I'm working on a plugin to transform winpe in a working windows enviroment,
this plugin is almost incomplete, some ui stuff are not displayed, internet explorer
doesn't displays images.... if started after startnet native network settings are working as a normal xp.

Anyway it's a very good starting point... explorer works as shell and as desktop,
folders and icons are ok.

I'll happy if anyone will help me tracing down missing stuff

My page always here

note internet explorer can't start before explorer, first time you should call explorer
(that register all dll/ocx)

The whole logic of the plugin is a "simulation of install of ie6" after the reboot

It will be very interisting if mmc also work with this small plugins.
This is a great idea to let it autoinstall the needed keys in registry.
How many time does it takes when launching explorer for the first time ?

my pc is a tb 1.2ghz I run winpe in vmware it takes 30-40 seconds to run, explorer comes up before startnet.cmd is finished

mmc support is almost done

Check this guys:
Explorer Shell Plugin
I have a finally working explorer shell as well as IE and MMC (if you use the MMC plugin that is).

Uploaded version 0.3, features:

Working Explorer Shell and Desktop
Working Internet Explorer (Still problems with images)
Working Start Menu
Partial COM+ support (I'll add a prog to patch files later)
Working Control Panel + Network Settings (Partial desk.cpl)
Working MMC (Defrag seams to not work)

No extra files required

here

ps: I will change soon the link of my page - I hate yahoo

@n4tune8
I don't consider adding classes.reg like a plugins for many reasons:
- It contains some language related information which must be translated.
- I've already explorer working but not by a plugin.
- I prefer the idea of recreating needed registry entries because there won't be path problems.

And the Sherpya' idea is great. Using this kind of method for windows applications plugins should work everytime.

In order to have defrag to work, there are some clsid keys and typelib and memory management needed. They're listed in Metzen posts.
In memory management the important key is pagefile.

later I'll move some non localized stuff directly into regsitry to speedup the startup...,
also I think not all registrations are needed

@allen2
I'll look into metzen posts... he posts a lot

I've tried a solution with patched dll to move %SystemRoot%\Registration into ramdisk, but I'm not sure this is strictly needed. At least I should not create the Registration directory in the cdrom.


Another nice idea is a partial "rewrite" of advapi32.dll from reactos/wine sources to "transparently" wrap reg key calls. This would be usefull if used into adaware/spybot directory... I duuno right now if it's possibile but I'll take a look

argh it was a typo in inf reg keys defrag is working now

right now com dll patch is not needed...

please don't use


use


instead...see documtens.inf for this...international versions of windows need different names for the documents and settings filer, and bart get this from the cd you are building from, and puts it in the @ProfilesDir@ token

Thx for the tip... Italian winxp version uses Document And Settings... it's not localized

Tried the XPE plugin PE Builder would not make the iso vbsit.dll file not found. cant find that file in my sys32 directory or anywhere on any of the dll file download sites. is the file absolutley necessary ?

vbsit.dll is in windows xp sp1 installation and in system32 of winxp sp1, updated to sp1 or try to comment out

@allow
@ProfilesDir@ doesn't work in inf files

original documents.inf from pebuilder 3.16b



if it does not work in you inf file, maybe contact bart...this is rather new, and maybe still buggy...

i used


in my custom.inf, and it works...maybe only works in [WinntDirectories] section...if so, bart should really change that....

only works in WinntDirectories section

I have XP with SP1 installed and a CD with XPSP1 and the SP1 files and vbsit.dll is in none of them. it is however the original SP1 not SP1a

I Think vbsit.dll comes from visual studio because i have that on one machine and dll
is there but not on any other machine all have xp sp1a

Bravo sherpya! Nicely done.
What's next? WMI?

Cybervyk

Hello Sherpya,

I downloaded your xpe and am looking at all the files needed specified in the inf file. Now, doe that mean I have to go and search for all those files one by one and copy them over? If that's the case, that's too much of tedious work. Is there an easier and automated way to get those files from the XP CD?

