XP Embedded

Yes, but it has been a couple of years. The doctors say I should be well really soon now.

Observations: It was not possible to make a really minimum booting system. There were so many interlocking dependencies that it ended up with a really large flash image. Otherwise the boot process would die with an error (IIRC) 7, unable to find boot (or disk?) device

I wanted to build it analytically, starting from a recommended minimal system and then adding just the necessary additional components to support the I/O and display. Fail. Ended up with the tool (don't remember the name offhand - notes are at the office) that looks at a working "regular" XP image on the same hardware and which then uses that info to direct what packages to include in the XPe build.

Found some notes on the disk here. Not on building the image but it might help on the installation once you get working copy:

Prepare the compact flash

1. Boot to MS-DOS with the 6.22 boot floppy in A: and the CF in C:, with no other hard drives attached. Compact flash assignment (master/slave) is controlled by jumper block V4:1-2 (the pair closest to the edge of the board).

1. If required, partition the CF as FAT and set the partition active.

1. If required, format the partition as FAT.
2. Run bootprep /dC. Note that bootprep is taken from the XPe toolkit?s utility directory and is not a normal component of MS-DOS

6.22. Answer Y to the ?do you really want to do this? questions.

1. The CF module is now ready to accept the XPe image. If preparing multiple modules, shutdown and goto step 1 of this section.

Prepare the XPe image

1. Setup the development machine with the normal boot drive as C and the XPe image drive as D:.
2. Create the raw XP image on the development machine. In addition to the components required for the target environment, check the following: a. On the EWF component, clear the Start EWF Enabled check box. b. On the System Cloning Tool component, set the cmiResealPhase to ?0" (manual). c. Ensure that the Background Disk Defrag Disable and Registry Editor components are added and that the ?run? component is enabled for the Start menu.
3. Copy the contents of the resulting Windows Embedded Images directory to drive D:.
4. Shutdown the development machine, remove the XPe image drive D:.
5. On the target hardware, setup the XPe image drive as C: and the CF module as D:. There should be no second hard drive on the drive cable. Removing the jumper at V4:1-2 sets the CF as D:.
6. Boot the target hardware. Observe that FBA runs to completion. The system will reboot itself and should finish the process with the final app running.
7. Terminate the app. Run regedit and add the parameter: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ewf\Parameters\Protected\Volume0 Name: Enabled Type: REG_DWORD Value: 0
8. Reseal the XPe image by running fbreseal. A dialog box will be presented when the reseal is complete. Select the option to shutdown.[1]
9. Remove the compact flash, switch the XPe image drive to the slave position (D:) and install the normal boot drive as master (C:).
10. Restart. Copy the contents of the XPe image drive (D:) to a directory on the boot drive (C:) with the exception of the System Volume Information folder. Shutdown.
11. Remove the XPe image drive.

Enter at step 12 to install the XPe runtime image onto subsequent CF modules. The PC/104 stack should be configured as per step (1) in the PC/104 section, with the system hard drive as C: and the compact flash as D:.

1. Install the CF module as the slave drive on the PC/104 stack.
2. Restart and boot from the ?normal? XP boot drive. Copy the contents of the image directory created in step 10 of this section to the CF module. Shutdown. If configuring multiple CF modules, remove the newly-written module and goto step 12 of this section.

Enter at step 14 if working from a previously prepared CF module. It should not be necessary to have a hard drive cable installed on the PC/104 stack if this is the case.

1. If required, remove the boot drive and set the CF as master (install jumper V4:1-2).
2. Boot from the CF module. The SID should be resolved, the boot process should complete, and [2] then end with the target app running. Shutdown. [3]
3. Restart and let the boot process continue until the target app is running. Exit the app and open a command prompt. Enable EWF by running ewfmgr c: -enable. Note that the resulting display will show EWF as ?disabled?; that status is expected at this step. Shutdown.
4. Restart and let the boot process complete. Exit the target app when it has completed its setup. Open a command prompt and verify that EWF is enabled in RAM (REG) mode by running ewfmgr c:. Shutdown.
5. Installation is complete. Ensure that the CF module is marked with the serial number of the PC/104 stack. The CF module and the PC/104 stack must operate as a unit.
6. Remove the power cable, video cable, 50-conductor cable, and the drive cable.

Notes

[1] When the PC/104 stack is shut down by XP, the power supply is still running since we don?t have a full ACPI system. Remember to turn off the power at the front panel before adding/removing any components. [2] The boot-up time will be somewhat longer than normal due to the SID process. If it boots at all, then the system probably isn?t hung. Have patience and let it finish. [3] If the app starts but reports that it has failed to find the COM ports then the BIOS preparation step was skipped for this particular assembly. Goto Prepare the PC/104 stack and fix the BIOS. Check the BIOS version too.

Additional:

1. The ?resealing? process and subsequent SID resolution seems to take care of the potential problem with I/O card device designators. Post-reseal cloning is possible.

1. Ensure that the BIOS is setup with a reasonable date/time. Also setup the drive assignments and, more importantly, the IRQ assignments as per the following: ...

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

org/- A UK political party

Occult Tal= k Show

I looked at the windows embedded page and got the impression end users couldn't buy the OS.

