WinDiff-like tool for .slx files

[Tony]

I am trying to develop and maintain embedded images for 3
separate hardware platforms that need to provide common OS
features. Can someone recommend any tools that would help
in managing this development process? I am particularly
interested in a tool or method that would annotate
differences between two .slx files.

Thank you,
Tony

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

Currently I have image that I'm testing on seven different platforms, based
on VIA, NVIDIA, Intel chipsets for desktop PC.

The most different from platform to platform is audio and network drivers.

The rest in 90% cases are just inf files that are needed for visual
convenience in Device Manager, since they all use MS driver binaries.

You have to provide GART drivers for non Intel chipsets.
Via also requires their IDE driver to be present.

You can just include all inf files and few sys files from all chipset
manufacturers in your target image, and use MS standard components for IDE,
Mem, PCI, etc.
After (or during) FBA completes PNP will find appropriate inf files for your
current device and it will install it in my case silently.

With 200KB- image impact you can cover almost all desktop boards with single
image.

This excludes audio and network support. But same applies for them, with few
modification in inf files. This can be done for video drivers as well.


Best regards,
Slobodan

 

[Tony]

Slobodan,

Thank you for the info. The major hurdle that seems to be
forcing me to maintain separate images is enabling ACPI
functionality on one system with ACPI not being available
on another.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Tony

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

This is a hard one, I don't know I have never tried to use anything that is
not ACPI compliant.

It could be possible, but you would need to include required hal*.dll files
with their original names in system32 directory of your target device.

hal.inf contains all info required to install appropriate hal, but I don't
know how XPE will handle this.

Also you will need one component try Standard PC.

Also check what extra registry keys you need to support ACPI.

Best regards,
Slobodan

 

[Sean Liming \(eMVP\)]

Tony,

This sound like you looking for more of a method than a tool. You could
create a few MACRO components with the Prototype selector. A Macro component
for each hardware platform, and a Macro component for the upper
layers/common components that will be in the image.

Regards,

Sean Liming
XP Embedded Manager
A7 Engineering (www.a7eng.com)
Author: Windows XP Embedded Advanced and Windows NT Embedded Step-by-Step