Question in respect of PicoXP

Hi everyone & in particular Peter psc as he is the author of PicoXP,

I have made from the projects a copy of PicoXP but a few things have been crossing my mind:
PicoXP is command line as is XP Recovery console but AFAIK XP recovery console is crippled in many ways & has very limited potential for fixing XP e.g.
By default, Recovery Console enforces the following four restrictions:

• You cannot access certain folders, such as Program Files, Documents and Settings, and disks or folders containing other Windows XP Professional installations.

• You cannot copy files to removable disks because floppy-disk write access is disabled by default.

• When you attempt to copy files to removable disks, an error message similar to the following appears: Access is denied

• You cannot change the local Administrator account password from Recovery Console.

You do not have access to a text-editing tool in Recovery Console. the first two can be altered with the "SET" command
I have learned that you can use 8 commands from within XP recovery console to fix a busted XP system, something like this:
C: CD ..
C: ATTRIB -H C:\\boot.ini
C:ATTRIB -S C:\\boot.ini
C:ATTRIB -R C:\\boot.ini
C: del boot.ini (not sure if I'd "del it" would be inclined to rename it)
C: BOOTCFG /Rebuild
C: CHKDSK /R /F
C: FIXBOOT
Can the same set of commands be used in PicoXP, the main bits of interest are BOOTCFG /Rebuild & FIXBOOT, however the rest is relevant too. Has anyone got any comparison details in what you can & cannot do with both?

Regards,

ispy

@ispy
NOT a "perfect fit" to what you asked, but do read this thread:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=20983
with particular attention to this post:
http://www.911cd.net...o...20983&st=25
(some trick about recovery console)

And also about the "third option", XPCLI:
www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=3717

More generally PicoXP is a "limited" system with CMD.EXE as shell, thus you can use in it almost anything (command line apps) you can run from Command Console in a "normal" PE/XP.

As an example ATTRIB, MBRFIX or BOOTPART, besides internal commands like del or ren, list here:
http://thesystemguar...rdBook/CCS-Int/

jaclaz

In addition to that what Jaclaz already explained:

Try to see the candidates from this view:

• RecoveryConsole is an independent Operating System
  It has no connection to XP, W2003, ...
  (If you forget from which source CD it has been built)
• picoXP is a minimized version of a XP / W2003 PE.
  It can only use non-graphical progs.
  You can compare it with the old DOS

Some corrections / explanations:

• Recovery Console asks you, which installed system you want to access
  Here you have to have Admin rights.
• All restrictions are caused by the fact that the Recovery Console's only job is to 'Recover the choosen system'
  Programs, Document and Settings etc. are accessed from the choosen system, but not part of it.
  Same with some devices.
  And therefore it may occur that you cannot access them. But I think that you usually can access everything just by CD there
• Do the same with picoXP:
• ATTRIB must be copied to target during build (as far as I remember, it is ccurrently not done)
• BOOTCFG must be copied to target during build (as far as I remember, it is ccurrently not done)
• FIXBOOT: AFAIK not possible under cmd.exe

Peter

BTW: Anywhere exists a script which copies 'DOS' commands to the target (I just have the idea in mind, I do not remember any project or script name).
Maybe you try to add it to picoXP

Thanks guys that helps a lot ,

More generally PicoXP is a "limited" system with CMD.EXE as shell, thus you can use in it almost anything (command line apps) you can run from Command Console in a "normal" PE/XP.

As an example ATTRIB, MBRFIX or BOOTPART, besides internal commands like del or ren, list here:
http://thesystemguar...rdBook/CCS-Int/

Thanks for the information!

RecoveryConsole is an independent Operating System
It has no connection to XP, W2003, ...

I didn't know that!

Do the same with picoXP:
ATTRIB must be copied to target during build (as far as I remember, it is ccurrently not done)
BOOTCFG must be copied to target during build (as far as I remember, it is ccurrently not done)
FIXBOOT: AFAIK not possible under cmd.exe

This is the bit I want to latch onto, so if I inject ATTRIB into the .iso & manage to get BOOTCFG available, however "must be copied to target during build" Shucks, so am I right in assuming that BOOTCFG.EXE has to be part of the build or it will not work? and going one stage further manage to acquire a replacement (3rd party) util for FIXBOOT then essentially PicoXP independantly could replace Recovery console in respect of the 8 point routine for fixing XP etc. Not to mention other command line tools that M$ have on offer, very interesting!

A suitable batch file could be compiled as a companion to picoXP to emulate RC in this fixing aspect + NTLDR fixes like here http://www.tinyempir...ldr_missing.htm As far as I can determine with the very limited knowledge I have the other advantages as you guys mention in respect of running additional Commandline utils & internal commands has to be a very big improvement on Recovery Console! Can also CMD.exe replacements be utilised as a varient shell, not that I would want to do so at this time but it adds to the attraction factor.

Would be interested in knowing how to add BOOTCFG to the build process if not to difficult. Very sorry for my ignorance in this matter but if PicoXP can do what RC can do and more, then additional batch files & Commandline utils etc would be very beneficial & Bye Bye RC LOL! One last thing how is PicoXP with USB drive detection?

