nativeEx HowTo ?

hi there guru's,

im pretty fresh to bootland but having tried WinBuilder v0.72a and not being able to get a working nativeEx iso i have to ask some questions:

i got nativeex_barebone and nativeex_core downloaded via winbuilder, which one do i need to tick to build an iso ? i tried the _core one and it errored out creating some %somename% folders ?

i already created a iso with picoxp which worked quite okay, but what i need is some kind of gui: xoblite, emergeDesktop or something along those lines. The ISO needs to be as small as possible, it'll be used for installing XP from an USB-pendrive. Only apps i want to include is a bootmanager (boot-us) and a partitioner (pqm 8?). The stripped out bartpe i created using pebuilder still amounts to about 150mb and im pretty certain nativeex can do a better job on this.

help is much appreciated !

hi there guru's,

im pretty fresh to bootland but having tried WinBuilder v0.72a and not being able to get a working nativeEx iso i have to ask some questions:

i got nativeex_barebone and nativeex_core downloaded via winbuilder, which one do i need to tick to build an iso ? i tried the _core one and it errored out creating some %somename% folders ?

i already created a iso with picoxp which worked quite okay, but what i need is some kind of gui: xoblite, emergeDesktop or something along those lines. The ISO needs to be as small as possible, it'll be used for installing XP from an USB-pendrive. Only apps i want to include is a bootmanager (boot-us) and a partitioner (pqm 8?). The stripped out bartpe i created using pebuilder still amounts to about 150mb and im pretty certain nativeex can do a better job on this.

help is much appreciated !

Hi g_BonE!
welcome in our forum!

You have to use nativeEx_barebone.

nativeEx_core contains (core) files which are not only used by nativeEx_barebone, but also by other projects like LiveXP.

In order to make maintenance easier for me, I split nativeEx into two projects.

Maybe after running the core project, some options have been changed.

You can create predefined constellations by navigating in the project tree to

• nativeEx_barebone
• Basic
• !WbManager
• WB Manager

Then in the list box, choose a constellation and click 'Restore Set'. I suggest to start with 'Standard' or 'Minimum_Internet'.
Do not worry about 'access violation' or 'abstract' errors. That is a 'feature' of WinBuilder, but the constellation will work.

Good luck!

Peter

psc,

i've been playing around with nativeEx a lot lately and could use some advice on the Boot SDI thingie. I'm able to build an ISO now but i'd rather used that script to make a Ram-Image i can load from my USB pendrive. So far Boot SDI doesnt write anything to the pendrive which is kinda confusing.

i put the three win2003srv files in here: ..\WinBld\Projects\nativeEx_barebone\UserData (they are ntdetect.com, ramdisk.sys and setupldr.bin), also i had to place vdk.exe and vdk.sys into my ..\WinBld\ root folder else i'd get errors on running the BootSDI script. Now, i loaded the preset settings file to build the BootSDI image, tweaked it to use my XPSP2 rsource files, pointed it to the three files from srv2003 (see above) but still. the script finishes but nothing gets written to the pendrive.

Help appreciated !

This is the last error i came up with regarding BootSDI (see attached screenshot) !

psc,

i've been playing around with nativeEx a lot lately and could use some advice on the Boot SDI thingie. I'm able to build an ISO now but i'd rather used that script to make a Ram-Image i can load from my USB pendrive. So far Boot SDI doesnt write anything to the pendrive which is kinda confusing.

i put the three win2003srv files in here: ..\WinBld\Projects\nativeEx_barebone\UserData (they are ntdetect.com, ramdisk.sys and setupldr.bin), also i had to place vdk.exe and vdk.sys into my ..\WinBld\ root folder else i'd get errors on running the BootSDI script. Now, i loaded the preset settings file to build the BootSDI image, tweaked it to use my XPSP2 rsource files, pointed it to the three files from srv2003 (see above) but still. the script finishes but nothing gets written to the pendrive.

Help appreciated !

This is the last error i came up with regarding BootSDI (see attached screenshot) !

The setuploader.bin you have is the wrong one.
For BootSDI you need setuploader.bin from W2003 SP1 (R2).
I think, after that message the scripts halts with a hint on the wrong file.

The error popup, which in this case is really no error is a 'feature' of WinBuilder I already reported.

Peter

i got those three files from ws2003sp1:

WindowsServer2003-KB889101-SP1-x86-DEU.exe

could you have a look at what i'm trying to do ? might need some logfiles aswell maybe ?

1: i click "restore set" on bootsdi constellation,
2: tweak a few things (disable qemu network driver f.e.)
3: change the settings on the Boot SDI windows as the attached picture shows.



anything im wrong with there ?


And on another note: For some reason vdk.exe and vdk.sys need to be in the WinBuilder root folder, if not BootSDI also drops a "file not found error".

The setuploader.bin you have is the wrong one.
For BootSDI you need setuploader.bin from W2003 SP1 (R2).

Peter

found it.... i needed a copy of the ENGLISH setupldr.bin

it's working now, at least in VMware, i'll try another run from the real machine hoping i don't get the 0x07 stop error again...

found it.... i needed a copy of the ENGLISH setupldr.bin

Thanks!

My fault when writing the check!

I have to check language dependent

A new script will follow soon

Peter

the created ISO ran fine in vmware and i had some trouble to get it to boot from the pendrive, my solution was:

rename setupldr.bin to ntldr and copy it together with ntdetect.com and bootfix.bin (unsure about this?) to the root of the pendrive. voila system is booting from the ram image in i386.

some more questions arise now:

1. how can i get usb support, i.e. a usb mouse or another usb stick to mount/install in the winpe booted from the stick ?
2. does upx'ing/compressing using the autocompress and autoupx script make any sense or is the bootsdi already doing a better job ?
3. how can i get some more programs into the image. namely i'd like a43 or total commander and boot-us aswell as some kind of
hdd-prep (partitioning/cloning/formatting) tools in there.

