39 replies to this topic

[Wonko the Sane]

From what I see, mikeserv is a genuine user that simply disagrees with some contributions from MedEvil and Wonko. As long as this disagreement is expressed in a polite manner, I don't see a problem. On this board we value a productive argumentation between opposing views, one has to know how to place emotions aside to defend arguments with logic and facts in the public square.   

Neither do I, as a matter of fact he disagrees mainly with Popov, the references to my and Medevil's posts are negative only in the sense that they are (wrongly) encouraging Popov to experiment, something that he sees as futile/unuseful, and to the assumed lack of references to the good (and bad) of Plop, references that have been already exchanged ad nauseam elsewhere.

 

For the record, the positions are as follows:

• Wonko has (and has had) more than a few machines where the hardware is USB 2.0 capable but on which the BIOS boots ONLY at USB 1.1 speed, this is the "perfect case" where Plop may be useful, as well as that to add USB booting to PC's (mainly notebooks) that have not it at all. If you prefer Wonko had several occasions to use PloP and had exceptionally good results with it.Wonko does not measure booting speed and does NOT compare the Plop speed with that of motherboards natively capable of USB 2.0 speed booting, he simply observes that on most suitable machines Plop sped up booting noticeably.
• Medevil has not (and has had not) any of such hardware or, if you prefer, his experiments never provided him with the expected increase of speed. (besides a few tests he did with BIOSes already using USB 2.0 speed that obviously make no sense). His point is (most probably correct) that the increased speed of Plop on USB 2.0 hardware is not as fast as it should be (i.e. a "native" BIOS working at USB 2.0 speed outperforms Plop). Additionally he has a plan to replace the USB module in BIOSes with much faster drivers, a really nice thing in theory, but that has not yet been put into practice or not put into practice for a "wide" range of BIOSes.

All in all there is NO disagreement on Plop, only different experiences in practice and Medevil has in addition a nice theory, or if you prefer Medevil has (had) greater expectations form Plop while Wonko is more modest (not all over, but in spots ) in his expectations.

 

If someone could provide some 20÷40 € and provide Medevil with a specific (very low cost) hardware on which Wonko used recently (and successfully) Plop:

http://reboot.pro/to...puter/?p=164461

 he could see with his own eyes what happens on that specific motherboard and possibly even the experiences would "converge". 

 

 

Wonko

[mikeserv]

So far:

 

Old cartoons.

I'm someone else.

Am I someone else?

I'm not someone else.

I disagree.

I don't disagree.

Nothing about rebooting.

Edited by mikeserv, 06 May 2013 - 10:17 AM.

[mikeserv]

Can't edit my last post because I already did to add the "Am I someone else?" line, but it was seriously incorrect:

 

Obviously anyone reading this will see that the post IMMEDIATELY PREVIOUS to mine was a lengthy and completely on-topic discussion on the PLoP bootloader. I'm an idiot for missing it. Just having fun with all the rest, I guess.

Edited by mikeserv, 06 May 2013 - 10:36 AM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Obviously anyone reading this will see that ...

 

Well, obviously anyone reading this thread would have also noticed how it is was a poll dedicated to opinions on the hypothetical naming of the new version of Winbuilder, and as such completely  UNrelated to "rebooting", you were so kind as to explicit this in post #20, which is a good thing, as some less experienced user might have considered this non-obvious, thinking that anything posted on a board called reboot.pro should be dedicated exclusively to "rebooting".

 

Wonko

[mikeserv]

Point made, I suppose. Still, I like things neat. Organized. Rebooting at Reboot.pro, not polls on what someone should call a program despite them already having named it. PLoP is better.

[Wonko the Sane]

Still, I like things neat. Organized. Rebooting at Reboot.pro, not polls on what someone should call a program despite them already having named it.

Sure , and strangely enough, when the place was called boot-land, most things were "neat and organized" and additionally we mainly talked of booting (and not of rebooting).

Nomen est omen.

 

So, most probably unintentionally, you just confirmed how names are important.

 

JFYI:

http://reboot.pro/to...ting-boot-land/

http://reboot.pro/to...-land/?p=115612

 

When I attempted to start something actually on topic:

http://reboot.pro/to...onal-rebooters/

some people were not happy either.....

 

Wonko

[mikeserv]

Ok. I really liked the snakes.

 

But that other guy... What was so disturbing? Was it a translation thing? Maybe he meant because the forum software was unstable too many pictures were a bad thing? Weird.

 

-Mike

[Wonko the Sane]

Ok. I really liked the snakes.

Yep, that's a nice one .

 

But that other guy... What was so disturbing? Was it a translation thing? Maybe he meant because the forum software was unstable too many pictures were a bad thing? Weird.

 

-Mike

Naah, no issues with translation, more than disturbing he is disturbed (actually was, since he was banned from the board when he started senselessly claiming copyright/exclusive rights for the things that he published here, BTW having "stolen" or "plagiarized" or both most of them).

 

For unknown reasons he didn't like me and passed most of his time on the board either attacking me, or my contributions (or lack of them) and/or someone else (still personally or their contributions or lack of them) and his unpolite or downright offensive attitude was strangely tolerated until he downright threatened Nuno of a legal action or something like that.

 

But he effectively contributed into making the board a mess/chat board/whatever, breaking the good ol' common sense habits of keeping things on topic, organize the board, etc.

 

He was, if you like the definition, an agent of change (and no, changes are not always for the better )

 

Though there are contrasting opinions on the effectiveness of the broken window theory on crime rate:

http://en.wikipedia...._windows_theory

I guess there are none negating that where it has been enforced the place looked nicer.

