Does XPe require a 8042 style keyboard controller? (ports 60h & 64h)

[Raymond Rogers]

I'm trying to bring XP up on a board that does not have a legacy keyboard
controller. I'm trying to install a standard copy of XP Pro right now so
that I can do the target probe and it hangs during the boot process while it
is trying to reset the keyboard controller that is not there. Does XP/XPe
really require this controller to be present or should this actually work?

Thanks,
Raymond Rogers

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Raymond,

You can configure XPe to work headless (without KB and mouse present including controller).
If you do not have PS2 or any other legacy controller in your system then you even do not need to provide component with drivers
that support it. So without driver XPe will never be aware of legacy controller even if it existed.
You can provide USB support is you need them. Or like I said no support at all it will work.

What is the exact time of failure what do you see after the bios?
Can you pass ntldr and boot.ini phase?

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Raymond Rogers]

I'm trying to install XP Pro rught now so that I can run the target probe
(tap.exe) to start building the image for this system. When I boot from the
CD I get the message "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware
configuration..." and this is when it hangs trying to reset the keyboard
controller.

 

[KM]

Raymond,

XP Pro setup has nothign to do with XPe. You should avoid using XP Pro setup
on headless system unless you can add the controller temporarily for the
setup time.

Also, to create an XPe image for you target it is not required to start with
TAP output. You can add components manually if you know your hardware.
You can start with Minlogon Sample Macro or similar to create an image for
the device that should work.

KM

PS. Hopefully you know whether your hardware is compatible with XP Pro.