Installing XP -ON- a CD (not a bootable setup CD)

[scalar]

Bleah, it's almost impossible to find anything on this topic. There's about 30,000 hits on google that talk about making a bootable Windows XP CD, but virtually all of them are referring only to the setup program used to install XP onto a hard drive.

That is NOT what I am talking about. This is a hacking question, which very few people are likely to understand or be able to help out with. I am not expecting a large number of responses. http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

I am attempting to run the GUI, the core, the actual operating system, from a CD. You can take this CD, stick it in a computer running linux, reboot, and viola, you're now running XP on the system. Take the CD out, reboot, and it's back to linux again.

when you use a bootable setup CD on a computer, you ARE running Windows XP, but in a stripped-down mode that is text-only. It should therefore be possible to hack a setup CD in such a way that you can get the actual installed OS to run from a CD.

I am not too concerned about total portability here, such as having it always work on any PC. Just the PC it was built from at the start is good enough to get the project started.


That said, is there anyone intimately familiar with how a bootable 2000/XP setup CD accesses files, and in what order? Please, don't all of you who know this post at once in reply.  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

-Scalar

[Jazkal2]

I can't help you with the info you requested. But . . .

Windows PE is a mini version of WinXP. It doesn't have the desktop, and it is command line.

\"But I want a desktop . . .\"

I have heard of people putting alt shells on WinPE and having a start button, icons, etc.

I've even heard of people putting Mozzila on it for web browsing.

I know this doesn't answer your questions, but I'm just trying to help out with alternitives for what you wanted to do.

[scalar]

This could almost be a topic of its own, but the first stage of putting XP on a CD is to turn off all that junk that wastes space and bloats the operating system.

However, it will generally be far easier if you have a DVD burner, since you can make a bootable CD with many gigs of capacity. I don't have a DVD burner yet, so for now I'm making just a basic, stripped down CD with a minimum of software... basically just Windows itself and no other programs.

A standard XP install uses about 1.5 gigs of disk space, but most of that is not critical to the operation of the computer. If you have more than about 192 megs of memory, I've discovered that you can even disable virtual memory completely and XP will still work okay.


Do NOT do this with your primary computer. Do this on a secondary computer where it doesn't matter if you screw up and you can freely reformat and reinstall Windows. (If you try these hacking steps on your main system, you deserve the pain you'll receive for being such an idiot.)



Step 1: Install XP as FAT32 only on test/hack system

There's no such thing as an NTFS-formatted CD, and you may need a Win98 boot floppy at some point to hack this when XP is not running.


Step 2: Make Windows stop trying to protect you from yourself

Open My Computer
Go to Tools - Folder Options...
Click on the View tab
Under Hidden files and folders, select Show hidden files and folders
Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types
Uncheck Hide protected operating system files... yes, Microsoft, I really DO want this. http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />


Step 3: Disable System Restore, and delete restore points

Go  to Start - Settings - Control Panel - System - System Restore tab
Check box Turn off System Restore and hit OK
Windows warns you that all restore points will be deleted. Hey, great. Hit OK.


Step 4: Castrate Windows File Protection

Go to Start - Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt
type SFC /CACHESIZE=0 and hit Enter
type SFC /PURGECACHE and hit Enter


Step 5: Turn off the virtual memory pagefile

Go  to Start - Settings - Control Panel - System - Advanced tab
Under Performance hit the Settings button
Click on the Advanced tab
Under Virtual Memory hit the Change button
Select No paging file and hit the Set button
OK - restart computer


Step 6: Disable hibernation

Go  to Start - Settings - Control Panel - Power Options - Hibernate tab
Uncheck Enable hibernation


Step 7: Delete cached setup drivers

Go to My Computer - C: - Windows (show files) - Driver Cache
Delete the i386 folder


Step 8: Gut out the help system

Go to My computer - C:- Windows - Help
Select all files other than Tours
  (Hit Control - A, then hold down Control and click on Tours)
Delete them.

In a few seconds the Windows File Protection alert will appear. Since you gutted out its cache folder it can't magically restore the files you just deleted, and it wants the Windows setup CD. Well... ignore it. Drag it off to the far bottom-right of the screen, so just the tiny upper-left corner is visible. Now, continue deleting files... http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

Open the Tours folder, select htmlTour, and delete it.
Open the mmTour folder, select all, and delete them.


Step 9: Gut out the remote assistance system

Go  to Start - Settings - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Services
Select the Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Right-click on it, and choose Stop
Right-click on it, select Properties, and under Startup type, choose Disabled
Close all those windows

Go to My Computer - C: - Windows - PCHealth - HelpCtr
Select all files other than Binaries and delete them
Open the Binaries folder, and delete all files inside


Step 10: Get rid of those stupid animations and stop the handholding in file search

Go to My Computer - C: - Windows - srchasst
Select all files and delete them
Ahhhhh, we've got the old Win2000 file search back.