Thanks so far and keep it up !!!

rename setupldr.bin to ntldr and copy it together with ntdetect.com and bootfix.bin (unsure about this?) to the root of the pendrive. voila system is booting from the ram image in i386.

The bootfix.bin should only be needed on CD , it's the file that prompts you to "Press any key to boot from CD..." (and it is ONLY invoked by the no-emulation bootsector of the CD, never from floppy/hd bootsectors)

FYI, here is a nice trick (for CDs only) using a "fake" bootfixbin:
http://www.911cd.net...;hl=bootfix.bin

Instead of renaming the NTLDR to SETUPLDR.BIN, you can edit the bootsector to invoke SETUPLDR.BIN instead of NTLDR, I find that renaming files can cause problems when in a few weeks, you will have completely forgotten that that file is not "really" NTLDR :
<a href="http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2362" target="_blank">http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2362</a>
(or you can use any hex disk editor)

jaclaz

thanks for the headsup jaclaz. i got my question (1) solved by finding and using a usb support script on the forums here which works quite nicely. still it's be nice to get some more information on the remaining 2 questions i put up in my prevoius post.

also i was thinking if the following would be possible ?

use a minimalistic winpe as ram-image to boot up, then load applications from the usb-pendrive that was used for booting ? that way i could circumvent the 0x07 bluescreen i get when i use peTousb. Booting from the image seems to solve this, but its a little of a pain-in-the-behind to rebuild a new ram-image everytime i add something (application, registryfix, ...). any tipps on this would be highly appreciated.

Yes, it is possible, the idea is to have, as an example, just the bare minimum in the RAMdisk image, formatted as NTFS, and then have all the other files in either another image mounted with IMDISK or VDK or directly on the USB stick, and linked to the image in RAM.

There are several examples of this both here and on the 911cd forum, some other member might be able to give you definite links, on 911cd search for posts by pavel or sanbarrow.

jaclaz

Thanks!

My fault when writing the check!

I have to check language dependent

A new script will follow soon

Peter

I did the check.

The German and English setupldr.bin I have, pass the test.
The searched unicode string '(srv03_sp1_rtm.050324-1447)' is in both of them
Therefore I assume that my test is language independend.

Maybe g_BonE's file is corrupted?

Peter

...back on track, just ditched the idea of using vistape for the challenge of doing this thing with a (smaller) nativeex. I've been playing and reading and playing some more with winbuilder, usb-booting and so on. i even had a grub4dos booting from my pendrive, unfortunately it only worked on my dell laptop and not when i plugged it in my main rig here ;/

now for the questions... i am able to build a working, non-blue-screening and usb-booting setup using nativeex_barebone with the bootSDI script and the three w2k3srv files. after the build i get a 84mb BootSDI.img which gets ramloaded via ntdetect.com, winnt.sif and ntldr. now, how would i go and add maybe an "apps" folder with programs residing on the pendrive which is not IN the sdi but has the necessary lnks / reg settings / ... ? i was reading about using junctions, virtualdisks (wmdk, imdisk), ... u name it its all a little too much

what i want is:
* the boot image as small as possible (for some reason my rig only loads in usb1.1 mode on bootup) for speed
* remaining programs accessible either directly from the pendrive OR from a mounted virtual disk on it which DOES NOT loose its content !!!

i'd be really happy on further size reduction tips and how to do that apps thing.

...back on track, just ditched the idea of using vistape for the challenge of doing this thing with a (smaller) nativeex. I've been playing and reading and playing some more with winbuilder, usb-booting and so on. i even had a grub4dos booting from my pendrive, unfortunately it only worked on my dell laptop and not when i plugged it in my main rig here ;/

now for the questions... i am able to build a working, non-blue-screening and usb-booting setup using nativeex_barebone with the bootSDI script and the three w2k3srv files. after the build i get a 84mb BootSDI.img which gets ramloaded via ntdetect.com, winnt.sif and ntldr. now, how would i go and add maybe an "apps" folder with programs residing on the pendrive which is not IN the sdi but has the necessary lnks / reg settings / ... ? i was reading about using junctions, virtualdisks (wmdk, imdisk), ... u name it its all a little too much

what i want is:
* the boot image as small as possible (for some reason my rig only loads in usb1.1 mode on bootup) for speed
* remaining programs accessible either directly from the pendrive OR from a mounted virtual disk on it which DOES NOT loose its content !!!

i'd be really happy on further size reduction tips and how to do that apps thing.

Several months ago I wrote a script that perhaps can fulfill your requirements:
ExternalMediaShortcuts

I would be glad if you could use it.
If you need some changes, no issue. This script is in a stage of 'baby'

Peter

Peter,

i just did another build, logfile is attached. Build size now is a 41mb bootsdi.img, after loading it up in vmware i have a X: (bootsdi) drive with 40.9mb total and 6.92mb free space. maybe somehow this can be reduced even more ???

im looking for a more definite answer on the previous questions:

* how can i change the links to notepad, task manager and the startmenu layout in the sdi image ?
* can i just go and take some plugins from thuuns nativepe, copy them in the native_ex projects folder and use them from there ? (f.e. "usb support", "filedisk vhd ramdisk")
* can i use bsexplorer instead of the windows explorer to save space and maybe even get rid of some more files in the image doing so ?
* how can i mount and iso from within nativeex ?
* how can i create a persistent virtual drive which is maybe a file on the pendrive, or is it okay to just drop some programs in an app-folder and link to them from within the image ?
* how can i mount a .sdi image ? with imdisk ? how ?

sry for all those questions and thanks a lot so far !

 build_log.zip   132.49KB   326 downloads