26 Reply by Nuno Brito

(5 replies, posted in Installation Platforms)

Hi stephorn!

You can try the LiveXP project - it already comes a sata drivers scripts included by default and should be more than enough to get access to your drives on the DELL workstation.

This sata support script was based on the mass storage drivers available from driverpacks (just a bit modified to work with liveCD's)

It can be found and downloaded here:

WinBuilder:
http://boot-land.net/winbuilder/

Install instructions:
http://boot-land.net/winbuilder/help/#Installing

And this should be more than enough to quickly create yourself a good boot disk - it's based on WinPE 1.x from XP install discs.

-------------------------------------

For WinPE 2.0 (VistaPE) drivers - I've also used ctv99's tool as you've mention (even helped testing it) and was working just fine.

Maybe this error is not directly related to your driver slipstreaming - please post your log.html after creating a vistape project so that we can further analyse your results.

Most XP drivers works well enough under any flavour of WinPE x.x


-------------------------------------

Please let me know if you have any further doubts and good luck!! smile

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27 Reply by Nuno Brito

(6 replies, posted in Feature Requests)

He also posted his proposal on our community here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/Setup-A … -t437.html

smile

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28 Reply by Nuno Brito

(10 replies, posted in Feature Requests)

There seems to be a small confusion here: UCDB4Win is not illegal, there were some legal issues regarding the initial project name which was "Windows Ultimate Boot Disk" - microsoft contacted the project maintainer and this name was changed to "UBCD4Win" in order to remove the word "Windows" to avoid confusing people as a windows product. This was on 2004, read here: http://ubcd4win.com/msdocuments.htm
l
Bart's PE Builder itself is quite legal as well, look here: http://nu2.nu/pebuilder/#licensing


Please test WinBuilder and you will see that it has indeed a liveXP project which creates a PE build - but WinBuilder itself is not designed exclusively as a PE Builder since it is used to create bootable disks for Freedos, ReactOS and mobileOS (full sized unnatended instalation of XP/2003).

We use several sources to ouput very different results and you are not "forced" in any way to use your licensed Windows copy - you can even download a trial MS Windows 2003 from the microsoft which grants you a license for 180 days of testing: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2 … truct.mspx

And VistaPE is based on Windows PE 2.0 which is a completely free "tool" to use from microsoft and also comes bundled inside the Vista DVD to install the OS (Vista OS license should not be mixed with WinPE 2.0 license). If you don't have a Vista OS, then you can download the WAIK (which contains WinPE2.0) from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta … laylang=en


Drivers packs are already added on VistaPE, look on the Vista discussion thread on this forum where I mention the standalone program we've been using.

Why use a CD? - You can use a DVD with 4Gb worth of data inside or even your USB pendisk which is preferable for portability sake and forget size limitations..

All projects create an ISO and run it straight away in qemu (a pc emulator) so that you can see the results and transfer them to removable media when you wish.


MS itself is also changing their restrictive attitude toward these sort of developments and WinPE 2.0 is a very good example of this effort - we've been discussing this sort of things for years now.

smile

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29 Reply by Nuno Brito

(10 replies, posted in Feature Requests)

I will start learning and understanding as much as possible - where can I start reading?


BartPE was where I first developed some tools to tweak boot disks:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=15488

I know it quite well and am very familiar with all the inner limitations and proposed workarounds but this just wasn't enough - try using bartPE and then use a wb liveXP project to see the difference.

Things should be done in a simple fashion without limits and that's our goal.

UBCD4Win is also one of my favourite projects and their work is orientated for rescue boot disks / maintenance tasks while our projects are dedicated to challenges about different ways to create boot disks and adding new features.

smile

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30 Reply by Nuno Brito

(10 replies, posted in Feature Requests)

First of all I will start by helping writing some documentation and properly getting all my steps published (hope you can correct me whenever needed).

Don't worry about automating this process - that's our personal challenge with wb for some time now and we already have our own "tricks" and gathered experience.. wink

The overall idea is not creating a branched development but rather use the packs directly - this way we can all focus and join forces on a single development and keep things flexible enough for all future projects and teams that appear as years pass.

Just wanted your permission to also use and include DPs_BASE.exe on the default set of tools distributed with wb (for LiveXP web server at least) and help you further improve this application.

A good idea would be adding a liveXP boot disk project with support for drivers provided by B.T.S and also allow slipstreaming these drivers on the install disk as needed and re-create back the ISO with all these changes (all these steps were already automated as a one click process) - not the same as bartPE because our intention is to completely customize and understand all steps to make integration truly efficient - not just applied on generic PE environments but also on other projects like mobileOS.

This method is also valid for WinPE 2.0 since the drivers seem to be quite compatible.

What do you think?


------------------------------------------------


Funny enough that VistaPE is actually based on the official WinPE 2.0 (distributed with Vista) - the only difference is that MS tries to cover some features under the hood and limit what it can actually do since this is actually a very flexible system.

WinPE is meant to replace the traditional msdos diskette from the perspective of MS:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/wind … 05120.aspx


We already had quite some experience with XP/2003 PE environments - but this time MS has taken the right step and released Winpe 2.0 to the public.

NightMan is the author of VistaPE - the original winpe 2.0 images are unpacked, edited and then repacked with the added changes.

These modifications include adding explorer as shell and a lot of tools used on daily maintenance tasks.

The best part is that this project can use either Vista DVD or the WAIK - it is not targeted to modify these install images, but perhaps within some time we can try to help your team getting ahead on this task.


