Windows XP Embedded
Posted April 22, 2003
Chat Date: April 2, 2003
Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity
Chat Participants:
- Andy Allred, Component Integration Testing, Windows XP Embedded
- Jon Fincher, Program Manager, Windows XP Embedded
- Bill Moxley, Software Design Engineer on the Windows Embedded test team
- Ravi Gopal, Product Manager, Windows XP Embedded
- Stephen Berard, Program Manager, Windows XP Embedded
- David Reed, Program Manager, Windows XP Embedded
Moderator: Mike (Microsoft)
Welcome to today's Chat. Our topic is Windows XP Embedded. Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Moderator: Mike (Microsoft)
Let’s introduce our hosts for today.
Host:Andy (Microsoft)
Andy Allred - Component Integration Testing
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Jon Fincher, Program Manager, Windows XP Embedded
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Bill Moxley, Software Design Engineer on the Windows Embedded test team. I specifically work with the Embedded Enabling feature technologies. (EWF, SDI, Remote Boot, etc)
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Ravi Gopal, Product Manager
Host: Stephen (Microsoft)
Stephen Berard, Program Manager, Windows XP Embedded
Moderator: Mike (Microsoft)
Welcome everyone, let’s get started!
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Is a EWF disk overlay appropriate for flash?
A: No, because the overlay needs to be big enough to handle all the caching necessary for the system. Usually, flash cards are too small to support both a normal partition and the overlay partition. A RAM overlay is usually the best solution.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Hi, all. I have been waiting for XPE components of MSDE in the past six months. Please tell me whether you have scheduled it... and, if so, what's the schedule?
A: We are working on some issues on the MSDE component. We hope to have this out over the next few months. No hard schedule in place.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: Is there an EWF API that can control the write filter?
A: Currently we do not have an API to control EWF, however we are we are investigating releasing APIs for a future QFE or release.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: Is the EWF Optimization Option "Less Overlay Space & Less Writes" helpful for this?
A: Can you provide more information? Disk based overlays are typically not used with compact flash for the reasons Jon mentioned.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Is there a way to commit EWF RAM overlay to the drive?
A: Yes - the syntax is "ewfmgr c: -commit".
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: How do I add extra dlls from the repository? I tried using the 'Extra Files' window, but the build can't find the file.
A: The extra files feature in Target Designer requires the user to specify a path in the Build field and tab in the Advanced Options, or Target Designer does not know where to find the Extra file at build time.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: If you can not control the EWF directly how do you know the state?
A: EWFMGR will allow you to check and set state.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Do I need an unpartitioned area on the drive for EWF RAM overlay?
A: Yes - a small EWF partition is created for RAM overlays. The area only needs to be 32Kb in size.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: How about components for Media Player 9 & XML 4.0?
A: We are working on an .sld for WMP9, no plans yet for MSXML Parser.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: Is there source for ewfmgr.exe?
A: No the source is not available for EWFMGR.exe however we are investigating making a set of APIs for controlling EWF.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: How do you boot from an IDE Compact Flash?
A: What specific problems are you seeing booting from IDE CF? Can you turn on whispers, so we can handle this offline?
Host: Stephen (Microsoft)
Q: Can you tell XPE to use the BIOS for all drive accesses?
A: No you can not. Do you have a specific reason for this?
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: Can I manually specify geometry information of IDE storages (e.g., DOM) to prevent the OS loader from using the geometry read from BIOS? I believe that some other OSes (and their loaders) do have such capability.
A: No, there is not a way to specify the geometry of the drive.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Did you mean to say SrcPath in the advanced window for adding files? That solved the problem.
A: Yes. A scrpath must be added or the extra files can not be located by TD.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Can XPE boot from an IDE Compact Flash? It is not bootable, can not be partitioned.
A: Make sure the BIOS is seeing the device as a valid boot device. If you aren't getting through to the boot code, then your hardware is the problem.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Is there any news on the MSDE component that was promised a while back?