Regards & Best Wishes,
ispy

A preliminary answer to the question you have in your 'back - mind'

You should concider to replace 'picoXP' by 'nativeEx_puzzleXP.'

Too late now to write a tutorial here.

Tomorrow (If my 'Convert BartPE in 075 beta 2' gives me the time) I'll explain more.

But maybe, just for a first test, you can download from the nativeEx server and try
(As with all nativeEx based projects: You can download into an empty dir -containing WinBuilder.exe only-, define the source CD (dir) and start.
CheckTools will download all additionally necessary files and ask you to restart WinBuilder.
Do so, and you'll finish with a PE in an emulator)

Peter

Hi Peter ,

Not now, cuz I know you are busy but when you get the time, what are the differences between PicoXP & 'nativeEx_puzzleXP.' and just out of curiousity why has the development of PicoXP been stopped?

Regards,

ispy

PicoXP is not really an independent project.
It is just a subset of nativeEx_barebone.
You can get the same result by using the !WBManager > CMD option of nativeEx barebone.

Therefore logically the development has not been stopped. New features of nativeEx_core are automatically added to picoXP.

As the name says, nativeEx_puzzleXP builds the PE really from small pieces you can put together.

While in other projects a bunch of fundamental drivers are added to the build, here you can decide in really small steps, e.g. which HAL or which FileSystem you want to use.

Peter

Hi Peter ,

Did what you said used WinBuilder [vers 074] and downloaded nativeEX_puzzleXP. Must say though had a devil of a job to get it running must have tried 1/2 dozen times to get it running. I cleaned out all the temp files but soon as I went to depress the "play" button it crashed! anyway with perserverance managed to get WinBuilder running (only had nativeEX_puzzleXP items ticked) & by the way XP+SP2 files are located on HDD.

All went well apart from some errors 3No in total, here is a 'pic' to illustrate,

I think they are minor errors but have attached the log file for perusal if would like to see. PuzzleXP seemed to load quite nicely into Qemu so things must be okay. I am still looking for a commandline FIXboot alternative to write a batch file that will undertake the 8 stage repair routine as used by RC. e.g.
C: CD ..
C: ATTRIB -H C:\\boot.ini
C:ATTRIB -S C:\\boot.ini
C:ATTRIB -R C:\\boot.ini
C: del boot.ini (not sure if I'd "del it" would be inclined to rename it ren C: boot.ini )
C: BOOTCFG /Rebuild
C: CHKDSK /R /F
C: fixmbr \Device\HardDisk0 (added if mbr needs repair)
C: FIXBOOT
I will need to inject Attrib & Bootcfg.exe into the iso along with the Fixboot alternative but I am half way there!
Oh! by the way forgot to mention I Have found an alternative [57Kb's] alternative for fixmbr & Fdisk /mbr it's called Mbrfix but this gizmo works in any windows allegedly, the proof of the pudding however....
Regards & Thanks

ispy

Sorry for your inconvenience!

I know these 'Shortcut' troubles. Of course in the current project status shortcuts cannot be created because there is no explorer which could use them.

I remember that I have fixed this.
But maybe there is an old version upload to the server.

I'll check this.

Sorry again!

Peter

Oh! by the way forgot to mention I Have found an alternative [57Kb's] alternative for fixmbr & Fdisk /mbr it's called Mbrfix but this gizmo works in any windows allegedly, the proof of the pudding however....

As an example ATTRIB, MBRFIX or BOOTPART, besides internal commands like del or ren, list here:
http://thesystemguar...rdBook/CCS-Int/

(bolding is mine)

Before you "discover" anything else , MBRwiz can also do the same:
http://mbrwizard.com/

and the new version of MBRFIX has also the functionalities of FIXBOOT, though some problems have been reported WARNING!:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=4530

And you can use bootsect.exe /NT52 if you have Vista.

jaclaz

Hi Peter/Jaclaz ,

@Peter,
No need to appologise surely we are amoungst friends, no inconvienance either I have the .ISO created & the error messages are cosmetic as far as I can see! I want to create a NT autoexec for want of a better description that will load a front end menu within "PuzzleXP" that various fixes can be run from a front end batch menu. I would prefer that it loads at boot time but will need to inject these additional utils & the Ntldr fxing routine into the .iso so everything is on board.

Will puzzleXP detect USB devices because a flash stick or HDD could carry all the auxlarly items & has the benefit of read/write benefits?

@Jaclaz,
As always, the fountain of all knowledge, many thanks for the additional info will take a look at MbrWiz looks very good!

Regards & Best Wishes,

ispy

Will puzzleXP detect USB devices because a flash stick or HDD could carry all the auxlarly items & has the benefit of read/write benefits?

With the current project it cannot.

Somebody has to write a new puzzle piece that fits ito the existing ones and accesses USB.

I think that it is easy for experienced .script developers, but, sorry, I have the feeling that I currently do not have the time to do.
(Currently my .INF converter for beta 2 processes only about 99% of UBCD4Win plugins w/o troubles)

Peter