Overflow, thanks for offering your time!

Vista migth be raw but a good challenge is what keep things interesting!

Will be posting my doubts soon, thanks! smile

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31 Topic by Nuno Brito

(10 replies, posted in Feature Requests)

Hi,

I've been reading throught the forum posts to understand how to use the internal API from DriverPack and read that we should contact the author to add proper support so I hope this way I can place my request and also hear the feedback from other members.

For those not familiar with PE based boot disks - WinBuilder is a free program dedicated to create boot disks with special focus on XP/2003 and Vista based PE environments. We've been development our projects for over a year, researching, publishing new projects and new ways to create slim and truly efficient (in overall ISO size vs feature) boot disks available to everyone - it is developed in mind to either new users just starting to experiment on this area or those seeking customized boot disks with very specific features.

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/WinBuilder-t5.html


I first tested a driver pack when some members (Lodovik and Nate) have created a script which included SATA drivers from DriverPacks a few months ago - also take this chance to personally thank this community because it was a critical script to later acess my laptop drive when the OS started with strange BSOD's and needed to rescue my documents.

You can find this talk here:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=839

Our boot-land.net community is strictly guided by a non-profitable policy and winbuilder with respective projects is included on this spirit. Those who follow our talks on regular basis notice that we tend to discuss or propose new methods to do things and the results up to this date have been truly excellent, automating results which were very doubted to be possible before - a bit like the laughs gaven to Bâshrat about driver packs.

Above everything else - we have a lot of fun trying out new boot methods and learning from each others.

Look on our projects here:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/project-PicoXP-t76.html
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/project … -t727.html
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/Actual- … t1648.html
http://vistape.boot-land.net/eng/
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/MobileOS-t1218.html



Also noticed ubcd4win's effort and integration of bartPE based projects - and althought this method is compatible with our own PE projects on XP based patforms, it won't give the much needed flexibility and possibility to automate when applied under very custom conditions or different projects like Vista based targets for example.

There have been some developments to add DriverPacks on VistaPE which work, but it would be awesome to be able to apply the API directly from DPs_BASE.exe - especially since we can also colaborate ourselves and help this community adding more drivers and providing feedback.

We also use AutoIT - it's included on our default set of tools so we could use AutoIt - but wb itself has also a dedicated script language which we could take advantage to further customize the needed features from DriverPacks and include it as a script on these projects.

If possible I would like to include driver pack base on our common tools folder which also includes other popular tools for general use like 7zip, autoit, upx and qemu - this way would also allow users to use it in standalone mode and integrate drivers on their install CD's.



Bâshrat: Do we have your permission and help (without asking to take much of your time) to use the internal API from DriverPacks?



In exchange I offer my own time and colaboration to help you with whatever needed - either testing, providing beta testing feedback or promoting DriverPacks (not a dificult task because I already think that driverpacks is a truly valuable project)


Thank you for your time devoted to driver packs and all the effort done by the community to keep it growing and updated.


Everyone is welcome to visit our discussion forums where you can get your own impression about our overall developments and topics.

You can find us on http://boot-land.net/forums and download WinBuilder (latest beta) here: http://boot-land.net/winbuilder/WinBuilder.zip

No instalation needed, just unpack the executable and get the projects you wish to try out using the internal download center - instructions are also included inside, hope you like it..

smile

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32 Reply by Nuno Brito

(6 replies, posted in Site & Forum Issues And Feedback)

I couldn't even find it on google's cache.. sad

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33 Topic by Nuno Brito

(6 replies, posted in Site & Forum Issues And Feedback)

Can everyone acess the Uniform UXPCD dicussion topic or is it just me who can't?

It says that I have not permission to "use this feature" althought I am also an msfn member..

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=15036

I was trying to read the topic using the link on the main download page:
http://driverpacks.net/DriverPacks/

Really strange.. smile

Go to forum: Site & Forum Issues And Feedback

34 Reply by Nuno Brito

(88 replies, posted in Feature Requests)

Hi,

I've been a somewhat long time reader from Bâshrat's work and it has always inspired me to actually want to understand what is underneath the hood of these OS's.

Vista, Vienna or XP make no difference on my opinion about this matter - the important discussion here should be wich approach to follow since there is the chance to re-define and test new methods with enough gathered experience from XP/2003 to make them flexible enough to survive this OS and the next ones to come.

There have already been some experiments and programs to work on Vista as you can see here:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/Driver- … t1005.html

The author also mentions he gathered himself around 2Gb worth of drivers thought I'm sure that much of this claim needs to be carefully debugged.


I expect to be devoting a lot of time to this matter soon enough - also hope to help this community go forward and provide growing support for Vista and XP.


Count me in for sharing any advances, feedback and having some fun collecting driver packs.



Hilander, you don't need a full licensed/activated copy to use Vista - there's a trial period for wich you don't need to enter any serial key, and seriously - aren't you even curious to see how it looks like? wink


There's also the newer WinPE 2.0 wich works on the same development environment you use for ubcd4win - requiring no license activation at all - memory resources are also not a limitation beyond our control. PE 2.0 has some nifty features but it's still pretty much the same OS we two know back from WinPE 1.x/XP PE and doesn't even have to be exclusively loaded onto RAM. If needed, it's even possible to further slim this boot disk to a 31MB ISO - I've first started using PE 2 on a PIII with 256Mb RAM wich ran just fine..

smile

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