S
Scott Kelly
I am working on adding EWF capabilities to my XPE device. My current system
has 128meg and a 10gig hard drive. I have loaded XPE O/S onto it (using
NTFS) and my applications.
I am working on building the XPE image, but had some questions...
I want to secure the XPE O/S, but not my application. So my plan is to
partition the drive into 3 partitions:
Partition 1: Primary, boots the OS, is protected by EWF; 1gig in size,
drive C:
Partition 2: Extended, holds my application exes and data, unprotected,
5gig in size; drive D:
Partition 3: Left unpartitioned per MSDN instructions; 4 gig in size;
probably too big.
My goal is to have the OS protected, but if the system is shutdown
unexpectedly, changes would not be written. I read somewhere that it is
possible to have the EWF protected volume will auto update itself on the
next boot up if the system was shutdown correctly. This is not a necessary
requirement - but would be nice. Is this possible with RAM or DISK based
EWF systems? I know there is the EWF Management Console and an EWF API, but
I would like for the updating of the O/S to occure without user interaction.
This is a headless system.
My first decision was whether to use RAM based or DISK based EWF. I chose
DISK based because I have the space to spare. Which is better? I would
rather not give up any RAM while running.
Next question is partition sizes and what value to use for the "EWF
Partition Size in KBytes" settings? When you have a lot of free space - how
do you decide the correct partition size? I have seen numbers from 32k to
24meg. I'm currently set to 0.5gig (524,288). Is that too big?
I read some conflicting instructions on whether EWF will use free space in
an already partitioned Extended partition or will it just use up
unpartitioned space at then end. I don't know.
I downloaded all the Hotfixes/QFEs from Microsoft that seemed to apply to
EWF. Q823025, Q818822, Q810144, Q816654, Q811279
I also read where since I am booting off the EWF partition I have to include
the EWF NTLDR (which I did) and also set the EWF to NOT start enabled. My
question is - how and when do you enable it? Do I need to remove the regular
NTLDR?
Lastly, I read the article about setting OptimalLayout\EnableAutoLayout to
"0" to prevent auto updates or something. I added that.
Is there anything else I need to do?
I'm forging ahead with my EWF - but any advice will be helpful.
Thanks,
Scott
has 128meg and a 10gig hard drive. I have loaded XPE O/S onto it (using
NTFS) and my applications.
I am working on building the XPE image, but had some questions...
I want to secure the XPE O/S, but not my application. So my plan is to
partition the drive into 3 partitions:
Partition 1: Primary, boots the OS, is protected by EWF; 1gig in size,
drive C:
Partition 2: Extended, holds my application exes and data, unprotected,
5gig in size; drive D:
Partition 3: Left unpartitioned per MSDN instructions; 4 gig in size;
probably too big.
My goal is to have the OS protected, but if the system is shutdown
unexpectedly, changes would not be written. I read somewhere that it is
possible to have the EWF protected volume will auto update itself on the
next boot up if the system was shutdown correctly. This is not a necessary
requirement - but would be nice. Is this possible with RAM or DISK based
EWF systems? I know there is the EWF Management Console and an EWF API, but
I would like for the updating of the O/S to occure without user interaction.
This is a headless system.
My first decision was whether to use RAM based or DISK based EWF. I chose
DISK based because I have the space to spare. Which is better? I would
rather not give up any RAM while running.
Next question is partition sizes and what value to use for the "EWF
Partition Size in KBytes" settings? When you have a lot of free space - how
do you decide the correct partition size? I have seen numbers from 32k to
24meg. I'm currently set to 0.5gig (524,288). Is that too big?
I read some conflicting instructions on whether EWF will use free space in
an already partitioned Extended partition or will it just use up
unpartitioned space at then end. I don't know.
I downloaded all the Hotfixes/QFEs from Microsoft that seemed to apply to
EWF. Q823025, Q818822, Q810144, Q816654, Q811279
I also read where since I am booting off the EWF partition I have to include
the EWF NTLDR (which I did) and also set the EWF to NOT start enabled. My
question is - how and when do you enable it? Do I need to remove the regular
NTLDR?
Lastly, I read the article about setting OptimalLayout\EnableAutoLayout to
"0" to prevent auto updates or something. I added that.
Is there anything else I need to do?
I'm forging ahead with my EWF - but any advice will be helpful.
Thanks,
Scott