A: We are working on some issues on the MSDE component. We hope to have this out over the next few months. No hard schedule in place.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Is there a component dependency viewer?
A: XP Embedded does not include such a tool, but you can use Visual Studio’s Dependency Walker or Dumpbin utilities to obtain binary dependencies.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: Can you control the EWF flush?
A: To flush an EWF partition requires a reboot. For disk based "restore" will flush the partition, for ram a simple reboot will.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Can you access the network during FBA (to download latest app version from server share)?
A: no.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Is there any plan for completing the functions of 'Network Bridge' context under netsh? Can we have APIs to control the runtime behavior of 'Network Bridge' component?
A: If there is incomplete functionality for this component, we aren't aware of it, but would like to know what it is. Can you turn on whisper mode so I can get details from you?
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Is there any plan for completing the functions of 'Network Bridge' context under netsh? Can we have APIs to control the runtime behavior of 'Network Bridge' component?
A: Use netsh to see if all of the "helper" dll's are loaded for this functionality.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Still having trouble adding extra files. These are files in the repository. I now get a 1005 - File not found error, but the path it shows is the correct file location.
A: In this case, use database manager to find the path to the repository your binaries are in. Use this path in Target Designer for the scrpath.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Why does IIS require Outlook Express? I need IIS, but certainly won't have anyone using email on a user-less system.
A: Since we're taking that component from XP Pro, we inherit the dependency that OE has on IIS -- since OE sends messages through IIS' directory structure.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Why does IIS require Outlook Express? I need IIS, but certainly won't have anyone using email on a user-less system.
A: Correction -- IIS has a dependency on OE.
Moderator: Mike (Microsoft)
Q: Is there any generic ne2000 device?
A: There is not anything called a "generic ne2000 device" for Windows XP Embedded.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Why does the Client for Microsoft Networks require the Print Spooler?
A: Most likely because there is a static binary dependency between the two components.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Is there any book that you recommend to start using embedded xp?
A: https://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=6UD8MNKAM0&isbn=0929392736&itm=1
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: When I found that EWF keeps eating up memory (though I thought the device should be idle), what can I do to find out the cause efficiently?
A: EWF will be catching all disk and registry writes that occur. You can try monitoring both of those using a third party utility such as regmon or filemon from the sysinternals.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Any ideas on my COM+ question? I saw a post in June 2002 from someone else have the Invalid Syntax error when starting apps, but no answer. I have asked a couple of times on the newsgroup with no luck
A: Unfortunately, no one here has any experience with COM+. I'll drive this through the COM+ team to see what they say might be the problem.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: Also, is there any way to tell EWF to drop the content of current overlay without rebooting? (So that I can get the device back to the startup state...)
A: No there is not. There would be no way for windows to know what changes would have to be rolled back in order to do so.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: Task Manager has an odd dependency: "Dos Windows on Windows Support". Can I ignore this safely?
A: Most likely because there is a static binary dependency between the two components. Depending on the binary requirements you need in your final image will depend on if it is safe or not to break a default dependency. You will need to test your image to test your image to know for sure.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Is the step-by-step book any good (honestly!...was debating buying it)
A: You should evaluate for yourself. The book gives a good overview of XPE. However it does not include any information on XPE w/SP1, our current release of the product.
Host:Andy (Microsoft)
Q: Can IIS Web server be divided into smaller pieces? For example, to drop the dependency on OE, or to drop the support for HTTPS
A: IIS is currently broken up into at least 8 sub features. The OE dependency is because the Inetmgr has a dependency on MSOERT2.dll which is owned by OE. For Longhorn, issues like this will be addressed to further reduce your footprint. In the meantime, you can turn off AUTORESOLVE in TD and not satisfy that dependency, but you need to be extra careful that you're not breaking other important functionality.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Is there any problem creating a bootable CD-ROM from the image from TD and going through FBA each time you deploy to hardware (or do you have to create a second CD)
A: You can't run through FBA on the CD, because FBA cannot save its state to the CD. Therefore, you'd run through FBA, reboot, run through FBA again, reboot, ad infinitum. You have to create the second CD.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: I want to make a system that boot from CD and support generic network cards, is this possible with XPE?
