Whether this is the right approach depends on your real requirements.
As long as you have a device that has a fair amount of available
storage (e.g. gigabytes), and you have a PC like environment, this is
not a bad way to go. If on the other hand you have a headless device
with a custom keyboard and no mouse, maybe not...
Following are suggestions to get you on the road to making your first
image.
Assuming you want to try this the 1st step is to go to xpefiles.com
and download the XPPro Emulation component....
Next use the component database manager to import the .sld file
Normal sequence of bringing up a motherboard is as follows
CAPTURING A LIST OF DEVICE DRIVERS NEEDED BY YOUR SYSTEM:
1. Install XP Pro on the Target (1st partition, NTFS, etc)
2. Run TAP.exe on the target to generate a devices.pmq file (\Program
Files\Windows Embedded\Utilities\TAP.exe)
CREATING AN XP EMBEDDED BUILD:
1. Back at your development computer where you have the XPE tools
installed, ppen target designer, Select File, Import, browse to locate
the devices.pmq from the target, and import it.
This step will identify missing devices, like motherboard chipset,
network card, and graphics driver.
You may need to componentize device drivers yourself, or you may
be able to install them after image is running.
2. Add the XPPro emulation component to your build (drag from
components window on left to the center window).
3. Choose configuration, resolve dependencies. follow recommendations
to resolve errors if need be.
4. Choose configuration build. (go get a cup of coffee)
5. The build process will populate the \Windows Embedded Images\
folder on your image with a build, which you now need to copy to your
target.
6. Save the build as an SLX File.
COPYING THE BUILD TO YOUR TARGET
If you are lucky, you can boot the target using the XP embedded
Install Disk 1, which contains a copy of WinPE, and then map a network
share to your windows embedded folder, then Use XCOPY /E /H /R /K.
to transfer the image to your computer.
Or you could temporarily attach the hard disk to your computer using a
USB IDE adapter. This is probably the easiest way.
FIRST BOOT AGENT
After you have successfully copied an image onto your system and boot
it, a 10 minute or so long process called the "First Boot Agent"
begins. This builds the system registry, and is analagous to windows
setup.
After this, if all is well, the system will boot into windows.
Problems here can be diagnosed by looking at these files:
C:\Windows\FBA\Fbalog.txt
C:\Windows\SetupAPI.log (or is that in system32?)
There is a fairly stiff learning curve on XPE... This newsgroup will
be your friend!
Steve S
SteveDOTschilzATsbcglobalDOTnet
