11 replies to this topic

[blazagoody]

Colin Finck created WinPE version of his plugin

http://colinfinck.de...s/dotnetfx20pe/
http://colinfinck.de...beta3-winpe.cab

I personally don't have enough experience to test if it works with VistaPE, so please try

[MichaelZ]

This topic probably should me moved from VistaPE to forum 'nativeEx & LiveXP'. Colin Finck states in his readme

Known limitations of this version
- only works with Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1.

Many Greetings
MichaelZ

[apocalipsis]

This topic probably should me moved from VistaPE to forum 'nativeEx & LiveXP'. Colin Finck states in his readme

Many Greetings
MichaelZ

MichaelZ, I agree, probably this package is usless for VistaPE, because its CopyNETFiles.exe depends on ntoskrnl.exe, and something else, i.e. locked on WinPE. However, Colin Finck also provides a registy file, whoose contents might be compatible with Vista's registry, I think.

In my opinion, support of .NET Framework 2.0 in VistaPE would be a very worthy thing. In this way VistaPE can target not only to sysadmins, but also to apps testers&developers; become a really complex portable environment.

Difference between XP and Vista is : Vista includes a .NET Framework in its installation package, so there might be a way to pick it up from there. So, awaiting advice from pepole, who have knowledge in this sphere...

[Colin Finck]

Hello,

Nice to see you talking about my .NET Framework Plug-In

Indeed, it is only compatible with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 at the moment.
As there were some requests for a Vista version of the Plug-In, I already tried to make one, but without success yet
Currently I'm also busy with other things and out of ideas on how to get it to work under VistaPE.

If someone has any more ideas or wants to do his own investigations on this topic, I would gladly help him.
apocalipsis, your idea about the Vista Installation CD containing a preinstalled .NET Framework is good, I also noticed that, but unfortunately I did not get it to work anyway and I only have Beta 2 and RC1 Installation CDs of Vista here.

Best regards,

Colin Finck

[apocalipsis]

Hello, Colin, very nice to meet you

apocalipsis, your idea about the Vista Installation CD containing a preinstalled .NET Framework is good, I also noticed that, but unfortunately I did not get it to work anyway and I only have Beta 2 and RC1 Installation CDs of Vista here.

Sorry, maybe I was wrong : with Vista there come only Referenced Assemblies - some new common stuff of the .NET Framework 3.0. But, actually, we need .NET Framework 2.0
Another idea, I've just investigated : we may involve the power of Install Shield. Let's take the netfx20.exe and open in with the WinRAR. In the end of the file sequence there is a netfx.msi - windows installer package. We can browse it with Install Shield Studio 12, or some equivalent. What is inside? = Package contains all things to be installed, i.e., files trees in \Application Data, registry entries in \System Configuration, environment variables and so on. I mean, all the work to do might be = reproduce all, what is in this package, using the VistaPE scripts. Not sure it is a good idea, first of all I'd like to study&discuss some opportunities. What do you think?

It 'd be better to have some wise converter/emulator of wild-spread installation scripts to VistaPE...

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[apocalipsis]

Well, nobody interested? I thought it'd be a great add-on...
Yesterday got to work Colin's plug-in : it grabs about 600 megabytes of dlls and .NET stuff from installed package. Certainly, not a good idea to place 600 mb in RAM. So, I'm wordering, if it is possible to keep it on image. Or scripts must store their files on the RAM disk only?

PS: I'm ready to offer hosting to share .NET Framework script&files across developers to improve testing and so on...
1-2 Mbit/sec speed, unlimited traffic.

[Brito]

Hi apocalipsis and Colin Finck - welcome to boot-land.net!!

This sounds a good feature, but would it really take up to 600Mb?

Maybe things can be slimmed, who knows - it would be nice wouldn't it?

In either case - please to post any doubts you have about writing script files - better than just reproducing the behavior of an installshield app is that we can also use variables and modify things as needed. With some luck it would even be able to run from CD instead of ram - let's discuss and see how it can be modified..

Good luck with this challenge!!

[Colin Finck]

Hi apocalipsis and Nuno Brito,

Sorry for the late answer.
I thought I'd get a mail, when someone replies to this thread, but I only got a mail today when Nuno replied.

apocalipsis, I'm very interested how you got .NET Framework 2.0 working under VistaPE.
I also didn't know that you can browse through a MSI package with InstallShield.

Unfortunately, the .NET Framework stuff is placed in subfolders of the "Windows" folder, so it is also copied to the RAM-Disk.
It might be possible to change the pathes to the "Assembly" and "Microsoft.NET" folders later, but this could break compatibility with some .NET apps and first it would be nice to see it working at all

Best regards,

Colin Finck

[blazagoody]

It's .NET 2 because there is Colin's plug for .NET 2. It could be .NET 3 if it's smaller than .NET 2 and backward compatible.

Hmm, maybe we should start think about on-the-fly compression? (Or wait till upx will support .NET files)

apocalipsis: does this plug-in take only dlls/stuff from .NET package or also from Vista? I wonder if it will work with VistaPE created from WAIK.

[booty#1]

It's .NET 2 because there is Colin's plug for .NET 2. It could be .NET 3 if it's smaller than .NET 2 and backward compatible.

No, .Net 3 is definitely larger than .Net 2 as .Net 3 is nothing more than .Net 2 plus some extensions (WPF and other).

Hmm, maybe we should start think about on-the-fly compression?

Just an idea: Did anybody try to use the NTFS compression within an WIM image?

booty#1

[Muecke]

Hello!

Is there anybody who get .Net Framework 2 or later working on VistaPE?

Thanks

[CypherBit]

I'd also be very interested in this, mostly because of UserAssist and other applications. PowerShell under VistaPE would be great as well.