A: A generic network driver is not available for XP Embedded or XP Pro.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: If a system crashes, how do you know if the EWF has flushed?
A: I am unclear what you mean by flushed. The way EWF works is that all writes that would normally go to your protected partition will be written to the overlay. This happens pretty much immediately, so any writes that occurred before the crash should be in your overlay if you are using disk based EWF.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: There are other odd static dependencies that make it hard to tailor an image to a smaller size.
A: https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/nhp/Default.asp?contentid=28000437. Check out this site for a whitepaper on reducing footprint.
Host: David (Microsoft)
Q: There are other odd static dependencies that make it hard to tailor an image to a smaller size.
A: Static dependencies are based on the component that owns the file resource, not the feature the component represents.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: The EWF caches writes - wouldn't those be lost?
A: Of course any writes that were cached would be lost, however EWF writes to the overlay almost immediately.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: What's the release schedule of Longhorn? Will it be lots of differences in terms of building images? Is Longhorn still based on XP Pro as we currently see?
A: There is no hard schedule as to when Longhorn Embedded will be released. We are committed to shipping it within 90 days of the desktop version of the product however.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Are drivers fixed when I create a bootable CD or XPE will choose the right one if there are in the image?
A: So long as you have the correct driver components in your image, XPE will select and use them when it boots from CD.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Ok, then, if I am making plans for products to be released Q1 2004, should I go for XPe SP1 or should I wait for Longhorn?
A: If you are releasing products in under 12 months, this would mean you would need time to build, test and prototype your images between now & then. Our current version of the product is XPE w/SP1, and so I would recommend that.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: I'm trying to create el torito from my second hard drive without look. Bootprep and ewf doesn’t work, do I need to do it on the first disk?
A: We've seen from other customers that this is the case. You should be building the El Torito CD from the first hard drive to avoid problems.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: How long will you keep supporting XPe SP1? Is driver-update for new devices included in your support?
A: 5 years standard, 7 extended, from the RTM release. Driver updates are rolled into QFEs & SPs.
Host: Bill (Microsoft)
Q: I really want to make sure... "ewfmgr c: -commit" will write the RAM overlay to the drive? I though this was done during reboot. How can the RAM overlay get written?
A: Committing changes requires a reboot. This is not a recommended action though, if the end user decides not to wait for the changes to be made and kills the power your protected volume could be corrupted.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Will .Net be componentized for XPe?
A: The .Net Framework has been componentized for Windows XP Embedded with SP1. There are no plans to include that component in the original Windows XP Embedded product.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: Will .Net be componentized further?
A: We are always working on better components, and the .Net Framework is no exception.
Host: Ravi (Microsoft)
Q: Where can I find "good" documentation for the components founds in XPE?
A: Aside from the product docs, which should be your focus, you should check out MSDN https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/nhp/Default.asp?contentid=28000437.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Q: I was told that there is a weird bug reported against XP SP1 (only) to slow down applications as well as causing some leaks... Is XPE SP1 affected by this bug?
A: The problem you reference appears to be addressed by KB article 815411 at https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;815411. While this bug does affect Windows XP Embedded, there are no plans to implement it as an XPE-specific QFE at this time. Unless you are directly affected by the problem, Microsoft's recommendation is to not apply the QFE. It will be picked up in the next service pack release.
Host:Jon (Microsoft)
Thanks for the great questions!
Moderator: Mike (Microsoft)
Thanks for joining us today and thanks for the questions. It's time for us to go now.
For further information on this topic please visit the following:
Newsgroups: Mobile and embedded application development topics
Embedded Transcripts: Read the archive
Website: Visit the Mobile & Embedded Developer Center
.gif)
Top of page