Virtual PC 2004, and XPE building.

[Paul Sucro]

I'm currently testing Virtual PC 2004, which is FREE, when you are a
MSDN subscriber.

I've created a Win 98, and WinXP Pro system on my XP PRO box.

I've also created a XPE environment on my target box, which is running
XP Pro.

In this XPE environment, I've booted off a build CD which creates the
image on the drive.

This tool is quite amazing, and appears to work every way I've tried
it.

One missing component, is USB bootable devices in the BIOS.
Since, this is missing, I must connect an IDE cdrom to my test device
which is a pain.

----------------------
It seems, that I can create a virtual drive under an XP Pro virtual
machine.
1. Then I can copy the XPE "Windows Embedded Images" to this virtual
drive.
2. Next you can detach this virtual drive.
3. Now create a new virtual machine, and use this "created image" as
the boot device.
4. This should perform all the starting work, with FBA.

My question after this is.
-->> Has anyone tried doing this and does it work well.
Is is possible to create a virtual drive, and place
information on it
without having an Windows XP Pro virtual machine.
--> I would like to attach a virtual drive, which my target
designer
just outputs the "Windows Embedded Images" to. This would
be great.

Thanks,
Paul Sucro.

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Paul,

It must be that my concentration is not good at the moment. I fail to see big picture what is that you want to accomplish as the end
result and why.

Best regards,
Slobodan

 

[KM]

Paul,

I could not understand some things from your post (like "a build CD" - what is it?)
There is nothing specific in XPE Tools with regards to the Virtual PC. So your questions are falling more to Virtual PC area than
XPe.

There are a couple of Virtual PC tutorials you might have seen but still worth to mention:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnembedded/html/embedded04232004.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnembedded/html/embedded06072004.asp
See if you can find answers to your question in those articles.

 

[Paul Sucro]

Build CD is Linux CD which creates the partitions and places the
Windows Embedded Images on the C: drive in preperation for FBA to
start.

The reason I posted to XPE is that it should make it easy to create a
new disk from the "Windows Embedded Images".
Real easily, you can build an image with target designer and copy all
these files to the C: drive, and have Virtual PC boot off of it.

I haven't gotten this to work yet, due to some problem with
creating/editing a virtual drive, which I don't understand.


Later,
Paul.

 

[Paul Sucro]

I've gotten the new virtual drive mounted, I placed the "Windows
Embedded Images" directory onto the virtual drive.

Now I'm rebooting an XPE system with this new virtual drive.

First error was caused by Target designer, not adding ntldr, and
ntdetect.com. This was no valid boot device.

Now after adding these files.
I get the error..

Windows could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as :
load needed DLLs for kernel.
Please contact your support person to report this problem.

I used the Windows XP Pro disk manager to partition, and format the
drive, then I made the drive active.

What am I missing.

Thanks,
Paul Sucro.

 

[KM]

Paul,

When you say "Windows Embedded Images" content, do you mean a specific image content you built there?
Under your image build directory, do you have DriveX subfolder?
What were the Target Device Settings for your Configuration in TD?

 

[Paul Sucro]

I have no driveX subfolder.

And yes, "Windows Embedded Images" is the default location where the
build is placed.

Any ideas, why I get the error "load needed DLLs for kernel"

Later,
paul.

 

[Paul Sucro]

Sorry, here are the target device settings.

boot device c:
windows folder c:\windows
program folders c:\Program Files
documents c:\Documents and Settings
boot arc multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)
boot part 1024
partition size 4096

Paul.

 

[Paul Sucro]

I appeared to have some problem with storing the image in a default
location.
and not the location I thought it was going.

I added ntfs, nt hardware detect, and nt loader.

Now I get ntldr, and ntdetect and no missing dll's error anymore.
"load needed DLLs for kernel"

Don't know what the problem really was, but now its going.

I'm performing the FBA on a newly created image, which I just copied
to a second drive on the XP Pro Virtual PC.

Method used is the following.
1. Create a target Designer image.
2. Create an add a second virtual drive to a Windows XP Pro system,
when it is not running. (Note: I found, the XP Pro system must be
shutdown to add virtual drives.)
3. Startup this Windows XP Pro system.
4. Copy the Target Designer image "Windows Embedded Images" contents
to the root of the virtual drive.
5. shutdown the Windows XP Pro system.
6. Create a new Windows XP virtual system and use this newly created
virtual drive which contains the contents of "Windows Embedded Images"
7. The system will bootup and run the FBA, just as expected.
8. This works great, and is a good way to test newly created images.

 

[KM]

Paul,

I am glad you sorted that out. I just read your previous messages and got confused as it should work.