing Size Of Source

[Kryxan]

this link is good, and should be good for a while. for the cdimage.exe

http://www.tech-hints.com/prog/cdimage.zip

and a gui version (english beta 3)

http://www.tech-hints.com/prog/cdimagegui.zip

for those who dont know why everyone here likes cdimage its because it can optomize storage. if it finds two exactly identical files it will not write them twice like a normal burning program, but those two files will be written only once, saving space. (i have personally seen over 200 megs of space saved)

I don't know if anyone else has posted the command lines for cdimage yet, I don't recall seeing them in the thread. So here they are. The -o is the important one.

CDIMAGE 2.39 CD-ROM Premastering Utility 
Copyright (C) Microsoft, 1993-1997. All rights reserved. 
For Microsoft internal use only. 
Usage: CDIMAGE [options] sourceroot targetfile 



       -l  volume label, no spaces (e.g. -lMYLABEL)
       -t  time stamp for all files and directories, no spaces, any delimiter
             (e.g. -t12/31/91,15:01:00)
       -g  encode GMT time for files rather than local time
       -h  include hidden files and directories
       -n  allow long filenames (longer than DOS 8.3 names)
       -nt allow long filenames, restricted to NT 3.51 compatibility
             (-nt and -d cannot be used together)
       -d  don't force lowercase filenames to uppercase
       -c  use ANSI filenames versus OEM filenames from source
       -j1 encode Joliet Unicode filenames AND generate DOS-compatible 8.3
             filenames in the ISO-9660 name space (can be read by either
             Joliet systems or conventional ISO-9660 systems, but some of the
             filenames in the ISO-9660 name space might be changed to comply
             with DOS 8.3 and/or ISO-9660 naming restrictions)
       -j2 encode Joliet Unicode filenames without standard ISO-9660 names
             (requires a Joliet operating system to read files from the CD)
           When using the -j1 or -j2 options, the -n, -nt, and -d options
             do not apply and cannot be used.
       -js non-Joliet "readme.txt" file for images encoded with -j2 option
             (e.g. -jsc:\location\readme.txt). This file will be visible as
             the only file in the root directory of the disc on systems that
             do not support the Joliet format (Windows 3.1, NT 3.x, etc).
       -u1 encode "UDF" file system along with mirror ISO-9660 file system
             (-n, -nt, -d, -c, or -j1, -j2 options apply to ISO-9660 portion)
       -u2 encode "UDF" file system without a mirror ISO-9660 file system
             (requires a UDF capable operating system to read the files)
       -us non-UDF "readme.txt" file for images encoded with -u2 option
             (e.g. -usc:\location\readme.txt). This file will be visible as
             the only file in the root directory of the disc on systems that
             do not support the UDF format.
       -b  "El Torito" boot sector file, no spaces
             (e.g. -bc:\location\cdboot.bin)
       -s  sign image file with digital signature (no spaces, provide RPC
             server and endpoint name like -sServerName:EndPointName)
       -x  compute and encode "AutoCRC" values in image
       -o  optimize storage by encoding duplicate files only once
       -oc slower duplicate file detection using binary comparisons rather
             than MD5 hash values
       -oi ignore diamond compression timestamps when comparing files
       -os show duplicate files while creating image
           (-o options can be combined like -ocis)
       -w  warning level followed by number (e.g. -w4)
           1  report non-ISO or non-Joliet compliant filenames or depth
           2  report non-DOS compliant filenames
           3  report zero-length files
           4  report each file name copied to image
       -y  test option followed by number (e.g. -y1), used to generate
             non-standard variations of ISO-9660 for testing purposes:
           1 encode trailing version number ';1' on filenames (7.5.1)
           2 round directory sizes to multiples of 2K (6.8.1.3)
           5 write \i386 directory files first, in reverse sort order
           6 allow directory records to be exactly aligned at ends of sectors
               (ISO-9660 6.8.1.1 conformant but breaks MSCDEX)
           7 warn about generated shortnames for 16-bit apps under NT 4.0
           b blocksize 512 bytes rather than 2048 bytes
           d suppress warning for non-identical files with same initial 64K
       -k  (keep) create image even if fail to open some of the source files
       -m  ignore maximum image size of 681,984,000 bytes
       -a  allocation summary shows file and directory sizes
       -q  scan source files only, don't create an image file

