writing out changes to running xp embedded image

[Carl]

I see on several xp embedded devices that they have a program that
writes out any changes to the compact flash card and then reboots the
appliance. Such as needing to change the network configuration. But
when I'm trying to build the xp embedded image, I see no option to
include a utility like this. How do I include it? I know by default xp
embedded only stores changes in ram.

 

[KM]

Sorry, couldn't quite understand you message.
But perhaps, what you are looking for is Netsh tool and its set of interfaces. Please search this NG archive for Netshell to get
more details. Configuring network settings on XPe with netsh utility is also documented on MSDN.

 

[JS]

This is one of the harder things to set up. There is no quick solution.

The default in XPE is to store all changes to disk, just like XP.
You must use EWF or FBWF to prevent writes from reaching the disk.
However then you must find a way to "punch through" changes to disk.
If you are using FBWF, you can use the Registry Filter to allow the
network settings to be saved.

 

[Carl]

I'd prefer to use FBWF since I can control what gets saved and what
doesn't get saved. I'd only need to save the following:

Certain directories and all the files within them
Changing the administrator password
Changing the settings in any of the services
Changing any of the settings for the network configuration
Changing the values in the registry

But I don't want to save any of the logs that windows generates. I'd
also like to automatically clear those logs after a certain length of
time has passed. That way it doesn't fill the ram up which would
require to reboot the appliance.

I'm also wondering with FBWF, on boot up, is the whole file system
loaded into RAM so that the only time the compact flash card is touched
is on boot up when it is being read into RAM and when changes are being
written to it that would then require the appliance be rebooted.

 

[JS]

I would advise turning off as many logs as you can.
See the Microsoft site for info on turning off logging, last accessed times,
etc.
fbwfmgr.exe reports on what files have been written to
which is helpful to determine what has to be turned off.

Most of the other things you listed are stored in the registry.
You can either configure fbwf to allow writes to the registry or use the
registry filter.
The registry is composed of several files stored in
c:\windows\system32\config