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Winbuilder: would you like to test the new edition?

winbuilder development

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#1 Brito

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Posted 21 April 2013 - 01:44 PM

Hello friends,

 

A new step on the winbuilder history is now close to arrive.

 

If you are interested in testing the new winbuilder before it is made generally available to public, just reply back to this topic until Friday, the 26th of April and provide a compelling reason to be selected.

 

The private edition will be made available to a maximum of 10 people.

 

Questions, feedback or feature requests are welcome on this topic too.

 

:)


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#2 dziubek

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Posted 21 April 2013 - 04:41 PM

Please write a few sentences about the planned changes: D



#3 Brito

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Posted 21 April 2013 - 06:33 PM

Sure. Each day until Friday I will write a post here about a particular characteristic to discuss.

 

 

For a start, my favorite feature is UI abstraction. Out of the box, it is possible to use winbuilder from the command line, from a GUI and from a web browser. The idea is to make it easy for starting new builds remotely when needed. For example, a browser from a cellphone/tablet on the local network is more than enough to remotely control your build process. Or, if you want to automate a build fully in unattended mode now it is also possible.

 

Just to clarify, for security reasons the web server needs to be explicitly started by the user. The default UI is a GUI. 

 

Furthermore, this allows developers to add up other UIs with ease since abstraction of UI is available right from the start.

 

:)



#4 LordNecron

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Posted 21 April 2013 - 09:36 PM

I would like to be one of the few. All of the times I have attempted to us Winbuilder in the past have ended in frustration & no acceptable outcome. (At this point I expect laughing at my ingnorance by someone.) I think becuase of this I would be a good canidate.

 

I have used & particapated in maintaining other projects, mostly BartPE based. I hope that anyone else that has done this know what a PitA this can be & will accept that I am not a complete dummy. I am lead tech at a small computer repair shop that has ~20 computers on the bench at any given time. I am looking to replace our boot disk, as well as have it PXE boot.

 

Thank you for your consideration.


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#5 paraglider

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Posted 22 April 2013 - 01:41 AM

As a longtime user and still active user of winbuilder I would like to test your new version. I will be particularly interested in testing the compatibility with the win7pese and win8pese projects.


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#6 Brito

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Posted 22 April 2013 - 11:41 AM

@LordNecron, I don't laugh about what you report as PitA, unfortunately this is indeed a very old issue.

 

One of the features made available is simply called "Auto". The idea is generating a working Windows 7 PE in fully automatic manner. Fetching a tested Windows source, extracting the relevant files, evaluating if your computer has all the necessary requirements and proceeding to the final build.

 

Would be happy if you can help us test this feature. I had already planned to add built-in PXE support. Meaning that you can build the ISO and make it available straight away for network booting computer on the local network. This is possible and relatively easy to implement, maybe we can soon test this implementation as well.

 

 

@paraglider, you've been around wb even before it was wb. My pleasure to include you.

 

Compatibility with legacy projects is possible with enough effort applied, this is something for project developers to decide if enough effort on their side is worth investing into the new platform or just stick with the legacy winbuilder if it meets their requirements. 

 

The new building system is simpler and very different (more details will soon follow) from predecessors. Also, we provide an open source Win7PE project with the distribution that should cover most needs from users.

 

:)


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#7 pcuser

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Posted 22 April 2013 - 06:07 PM

Hi Nuno :)

 

I would also be very interested in testing this new version.  I like the idea of being able to remotely auto build unattended and PXE booting.


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#8 eye0

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 02:02 PM

Hallo, Nuno! ;I also wonder test the new version.
The idea of ??the remote build is gorgeous- Now can help someone build a bootable disk!
Thank you!


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#9 Brito

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 09:12 PM

Another interesting feature of the new winbuilder is that all text presented to end-user can be translated to other languages.

 

Messages are written in the following printf style format:

"File %1 was not found", "c:\winbuilder\test.txt"

 

And the output to screen is:

"File c:\winbuilder\test.txt was not found"

 

The generic message "File %1 was not found" is recorded to a database and the value inside %1 is discarded since this is volatile data. What now happens is that if our database (an XML file) has a match to this text then it will output the respective translation, for example in native language:

"O ficheiro %1 não foi encontrado"

 

The good thing from this exercise is that the end-user is enabled to see messages on his own native language and can choose to save a log to disk in plain English when sharing it others on the forum.

 

Another good thing is that we can completely convert a project to another language without the need of modifying any scripts inside the project. When developers release new versions of their scripts, fans can translate to other languages as needed.

 

:)


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#10 pcuser

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 09:28 PM

Nice!



#11 kcarney

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Posted 24 April 2013 - 06:39 PM

I'd like to help test this out.  I've been a beta tester of UBCD4Win and was developing a new and improved multiboot part of it.   I have access to a diverse set of hardware. 

 

 

I have not used winbuilder before, and only have used BartPE based projects


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#12 Brito

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Posted 25 April 2013 - 09:18 PM

@pcuser, @eye0 and @kcarney: welcome aboard!

 

About more three or four can still join. I'll be closing the openings tomorrow.

 

 

For today, one feature I'd like to talk about the new winbuilder is the native support of the relevant Windows file formats that is not depending on Windows API or drivers.

 

For example, it is possible to create and extract files from WIM archives. It is possible to extract files from ISO images, it is possible to create bootable ISOs without needing any external tools.

 

It is possible to create Windows shortcuts (.lnk) with full access to all parameters. This is very handy to create shortcuts that are only valid once they are used inside the booted Windows PE.

 

Last but not least, we packed this winbuilder with native support for reading and writing registry hives.

 

Experimentally, we even added support for creating empty VHD files as well. The idea is to one day move from WIM archives to fully formatted VHD images without need for any Windows/Linux tools.

 

 

The outcome of this native support is the added speed and fine control over the building process. There are no drivers involved. There is no need for users to have administrative permissions to edit the registry or mount WIM archives, there is even no need to use Windows for building a Windows PE. Anyone can now build a great Windows PE boot disk straight from a linux server machine if they wish. 

 

This kind of independence helps to build reliable bootdisks since we depend much less on the host platform for supporting the critical parts of the build system. If one day new Windows versions no longer support the registry or WIM archives, we will still keep working just fine.

 

:)


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#13 TheHive

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Posted 26 April 2013 - 05:51 AM

Any pics.



#14 Brito

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Posted 28 April 2013 - 03:31 PM

@TheHive, I'm not so good with pics. I will include you on the preview group and then you can see it for yourself and post pictures for others to see the preview if you wish.

 

@all, thanks for the participation. This topic will now be closed and I will soon be contacting everyone here through a personal message with the indications of how the preview will be made available.

 

:cheers:







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