Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2 (April 14, 2005)

Posted: April 15, 2005

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity

Introduction

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Welcome to today’s chat. Our chat today about Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2! We are pleased to welcome our Experts for today’s chat. I will have them introduce themselves now.

mikehall_ms (Moderator):
Hi, I'm Mike Hall, a Technical Product Manager in the Mobile and Embedded Devices Group here in Sunny Redmond...

Jon_MSFT (Expert):
Howdy! I'm Jon Fincher, a Program Manager responsible for Windows XP Embedded Servicing.

JKremer_MSFT (Expert):
I'm Jay Kremer, Program Manager in Embedded

Khalidsa-MSFT (Expert):
I'm Khalid Sabri, on the XP Embedded support group at Microsoft

nelson_MSC (Expert):
I'm Nelson with the XP Embedded PSS Team.

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Welcome! I'm the Test Manager for Windows Embedded. Keep up on the latest XPe/LHe news via our team blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/embedded

lyallen_MSFT (Expert):
Lynda Allen - Software Test Engineer for component integration

mattkell_MSFT (Expert):
Hi. I'm Matt Kellner, a Software Test Engineer working in various areas of Windows XP Embedded, including EEFs.

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Let’s begin the chat. We welcome you to begin submitting your questions for our Experts!

Start of Chat

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Q: Sir many samples are given in WindowsCE but we are not able to build them so how to build that samples especially samples of Bluetooth?
A: Mike Hall has folks investigating this and will post the answers in his blog: https://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/

lyallen_MSFT (Expert):
Q: We have difficulty using consumer-level parts in our product, e.g., an ATI Radeon card, because ATI is constantly end-of-life'ing cards after 6 months. I wonder what folks do to stay on the cutting edge in terms of parts?
A: The solution is to add as many driver components for that class of device as possible, so that you can swap out the end-of-life'd device with another one. In SP2 you can add the Generic Device Driver Support macro component, which will do this for you.

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Q: If we work with XPE SP2 can we be confident that backward compatibility will be maintained in the next version, i.e. Longhorn Embedded
A: The way the question is phrased is a little backwards, i guess you're asking whether there LHe will be somewhat backwards compatible with XPe? If so, there are several things we're collecting feedback from customers on - tools, components, EEFs. Can you be more specific?

Khalidsa-MSFT (Expert):
Q: It would be nice to have an official filter driver to allow removable Compact Flash to be used. There is one at xpefiles.com, but an official solution would be better.
A: Removable CF media can be used in XPe as a boot drive or a secondary storage without the need for additional drivers. Can you please give more details?

Jon_MSFT (Expert):
Q: What major updates can we expect to XPe SP2 in the next year? For example, will .NET 1.1 SP1 be officially released?
A: We are currently working hard to transition servicing of XPE from the Embedded team to the Sustained Engineering team, who handles servicing of the XP Pro product. Our current plans include expanding the scope of updates for XPE to include non-security updates and integrating XPE into the existing update processes to get updates out to customers quicker and more efficiently. There aren't any current plans to add new feature components to the product, although customer demand for new features can change that.

lyallen_MSFT (Expert):
Q: We have difficulty using consumer-level parts in our product, e.g., an ATI Radeon card, because ATI is constantly end-of-life'ing cards after 6 months. I wonder what folks do to stay on the cutting edge in terms of parts?
A: Let me rephrase that- the Generic Device Driver Support component allows you to choose which class of drivers you want to add support for, and then it will make sure all the relevant Class Installer components for that class are brought into the runtime allowing you to successfully install the new driver when you swap out your hardware.

nelson_MSC (Expert):
Q: Can I use DUA to make updates for my company's software?
A: Yes, you can use DUA to upload your own updates

Khalidsa-MSFT (Expert):
Q: It would be nice to have an official filter driver to allow removable Compact Flash to be used. There is one one xpefiles.com, but an official solution would be better.
A: I guess you meant a filter driver to make the CF look like a fixed media?

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Q: yes, will code generated w. LHE be backward compatible. (w/ of course the provision that you can't be generating code for XPe unsupported functionality such as Avalon and Indigo...
A: Right, if you develop something for LHe and it has dependencies satisfied in XPe it should work. We are trying to maintain backwards compatibility with EEFs wherever possible, so perhaps some new LHe EEFs will be backported to XPe, this is something that we're always cognizant of. Of course there may be new EEFs or features that leverage technologies only available in LH Pro that are not being backported, which means it wouldn't be backported to XPe.

Jon_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Hello All, I would like to know if any of the new patches released last Tuesday will effect web applications?
A: There was a fix for Internet Explorer which affects web browsing, but shouldn't affect web applications running on an XPE box. You should read the FAQ's associated with the bulletins to gauge their effect on your runtime.

JKremer_MSFT (Expert):
It's worth mentioning that we're always listening for feedback on what features we should be looking at adding or enhancing for our next release. You can find a link to send this feedback here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/community/community/feedback/feedxp/default.aspx

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Q: Component Designer gripe. When I change a file that is in a component, Component Designer does not see it and does not update the revision and the changed file doesn't get updated by the Database Manager. I need to change something while in CD.
A: I hear you, thanks for the feedback. With the current version of CD this is not possible, you would have to make two changes. One idea thrown around would be if the tools were integrated into Visual Studio. This is not something being considered for LHe, but your feedback on issues like this is valuable in the early stages of the product: wecrt@microsoft.com is where you can send feedback like this.

nelson_MSC (Expert):
Q: I'm curious how a RAM EWF commit operation works? Specifically, how and when does the data actually get written to the protected partition? It can't be after restart... We commit during upgrade, and we would like to know when the device is vulnerable.
A: It is committed before shutdown.