Incidentally, I have been using your firebird plugin and it rocks. Thanks.

no, all files are taken directly from installation, a guy reported missing vbsit.dll, I'm using windows xp sp1, if you miss vbsit.dll I think you can comment out it...
I'm still working to start menu stuff... I need to create some keys by hand but they are locale dependent and I'm writing a little prog to generate it at startup.
Also this tool will add start menu programs shortcut reading it into an ini.
mmc is full working (not for the version on the site... I'll post an update soon, after making start menu working)

Wow. Beautifully done Sherpya! Two thumbs up

My VNC Server has a systray to park itself, now.

Excellent. Thanks.

@sherpya

I'm also running into the vbsit.dll issue. I have XP SP1 and VB .NET. Everything I can find (not much) says that vbsit.dll is part of VB6 SP3. I'll try commenting out the vbsit.dll and let you know how it worked.

Thanks for putting in all the time and effort you've put into the plugins!!!

@sherpya

Everything loads except mmcndmgr.dll 'encontered an error during setup'.

I've also resource limits patch active, I'll try without ...
mmcndmgr.dll is disk manager for mmc

xpe works also without resource patch, anyway after a lot of work, I've made 0.4 version, the system is almost working, it misses some stuff in internet explorer (scripting and some image format inline display)
Start Menu is now functional, add your shortcut entries in xpeinit.ini files,
Programs section is for program files, StartUp is for programs that will start with explorer.

The url is the same as always

N-Joy

could you please explain what xpeinit does?

If you are using hardcoded paths to "Documents and Settings" then it will (probably) not work with non englisch windows versions...

I will try it tonight...thanks!

Sherpya,

In xpeinit.ini, you can add shortcuts to apps under Programs. But how do you create a subfolder/submenu (popup) under Programs?

xpeinit doesn't support yet folders, this feature will be addedd soon.

@allow
Italian version of xp uses Documents And Settings too,
I cannot "internationalize" this until PE Builder supports @ProfileDir@ also in reg entries,
you can change it by hand in the ini

I'll relase soon sources of xpeinit, anyway it does:
- Creates disk manager and defrag user directories (for mmc)
- Fills "Default User" location taking values from current user, since I cannot make work the users stuff in startmenu
- Reads xpeinit.ini and creates relative shortcurs in Start Menu location

The Shutdown/Restart fucntion on the Start Menu does not work. That's the only item now that prevents me from completely abandoning nu2menu.

I tried the shutdown.exe in system32 but it says no privillage to shutdown the computer.

So before running explorer for the first time you need to run xpeinit? When do you run mmcinit? When is autorun0xpe.cmd run?

Ignore the question about mmcinit. I can see its no longer used.

two problems i am having, the first i that on load it givves a cant register desk.cpl error, and the second is that when i try to use the start menu at all explorer automaticaly closes. if i restart it in the task manager and then try the start menu it closes again, etc etc. By the way, this i a great plugin. i am building with windows 2003 and tried it with all my other plugins disabled.

- Gordon8452

how do you make nu2menu to run invisibly so that we don't see the nu2menu menu on the desktop?

what i want to have is just the xpe interface on the desktop, without the nu2menu menu.

Add this to explorer.inf and disable the nu2menu plugin.

There's no such a file as explorer.inf, and Sherpya's XPE won't run if the nu2menu plugin is disabled.

Opps, sorry i meant xpe.inf and you can leave nu2menu plugin enabled.

if you disable nu2menu plugin you must remove all append section in other plugins a better way is add:
0x1, "Setup", "CmdLine", "Explorer.exe"
to xpe.inf
and comment out the on in nu2menu.inf,
and maybe adding nu2menu2.exe to xpeini.ini startmenu section

Yes, disabling the nu2menu plugin is too troublesome because of all the "append" calls and other stuff.

