Development Environment

[Bill Ames]

Hi,



New to XPe and in the process of learning. My question is about my
development environment. Our target system is different then the system on
which I must learn and then build and test my first image (can you say Hello
World?) The tutorial is suggesting that I add a new HD to my development
platform as the place to build my image. My question is: Can I use a
partition rather then a whole new HD?

billa

 

[steves]

Hi Bill,

You can certainly use a partition, along with multi boot in your
boot.ini. The reason that they suggest a new hard disk instead of a
partition is because it is somewhat difficult to get the drive letter
and ARC path settings correct in Target Designer, which can result in
several attempts needed to get it right (frustrating for beginners).

Assuming your hard disks are formatted with NTFS, set up multi boot by
changing your boot.ini to look something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP computer" /
fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP Embedded Test system" /
fastdetect

ARC Paths
It is important to get the "arc path" setting correct. Arc paths are
the Multi(0)disk(0)... strings in boot .ini. Assuming you have only
two partitions, you will use the
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2) as your arc path setting in TD.

BOOT Partition
Note that the boot partition is probably going to b
rdisk(0)partition(1). This just means that that partition is marked
active, and the system loads ntdetect and reads boot.ini from the 1st
partition. After it reads boot.ini it will load the OS selected from
boot.ini.

TROUBLESHOOTING
If you get blue screen errors or other problems (like infinite
reboot), boot back into your main OS and then check D:\Windows\FBA
\FBAlog.txt for problems.

Good Luck.

Steve

SteveDOTschilzATsbcglobal.net

 

[Bill Ames]

Hello Steve,

A most complete answer! Thank you. New knowledge seems to bring new horizons
and thereafter new questions. The Great Tutorial assumes that I will be
developing my image on the same hardware platform that the image is being
designed for. Alas, if life were that simple :-| My target platform is a
totally, er, "somewhat" different beast. So I will be assembling the target
image on my development PC but never booting into it. Is it safe for me to
assume :-| that this is a proper approach? Once I have an image I will then
seek the necessary means for getting the image on the target platform. A
bridge I will cross when I can figure out to whom the toll is paid ;-)

Best regards,

Bill