Step 11: Disable file search indexing service and delete catalogs

Go  to Start - Settings - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Services
Select the Indexing Service
Right-click on it, and choose Stop
Right-click on it, select Properties, and under Startup type, choose Disabled
Close all those windows

Go to Start - Search - For files and folders
On the left, you'll see that it's unhappy about the Indexing Service being disabled.
Click on the highlighted Indexing Service link
Click the Advanced button
For each catalog listed, select it, right-click, and choose Delete.
Close the Indexing service window, and click OK on the other window (leave it indexing off)



You should be able to stop here. At this point, the total hard drive size is about 670 megs, just enough to fit onto a 700 meg CD-R.

Oh, Windiws file protection is still unhappy. Move up the window for WFP, and click Cancel. It'll next ask Hey dumbass, those files were important! You sure you want to screw up Windows, you moron?! Click Yes.   http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':rolleyes:\' />

Oh, but it hasn't given up! It'll again prompt you. Hit Cancel, and tell it one more time you don't care, and it will finally give up and not bother you anymore.

-Scalar

[Evilvoice]

Well one thing you could do, and something Im prolly going to do with win98 is once you have it working on your hard drive, take that hard drive, slave it to another.  Put this into a system with enough ram to run either xp/2k/2k3 and also enough for the size of your slave drive now...so essentially for w2k youd need around 670+128=798MB Ram.  Next get RamdiskNT from centadeck (sp?) and create a ramdrive big enough to hold all the contents of your slave drive.  Save the bootfile off your slave drive and mkbt your image. Then save image from ramdisknt.  the boot it with cdshell/bootscriptor/bcdw and have it run memdisk with proper parameters.  Another thing is that bcdw can boot iso files, so if you wanted to, you could put all that in a iso file, and make bcdw boot it.  check the pages.
cdshell.org
bootscriptor.org
bootcd.narod.ru
www.nu2.nu - for saving boot file and also getting mkbt to cast the saved boot file into the image.

From your post, I will try this in a few days and actually write a tutorial on how to include it on a cd.

Notes:  what memdisk will do is load the image and set it as c:\ instead of a: so you shouldnt really have to edit any main files.  I will actually try this first, and from my experiences I will also make a 98 version.

[scalar]

Sure you can put Windows XP on a CD-ROM, or a boot flash.


In fact, after doing some more exploring, I've discovered that Microsoft has a specific way of letting you do it. All you need is a special CD with Windows XP Embedded development tools.

Yes, Microsoft is well aware that their OS wants to write out [censored], that it won't be able to write to a CD. So they have a hack for their own OS, known as the Enhanced Write Filter, which can redirect writing to an alternate device (such as a RAM disk) so their OS stays happy.


So, the easy way to do this is to get ahold of a Microsoft XP Embedded development tools. Oh, yeah, piece o' cake right? Likely only bigtime portable electronics manufacturers can legally get it. http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />


But, at least you can read Microsoft's documentation for it all you want:  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

Welcome to Windows XP Embedded

El Torito Design Considerations

Creating a Bootable CD-ROM with the El Torito Feature in Windows XP Embedded

How to Create a Bootable CD-ROM


-Scalar

[ZuluDC]

Nice Scalar...I love this freaks that stripp down the fat OS called XP http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

Step 4: Castrate Windows File Protection

When I rightly have unterstand then you deactivated the Windoze file protection, but haven't deleted all files in \"C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache\". This is the place where the files \"waits\" till a programm overwrites something that Windows count as \"important\" file to run proper an then this new file will be overwritten. This should the size of such a CD cutting down too...deleting some unwanted wallpapers in \"C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\"...killing the sounds in \"C:\WINDOWS\Media\"...all files in \"C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\"...deleting all entrys \"hide\" in \"C:\WINDOWS\inf\sysoc.inf\" and then over \"Software - Windows Components\" let some file going to die...etc...

What do I say....you surely know this all http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

Windows XP Embedded can run from CD like WinPE. What I have hear about is, that it is more like a puzzle. You take what you want, put in the hardware-acceleration you need, the IE if wanted and so on. I think you had to run a SQL-Database and there is a Target-Designer in Windows XP Embedded.

One of the problems will being WinXP Embedded strip down on small fingerprint size when many features are wanted to be in. Yesterday I have read something over this out of a mouth of a leading Productionmanager from MS anywhere in the web.

[scalar]

When you type the commands

SFC /CACHESIZE=0
SFC /PURGECACHE

Windows itself will delete everything in the dllcache folder. You don't have to do anything to remove them, as it shoots itself in the foot blindly following your orders.  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/huh.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':huh:\' />

The only catch may be with Windows XP Home, since I saw that WFP uses a separate \"Service Pack 1\" folder for storing WFP files. I am not sure if the SFC purge command will clear that too.... but really what sort of moron will want an XP Home boot CD anyways, after all this work?