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Q: I'm thinking of using the Tracking Number on the COA for a device serial number rather than setting up a system to generate them internally in my company. Does anybody see any potential problems with this?
A: I'm not familiar enough with those stickers to be able to tell if every number on there (besides the PID) is unique enough to use to track your device. I'm pretty sure that you can.

Khalidsa-MSFT (Expert):
Q: Having a problem with the FBA Generic command. I want it to run after FBA has rebooted, but before I reseal my image. What phase number range would give me that?
A: set the phase to 8500 .. what problem are you having?

Jon_MSFT (Expert):
Q: At my company (Boeing), we do not allow Bluetooth devices, can we use Windows Embedded to creat an OS for let say, DELL X50 without Bluetooth support and keep it that way (meaning; a user can't install the driver)? if Yes, how can I get more info on that!
A: When you build the XPE operating system, simply do not add the components for the Bluetooth device on the system. This will also keep the class installer for Bluetooth devices off the system and effectively prevent users from installing support for Bluetooth devices.

mattkell_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Continuing the RAM EWF thread a bit. Why do you guys recommend disabling EWF during upgrades rather than just performing the upgrade operation and then an EWF commit? Fewer reboots are required using the latter method.
A: There are a number of reasons that we recommend disabling EWF before upgrades. Probably the most significant of them is that it accounts for scenarios where the writes performed by an upgrade might exceed the size of the overlay and cause the machine to crash in the middle. This may apply to, say, a major software update that touches a large number of files, a major OS feature, etc. Recommending that you disable EWF during the update is the solution that is most likely to work for the majority of our users.

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Q: Would you guys consider packaging the WinPE dev kit with LHe? We are using it as a "system recovery" CD now, and it works great!
A: I know the value of having it as well, I'll add this request to our plans for the LHe media.

Khalidsa-MSFT (Expert):
Q: The EWF seems very similar to the volume shadow. Volume shadow copy is nice because it can be turned on and off without restarts. But, I'm not aware of any command line tools to turn VS copy on or off. I think it can be done programatically.
A: What about just stopping the VSS service? There maybe a command line tool but I'm not aware of it

nelson_MSC (Expert):
Q: It would also be nice to have a real boot-from-USB solution that didn't involve a ramdisk. Any chance of that?
A: Probably depends on the BIOS Manufacturers and market.

JKremer_MSFT (Expert):
Q: My understanding is that right now, Window CE and XPe stem from the same code base, which is good as far as having some commonality among developer skills (i.e., the can work with both) . Is this going to continue to be the case going forward?
A: XPe and Windows CE don't stem from the same codebase - XPe shares the same codebase as XP Pro. Was that what you meant?

JKremer_MSFT (Expert):
Q: My understanding is that right now, Window CE and XPe stem from the same code base, which is good as far as having some commonality among developer skills (i.e., the can work with both) . Is this going to continue to be the case going forward?
A: LHe will share the same codebase as LH Pro, so any developer skills or tools for one will work for both. Keeping these skill sets the same is one of our primary goals in XPe and LHe. CE is its own codebase, but codijng for CE involves a lot of similar tools and skills as coding for XP (and, in the future, for LH.)

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Q: hello, I don’t know if you can help me, but I have a problem with windows SP2. The problem was that I didn’t know that this SP was being installed and reset my PC. Since that moment, I’m having problems. I cannot repair Windows XP. What can I do?
A: Hey Andrew, our chat today is with the Windows XP Embedded folks, For desktop Windows XP questions, probably a better place to start would be https://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/default.mspx. There should be information and support options listed over there (including, I think, a desktop Windows XP chat room)

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Q: Will LHe have a command-line build utility? This would help immensely in our development cycle, giving us reproducibility, etc.
A: This is a common request. While we're not ready to discuss the details of LHe here, the ability to build from a cmd line is high pri.

Jon_MSFT (Expert):
Q: Are there any devices that are more disk-like than microdrives? We'd really like to add a pagefile to our system, but we are using CF devices. Microdrives have restrictions on head loads, duty cycles, etc. A 'real' disk drive in the CF type 1 format?
A: The only other storage device I can think of would be mini-IDE hard drives, such as those found in laptop computers. In the CF form factor, however, microdrives are the only spindle media available that I know of.

Andy [MS] (Expert):
Q: Are there plans to update the _Windows XP Embedded Advanced_ book for SP2? I noticed that Liming's new "kit" isn't really an update to this book (and is about $300 more than I want to spend...)
A: well, to be fair it's not *just* an update to a previous book. That book has tools in it that customers have been asking for but the product team never delivered so Sean Liming did deliver them.

Andy [MS] (Expert):
e7 - ask the xp embedded newsgroup whether the tools have any value. Actually, I'm using two of them to help with dependency analysis and tracking component dependencies

Jon_MSFT (Expert):
Q: I need to know How I can format a USB RAM Drive in NTFS, Thanks I just get a 2GB BUSlink USB drive.
A: Try https://www.sysinternals.com - they have a utility called NTFSFlp that can format floppies as NTFS. I don't know if it will work for USB drives, and MS doesn't support these tools or problem associated with using them.

mikefos_msft (Moderator):
Thank you for joining us today for our Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2!
chat.
We welcome any feedback about this chat. Please forward comments, suggestions or any other feedback to edevfdbk@microsoft.com
We hope to see you again for another private chat in the future!

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