After booting with SMALL PE and Running first Firefox_Profile.exe
then indeed using the Desktop Link to Run Y:\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox64\firefox.exe allows to use Internet and Bookmarks without Welcome Screen.
Then I added the created Mozilla folder at X:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming to Add_Folders_Files\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming
And Rebuild the PE_19041_US_S.wim file
It means when you Add the Mozilla profile folder to the PE WIM file on the proper location
then there is no need anymore After booting with SMALL PE to Run first Firefox_Profile.exe
After booting with SMALL PE and Running first Firefox_Profile.exe
then indeed using the Desktop Link to Run Y:\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox64\firefox.exe allows to use Internet and Bookmarks without Welcome Screen.
Then I added the created Mozilla folder at X:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming to Add_Folders_Files\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming
And Rebuild the PE_19041_US_S.wim file
It means when you Add the Mozilla profile folder to the PE WIM file on the proper location
then there is no need anymore After booting with SMALL PE to Run first Firefox_Profile.exe
No, that will not be enought, a single file is not enought, as mentioned in this post.
The new approach used in SFX Firefox_Profile.execontains two different Mozilla folders, not only one, and both are required in its own location to make this work fine.
EDIT: I was wrong, only required folder is: \Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla
IAW tests made by wimd and commented in this post, and I can confirm that info.
From my previous post:
Good news:
I finally was able to avoid the need to use fBackup and also launch twice FireFox, all we need to do is backup two Mozilla folders, and extract them in advance before running FireFox. In SMALL PE the two folders are located in:
\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Mozilla and in \Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla
If you want to test this approach, for your convenience I made an SFX file that will extract them in required locations.
But as mentioned for safety reasons it is better if the user creates it own set of 2 folders:
I strongly recommend every user needs to collect their own set of files and create their own SFX or 7.z file, this is a safety precaution as doing it this way the folders with the profile will have random names and also the gererated key4.db will be unique for each one, use the included Backup just for testing pourposes.
I had the idea we needed both folders, it is good you already tested only the folder in Roaming is required, this reduce the amount of MBs we need to add to our SMALL PE.
The DEFAULT Hive is online via Component Load on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE loaded as TK_DEFAULT
The correct Registry Fix for HotSwap is then
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\TK_DEFAULT\Software\HotSwap!]
"AutoRun"=dword:00000001
"DisplayPDO"=dword:00000000
"SpinDown"=dword:00000000
"DFlags"=dword:10000006
sorry to butt in in an off-topic-like fashion, but while trying to safely delete as much as possible from ordinay vhd os installs, what wonko once said of the reducing procedure (a couple of years ago) suddenly hit my mind again - proceding by addition to a winPE-like vhd, rather than by reduction of an already installed full vhd. now my question is, what could we learn from a winpe \windows\system32 and \windows\syswow64 file and subfolder structure that could come of advantage in the making of the smallest operable win10 or win11 vhd filedisk install? more specifically, if we keep the same windows structure (mainly the root files) as the winpe in the vhd filedisk, what files do we need to add in order to get to a workable minimal windows install?
my concern is to avoid taking out some vital files in further and further reducing, inasmuch as it is quite a bit of a pain to backtrack what file or files should not have been taken out from among a myriad - it could be done, but it is easier if we could add whatever to a minimal workable than to take out as much as possible from a maximum working. all of this with a view to doing a cleaner job.
Understood, if we want to add something to the PE Registry in DEFAULT hive we should use:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\TK_DEFAULT\.....\.....]
Also I'm going to keep the following addition to the Pecmd.ini file, but commented, it doesn't hurt to keep it (memory is weak sometimes), just in case I may need to use it in the future:
// Load FireFox profile in background
// EXEC @!%WinDir%\System32\FF_Profile.exe
wonko once said of the reducing procedure (a couple of years ago) suddenly hit my mind again - proceding by addition to a winPE-like vhd, rather than by reduction of an already installed full vhd.
Assuming your remember clearly that Wonko suggested that.
With all due respect to our very appreciated friend Wonko, I fully disagree in that advise, as it doesn't make sense.
When dealing with PEs we start from an environment that lacks many features and then it makes sence to find the dependencies we need for the software we want to add, and also find what we need to add to the Registry to make that software work. So in this case the process is aditive.
When dealing with Mini-VHDs we start from the oposite environment, we start from an environment that already have almost all we may need, and even many more things we will never user, then to reduce its size we delete all we don't need/want. So in this case the process is subtractive. But IMHO it is better to let the Registry untouched (it doesn't hurt), just in case we latter need to copy back some EXE, DLL and/or MUI files we may need in the future.