I tested the above purgecache on Windows XP Pro SP1 OEM, with no troubles, and no lurking service pack folder anywhere..


-Scalar

[scalar]

One thing I've discovered about Win 2000 and Win XP, is that they have a fairly nice little hacking tool built right into the operating system. In fact, you've probably used it for more boring purposes and never even realized the potential of this important program.

It's called Notepad.  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

Notepad in W2k/XP is a little different from the W95/W98/WMe Notepad. In those earlier versions of Windows, Notepad had a hard-coded file size limit of something like 32 kilobytes.

However, in W2k and up, the file size for Notepad is virtually unlimited. You can open files span tens of megabytes if you so choose. Sure, it'll be really laggy opening, but it WILL open the file. This makes Notepad an excellent tool for examing the innards of just about any sort of system file or program.

All you have to do is unhide extensions in explorer, make a copy of the file you want to examine, and then rename it from *.EXE or *.DLL or *.DAT or whatever, to *.TXT. Windows will complain about you changing file types, but ignore it and go ahead.

Now open it in Notepad, and look around for strings of text. This is really all it takes in many cases to learn how a program functions and how it interacts with the rest of the operating system, because Microsoft is so very verbose about how its programs do stuff.


-Scalar

[scalar]

For example.. if you run Win 2k or XP, you've got an NTLDR file in the root of your hard drive. So what does it do exactly? Notepad can help you find out. (Turn on word wrap in the menus to make this easier. It'll make long lines wrap, so you only have to scroll down to see everything in the file.)

 http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />      http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />       http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />        http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />       http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />       http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />


NTLDR.txt:

Windows NT has found only %dK of low memory.  512k of low memory
is required to run Windows NT.  You may need to upgrade your
computer or run a configuration program provided by the manufacturer.

Windows NT has not found enough extended memory.  7Mb of extended
memory is required to run Windows NT.  You may need to upgrade your
computer or run a configuration program provided by the manufacturer.

Memory Map:
     %lx - %lx
    NTLDR is corrupt.  The system cannot boot. NTLDR is corrupt.  The system cannot boot. ax:%x dx:%x cx:%x bx:%x es:%x
 TRAP %lx  
DEBUG TRAP   ================== DOUBLE FAULT ================================
  ===== STACK SEGMENT OVERRUN or NOT PRESENT FAULT ===============
  ============== GENERAL PROTECTION FAULT ========================
  =================== PAGE FAULT =================================
 ** At linear address %lx
  ===================== EXCEPTION ================================

multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)
net(0)
multi(0)disk(0)cdrom(%u)
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(0)
Falied to write the new signature on the boot partition.
Failed second ArcSeek on the boot partition to check for a signature.
Failed to ArcRead the boot partition to check for a signature.
Failed to ArcSeek the boot partition to check for a signature.
Couldn't Open the boot partition to check for a signature.
Couldn't initialize memory
Couldn't initialize I/O
\i386\ntdetect.com  ntdetect.com    \ntdetect.com    NOLEGACY
deviceExtension->MapRegisterBase    D:\nt\private\ntos\boot\lib\scsiboot.c  ASSERT File: %s line: %l
deviceExtension->Flags & PD_DISABLE_INTERRUPTS  D:\nt\private\ntos\boot\lib\scsiboot.c  ASSERT File: %s line: %lx
!(deviceExtension->Flags & PD_DISABLE_INTERRUPTS)   D:\nt\private\ntos\boot\lib\scsiboot.c  ASSERT File: %s line: %l
ERROR - Unimplemented Firmware Vector called (FID %lx)
FindDiskSignature found no match for %s
ERROR - GDT and IDT are not contiguous!  GDT - %lx (%x)  IDT - %l
Out of permanent heap!
ERROR - FwAllocateHeapPermanent couldn't find the LoaderMemoryData descriptor!
ERROR - Unopened fileid %lx closed
multi   eisa
multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)partition(0)
eisa(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)partition(0)
multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(1)partition(0)
eisa(0)disk(0)fdisk(1)partition(0)
multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)
eisa(0)disk(0)fdisk(0)
multi(0)disk(0)fdisk(1)
eisa(0)disk(0)fdisk(1)
disk    cdrom   rdisk   partition
multi(0)key(0)keyboard(0)
multi(0)video(0)monitor(0)
SCSI ReadCapacity: Enter routine


Lots more in here. Take a look at your own copy of NTLDR for the rest of it.  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'B)\' />

(BUT DO THIS ON A BACKUP COPY ONLY!)

[Evilvoice]

an easier way to do this and not mess up a file is to down a free hex editor.  If I wanna know how something in windows works, ill throw it into HHD Hex Editor and scroll until I find something that looks like english.  The reason you have to make a backup copy is because it is a known problem that notepad for some reason will corrupt some windows files (this is why you cant open setupldr.bin in notepad and edit it for a multiboot cd)