So, here are two easy steps to make the nu2menu menu disappear and replace it with the explorer shell:

1. Add the following line to xpe.inf to enable explorer as the shell:


2. Comment out the following line in nu2menu.inf to disable the nu2menu shell (without disabling the nu2menu plugin altogether):


3. And, if you want network connectivity (and who doesn't?), add startnet.cmd to xpeinit.ini to auto-start network in explorer:


4. Also, since the Shutdown/Restart option in explorer does not work, you may want to grab the free tool PSKILL to kill explorer (pskill explorer) as a way of shuting down and restarting the OS.

One interesting thing, though, is that after disabling the nu2menu shell, in explorer, when you click on an image file (jpg, bmp, etc), it doesn't open it, which it does when with nu2menu shell enabled.

But all in all, it's working very nicely.

@sherpya
Grate Work , from CD it works SUPER , but from HD i get some Errors and the Explorer does not work .
Can you help me? Please.

never tried from hd, anyway I'm working to improve the loading speed, I want to move some regsvr32 stuff directly into registry (the non localzed stuff).
What are the errors?

I'm getting some messageboxes wirh error raports:
1. Caption: Windows Update
Message: An error has occurred while setting up "netshell.dll". This error has been logged, the installation will continue.
2. Caption: ...
Message: An error has occurred while setting up "proctexe.ocx". ...
3. Caption: ...
Message: An error has occurred while setting up "dxtrans.dll". ...
4. Caption: ...
Message: An error has occurred while setting up "dxmsft.dll". ...
5. Caption: ...
Message: An error has occurred while setting up "tdc.ocx". ...
6. Caption: ...
Message: An error has occurred while setting up "dfrgsnap.dll". ...
7. Caption: ...
Message: An error has occurred while setting up "dfrgui.dll". ...

Explorer Process is exiting.


PS: May I ask you: where have you the knowledge from to make this nice Plug-in?

just looked into ie6 setup inf files... then I got the idea, also I've traced and debugged some stuff...
Now, I've a inctr5 to pe converter and I want to move "non-localized" stuff to the inf file.
My inctrl2pe.py is not yet finished but soon I'll put it online (For now converts only reg entries).
I can try to install pe to hd, but at this point isn't better to use directly normal windows xp?

@gordon8452
I'm working with windows xp professional, I think some stuff is really different on 2k3.

the desk.cpl error isnt really too big a deal its only the deksotp control panel function, but im not sure why its closing by itself, i tried it in resource unlimited mode but i get a boot error, not from xpe though. so im not sure if its maybe due to the limiting of resources.

oh also, if you want to play around with server 2003 download microsofts free 180 day trial download and install it in vmware

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/2...6/x09-22207.iso
and their trial key is -- Get your own key --.
[Modified by moderator...]

then youlll at least be able to play around with stuff for awhile

Does anyone know how to make PELock come up before explorer loads? I've enabled explorer as the default shell but I can't for the life of me get PELock to come up before explorer does. I'm sure I'm probably overlooking something fairly obvious here, but if anyone has any ideas they'd be much appreciated.

-chris

Sherpya, for your next release of XPE, I suggest that you add Disk Management and Disk Defragmenter as part of the default apps into your xpeinit.inf:



These two apps and MMC are already functioning in your curretn XPE, but some people may not realize they are there, particularly Disk Management is quite essential.

look @ ; Registration part of xpe.inf
find a "free" key and add you program

e.g. to start xpeinit.exe I do


serarch RunOnceEx syntax on msdn for detailed description

@enigmaaaaa
thx for the tip I'l add it

ok 0.5 is up most stuff (non localized registrations) are moved into .inf (530kb inf file )
so I dunno if all is ok, I need feedback from other locale versions of xp.
This should drastically reduce startup time.

xpeinit.ini

supports folders and has new section for Desktop:



when ...=Afolder\Ashortcut is specified Afolder is created Automatically
this works only for one level so you need at least a shortcut in a folder before creating another nested shortcut

remember I've moved my page here

It still does not work From HD

I was wondering why people are using PE from hard drive.
If there's a reason i would like to know it.