The 6620-II looks like a good box for myth, boxee, etc. However, they don't even provide an on-line manual, which seems to be common with these fanless PC companies.

If you google "Windows Embedded Standard 7", it looks like only OEMs can provide it. Now I suppose that would be OK if you can back it up somehow. But in the case of Habey, there is no way to order the OS on their box, even though it supports it, so I suspect you would have to buy the hardware and OS 3rd party.

How many ways can Microsoft shoot themselves in the nuts? The act like only system integrators will uses these small PCs.

I should mention there are trial downloads of windows embedded, but if there is no end game for the end user, I don't see the point.

Thanks guys - the details are really good! The project is business, so OEM should not be a problem (although the price might be).

Right now I'm downloading a 4 month eval copy, and will play around with it on an Atom based mobo. I want to do some embedded audio processing using VST.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK

used, it?

org/- A UK political party

Occult Tal= k Show

It looks like you pay about a grand up front then $90 for each license. This is insanity. For a music player, why wouldn't you just use linux?

For my particular application, it has a bug under wine. Otherwise, I'd be using some flavor of linux. Certainly the programming tools are better under linux, not to mention the libraries are more extensive.

I haven't particularly thought much about what linux is appropriate for an embedded application.

is good for seeing what is available, though the embedded folks might have a more appropriate website.

used, it?

UK

A UK political party Occult Talk Show

The problem is that I want to run VST audio framework, and most of the stuff I want is XP. I don't really know much about Linux, and nothing about WinE. Plus I need a very good quality soundcard.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK

g, or used, it?

th

.org/-A UK political party

Talk= Show

org/- A UK political party

Occult Tal= k Show

Well I know nothing about VST, but I do know the aggravation of getting soundcards working in Linux, basically that new high def Intel standard. What you have to do is go to the ALSA website and check the approved vendor list. Here is the list

It would make sense to get a card that at least works under Linux just to cover your bases. The documentation on the cards is a bit odd since sometimes they spell out the specific card, and other times they spell out the chipset.

Alsa/Linux has many advantages over windows sound, though you would have to see which are useful for your application. There are tricks to reduce the delay in audio processing in linux. You can also synchronize multiple soundcards. Alsa has a forum full of gurus. Running multiple soundcards is a snap under Linux. I have had 4 cards running at a time.

The way to check sound card quality is you first check the chip vendors specs. The card manufacturer can only go down hill from there. I assume you are at least looking at the Asus Xonar line. New isn't always better, so check out their older designs, maybe the one with the Crystal (Cirrus) chips. I got a post from the forum a few days ago that some user got one of the M-Audio usb "cards" going.

I see VCT is a sound editor plug in and does have Linux support.

Its a nightmare to put an image together that fits your hardware. In the end its better to simply install a regular XP version. Storage space costs almost nothing these days.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...

Indeed. Windows can't even tell the mixers apart in some cases!

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...

I did that in 1 gig CF. Loaded XP to normal HD, then stripped it down, removing all the junk, then copied it to CF. Worked well. It almost went into 512M...

An interesting point. Is embedded XP any better than a stripped down standard XP when one has decent h/w resources?

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK

On a sunny day (Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:23:36 +0000) it happened Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote in :

It is microsoft, it is crap, why use crap? I BURNED MY COPY OF XP AND HAVE NOT MISSED IT ONE FEMTO SECOND YET, BUT SAVED DAYS OF FRUSTRATION.

Brought to you by 'FREE CAPS". Save a bit, use CAPS.

I've used XP for years, and have never had a single problem that wasn't caused by h/w

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK

AFAIK there is no difference between embedded than standard XP except for the possibility to strip embedded down to save space and remove unnecessary components. Although there is a slight difference: XP embedded can be booted from a USB stick. With some trickery regular XP can also be booted from USB:

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...

What about the ability to run a completely read-only system?

The problem with that is the tendency by XP to want to write (and write and write) to various locations on its boot disk. That's okay if the disk is a real disk and it can be acceptable with a purpose-built "solid state disk," as netbooks use. Ordinary compact flash just isn't made for that usage profile, though.

XPe has hooks that direct the writing of all of the housekeeping files to a RAM disk. That does eat some memory space, although not a lot. Another advantage is that the flash image is always identical on every boot. And, of course, writes to real RAM are significantly faster than to flash. In the end, it's a more responsive and more reliable system.

The downside is the nightmare of pasting the bootable XPe image together in the first place.

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

There are some meaningful differences. The "enhanced write filter" (EWF) is among them.

See the discussion at

If the parens in the link make it un-clickable, search on "XPE EWF" over at MSDN for that info and additional resources.

NYK ;-)

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

\

That sort of proves everyone in the Universe is unique:-)

used, it?

UK

A UK political party Occult Talk Show

Or a simple search of Linux on one of the common Atom machines in the channel.

Mine boots up under Knoppix without a hitch, so it can't be that hard to do.

Sounds like someone could make a business out of buying the new atom platforms and getting images up on each, then selling pre-configured images to interested parties that do not want to spend that particular labor segment getting from point A to point B. Then, they merely pay for their license and key to be legit, and use the pre-cast image to get up and running quicker.