       NOTE: Many of these options allow you to create CD images
             that are NOT compliant with ISO-9660 and may also
             NOT be compatibile with one or more operating systems.
             If you want strict ISO and DOS compliance, use the -w2
             warning level and correct any discrepencies reported.
             YOU are responsible for insuring that any generated CDs
             are compatible with all appropriate operating systems.
             Also note that Microsoft company information is placed
             in the image volume header, so don't use this program
             to generate CDs for companies other than Microsoft.

[Gism0]

for those who dont know why everyone here likes cdimage its because it can optomize storage. if it finds two exactly identical files it will not write them twice like a normal burning program, but those two files will be written only once, saving space. (i have personally seen over 200 megs of space saved)

that is pretty **** cool!

so i can be really lazy and duplicate tonnes of files and it will only burn em once?

[Kryxan]

My Guide skips the first step of file copy in Gui mode (there's no dosnet.inf on the cd).  You still have to do text mode.

-gosh

At first I thought it skipped the first file copy process. For me that has always been the file copy in the text part of the install. I have normally avoided starting install from windows because it does that copy and makes it impossible to delete the partition(s) that windows puts those files. So i guess thats why I don't see any speed improvement.

[Kryxan]

so i can be really lazy and duplicate tonnes of files and it will only burn em once?

hmm yep. tho if any of the files are different in any way then i dont think it can save the space. btw, after i post this ill edit my other post and put in the command line options.

[teufel]

Gosh,

I was looking at your post on page 4, and notticed a few IMG/IMA files in your directory listing, are you able to boot from these image files from the cd menu?

[dare2001]

Hi Gosh,

I have just completed my customised WINXP CD (623mb total) from your guide and I would like to say Thanks for a great guide.

I am nearly finished installing it via VMware and all is well.

Regards,

dare2001.

[daemon]

Gosh,

I was looking at your post on page 4, and notticed a few IMG/IMA files in your directory listing, are you able to boot from these image files from the cd menu?

YES!

plz see ref -> Bart diskemu

[gosh]

teufel:

You can make an image of any floppy disk and boot from it using the cd menu (diskemu.cmd). The easiest way to do this is with winimage. With winimage you click on a menu and read the contents of the floppy. Then you click on File > save as > make sure you select .ima. I'll try to write a guide on how to do this.

-gosh

[teufel]

No need fot a tutorial, i get it..... I actually went through EVERY FREAKING PAGE of this 22 page topic, and stripped out your main posts (i found 7 posts) and made a doc file, gosh, if you havent already started a tutorial, you should at least open a new thread with the instructions, instead of having them spread around 22 pages of alot of bs.

btw We all really appreciate your work! Where the hell did you learn all this stuff from?

[gosh]

teufel: I'm bill gates cousin.

-gosh

[eXPerience-XP]

teufel:  I'm bill gates cousin.

-gosh

rofl

[DaveXP]

lol...and am George Bush

[Tbone2]

Hello George

[teufel]

Is there a limit to the size of the image that i can emulate? how would i go about creating an image over 2.88mb?

[Guyanthalas]

Ok, i've flipped over this board front and back. I'm still missing out on a few small details.

In the first part of the thread, we make $NT$.BT .LS folders...

According to the guide i rename the .LS XPHome and the .BT VOL1.

Then the guide says to copy Vol1 to XPHome... however, later on in the guide you show them as being equal level on your directory tree.

I'm very confused about how to structure the directory.

On a side tangent.. is there anyway to compare the directory's of XP Home and XP Pro, and merge them into one directory? If no one has tried this i'll gladly pioneer the effort, but i'd like to know if my efforts are in vain before i start.

Also, after i ran the Winnt32 /noreboot from my win2k cd, i renamed the folders and what have you, but when i rebooted my computer it tried to run windows setup (for 2K), and errored out (because i had moved the directories). Did i miss a step to avoid this problem?

Thanks a lot for all your help!