 

Wonko

[mikeserv]

Great. Now you've got me doing it...

 

Look, I've got a reboot question for you. I've got this catch-22 situation with Windows 8 and DEP. I know I'm not the first to run into this, and this is maybe the 3rd or 4th time in the past 6 or 8 months that I've really bent my Google skills (which are not to be sniffed at) to the task, but I can't seem to make headway.

 

With a simple bcdedit /set {default} nx AlwaysOff and bcdedit /set {default} PAE ForceDisable Windows 8 will happily cast aside its new mandatory requirements for NX and PAE making the only requirement difference between 8 and 7 the SSE2 processor extension. HOWEVER, it will only do so on an established image. By which I mean, a new install on any machine will not accept such a change and will fail to boot the first time. It's such a headache. 

 

I've tried installing without SETUP.EXE using dism /apply-image /imagefile:[DRIVE]\sources\install.wim /index:1 /applydir:[NEWDRIVE]\ without success.

 

This Geoff Chappell guy went to some pretty extraordinary lengths debugging the bootloader and Windows kernel in early Vista days, but I'm afraid much of that is over my head. And this maddog fellow delivers unsubstantiated reports that the Windows kernel NX and PAE check can be fooled by editing the processor's reported config flags in BIOS, but, again, that's pretty much entirely outside of my experience. 

 

Probably I'm only misguided here (and PROBABLY this should have it's own topic, which I'll be happy to do), but I'm convinced that the mostly undocumented (as far as I can find) bcdedit /set {default} configflags [WHAT?!?] function could be of use in this case. 

 

Thoughts?

 

-Mike

Edited by mikeserv, 25 May 2013 - 05:30 PM.

[mikeserv]

Ok, so maybe that last link wasn't exactly spot-on, but a CTRL-F for configflags will land you where my browser was opened to. I've also considered the possibilities of a custom HAL file or even somehow replacing the PE kernel with that from the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I'm just out of my depth, I'm afraid.

 

ADDITIONALLY (AGAIN): I've also considered using grub4dos and/or syslinux to mangle the configflags somewhat before they're ever reported to BOOTMGR, but the actual implementations are still far too deep for me.

 

-Mike

Edited by mikeserv, 25 May 2013 - 05:56 PM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Maybe, just maybe, the issue that you are having is connected with this:

http://www.geoffchap...sloader/pae.htm

 

 

The loader expects different kernels for when PAE is and isn’t enabled. The default name for the kernel is NTKRNLPA.EXE when PAE is enabled, else NTOSKRNL.EXE, but note that the default can (usually) be overridden by the kernel option. Whatever the name, the loader insists that the PAE kernel has the IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE (0x0020) bit set in the Characteristics field of its IMAGE_FILE_HEADER, and that the ordinary kernel has this same bit cleared. A mismatch is fatal to starting Windows.

 

It is possible that the "standard" install you did either has the "wrong" kernel or has it not the flag bit correctly set (or cleared) .

 

Wonko

[mikeserv]

Yeah, I've read through that (like 8 times) and I'm pretty sure that IS the issue. The PAE extension is required for Windows Data Execution Prevention to use the NX extension because (to my limited understanding) it has to monitor all memory addresses to ensure that non-executable code is not being executed from addresses not explicitly permitted. Immediately previous to your quote block Geoff says:

 

Although the ForceEnable and ForceDisable values of the pae option are reported in the Edit Boot Options Menu, as /PAE and /NOPAE respectively, and can be edited or added, changes made at this menu are too late to be acted on and are not respected.

 

I believe he also mentions elsewhere (I could be wrong - he's got a lot to say) that any setting to BCD will not necessarily be respected regarding PAE if other settings require it because it happens so soon in the bootloader process (BOOTMGR maps to memory, too). So basically if NX is required, PAE will fail regardless of any other settings. The key is to disable NX AND PAE, I think.

 

And yes, the problem definitely lies with the kernel. Maybe I should back up some and try to get a feel for a couple other mysteries surrounding this:

 

What exactly is the difference between a new (or is it called sysprepped?) image and one already established? What's the difference between the WinPE kernel and the regular kernel? What goes into sysprepping an image anyway? I'm afraid I don't fully understand the fundamentals there. Maybe you could give me a brief walkthrough?

 

So you say maybe I should clear (or set) a bit on my image-file. I'm sorry, Wonko, but I really wouldn't know how to begin to do that. Any further advice?

 

-Mike

 

P.S. This NX issue with Win8 should really be hacked by now, or so I believe. I think (hope?) it can be done.

[mikeserv]

Oh, and by the way, when I posted about that other guy a few weeks back, I never said that the tests were futile for you. As I saw it, any debugging information that guy provided you, someone that could understand it, could only enhance your knowledge, however little it helped him. I don't know how other people do it, but I tend only to offer help when a problem sparks my interest, and I can fully understand the desire to seek out and further understand the root cause of a problem before trying to actually resolve it. I was just amazed that no one else popped in just to say, "Hey, you ever try a different USB stick?" or, "Maybe you shouldn't throw out your manufacturer's firmware just yet."

 

-Mike

[Thumb]

I will call it 'Windows Live Builder'. not only 'WinBuilder'.

[mikeserv]

I'm sorry, but... what?

 

EDIT: Oh, gee! The thread topic, of course! I'm sorry, all. New thread: http://reboot.pro/to...-and-windows-8/

Edited by mikeserv, 25 May 2013 - 08:21 PM.