With the only exception that in Mini-VHDs we may find latter some additional software, (portables or installed programs), that we may want to use but they don't run fine in a Reduced Mini-VHD, then in this case we have to act just like in a PE environment to make they run fine, finding the dependencies and also (if required) find what we need to add to the Registry to make that software work, but this is not a very frecuent case.
For now during the development of this project, several things that can be also safely deleted in the Mini-VHDs, have being found, but our good friend wimb, already added them to his new version of Win_Reduce_Trusted-62, so don't worry, so far all findings are already included, only lack is the info quoted in the spoiler.
Spoiler
By the way I edited Custom_remove_folders.txt, adding following lines:
But if you mean you want to continue your never ending task of reduce even more your Mini-VHD personal version, IMHO this is not the right place to comment about it, it is better you talk about that in your own topic, related specifically to that:Get-alladafluff-out
ok, thanks for the answer, I did try the doubt in the spoiler, and went even further, by deleting the efi folders, which are superfluous in my case. are there any other doubts about the boot subfolders? as for wonko, I do not think he exactly said to start from the winpe; he said the spirit was to start from the idea of the winpe and rely on portables, but i do not think he meant to start from the winpe concept itself, which as I had suspected and u have confirmed, would hinder the process by its registry. we were only talking about the number of files in the root of the two main windows subfolders and a way to reducing it by relying more and more on portables to avoid the influence of the registry and make the system cleaner (our vhds will be as efficient two months later as they are today mainly because we hardly install anything, we hardly modify the registry, thre is little or no dll confusion, and all this in small and fairly controllable sizes). that was the sense of it. as for me, I have to admit that the amount and quality of portables in the winpe here has lured me into the mirage of being able to run everything from winpe, but before too long I realized that it would be ludicrously stupid with such a surgical expertise as we have developed in wimboot tech. and yes, I will continue trying to get rid of some more files, but I agree with u that I am close to the limit of operability. Not so for u, as u seem to be happy with the bare minimum (no dx, almost no framework.net). so i keep putting my shrinking findings in getalladafluffout and in wimboot.
- Added - Version EXTRA to make PE_19041_US_X.wim - Test Version for Bluetooth and Printer support in cooperation with noel (not ready, under construction ....)
- Changed - In program flow now Adding Drivers is last item and comes after Adding Registry instead of just before
What size is your current mini WinPE10 WIM file?
I mean - with all required files necessary for most popular apps to work (7-Zip, Notepad++, MultiCommander, Everything Search, etc...), including Windows Explorer, and including WoW64 for 32bit app support?
Just for comparison, I currently have a WinPE10 x64, which I built on purpose without WoW64 and without Explorer GUI (no taskbar, no start menu, no Windows Explorer), but with all necessary files and registry entries to run most apps just fine.
I use MultiCommander as the file explorer, and all copy/move/paste operations are working fine, including ability to view file properties.
This WIM file is 572MB in size. This is after running the command:
So, just curious to know how "mini" is your WinPE10 WIM file?
@ericgl
Make_WinPE iresults about PE WIM Size are given here
MEDIUM = 448 MB has WOW64 + everything of SMALL + x86 Portable Apps support
SMALL = 347 MB without SysWOW64 but with WinXShell + MMC + WiFi + Taskbar + PECMD + x64 Portable Apps support e.g. Launchbar for Portables and PE_Tools, and System_Info
Both Versions have build-in 7-zip_x64, ChkDskGUI_x64, DBCTaskmanX64, Explorer++_x64 and IrfanView_x64, multimonitortool_x64, PENetwork_x64, Windows Login Unlocker
and RunScanner, ImDisk, KeyboardLayout.cmd, HotSwap!, LetterSwap, notepad
wimb forgot to mention that all works in a nice GUI, and it has installed into it: 7-zip, ChkDskGUI_x64, Explorer++ and IrfanView.
And many more programs run from Y dirve, just to mention some of them:
FireFox-x64 portable, VLC x64 portable, and a big etc.
Also runs PE_Tools and System_Info multi programs packages from Y drive, both made by wimb
Additionally to launch user favorite portables as Pstart doesn't run on SMALL version (x64 environment), it uses LauchBar_x64 (running from Y drive) to launch additional programs from Y drive.
So I can tell you it is a very little WIM with almost infinite possibilities, As long as the portables are x64.
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