Post-HFSLIP Scripts: NOLOAD & SPEEDUP

[Arie]

How to reduce text mode wait time

Question: Even after using programs to customize your unattended install, what is the most annoying part about setup?

Answer: Easy, text mode!

gosh revealed various ways to reduce the text mode wait time in his topic Forgotten Setup Secrets Revealed. Inspired by this topic, I wrote two scripts to be used with HFSLIP to reduce the text mode wait time and to speed up the boot process.

Not loading unnessary setup files during boot process

Despite advances in customizing windows xp setup, one part has remained elusive: the beginning. How frustrating is it to cut in half the time it takes to install windows, yet you still have to sit at the text mode screen that says, "loading windows setup, loading Adaptec SCSI controller,etc". That has always annoyed me. I've never owned anything Adaptec, so why do i have to wait as windows setup loads a bunch of SCSI drivers for Adaptec??? Booting from CD could take a couple minutes as you wait for setup to load it's drivers (I counted 80 in all).

The post-HFSLIP NOLOAD script will stop setup from loading the following drivers to reduce the text mode wait time:

• Fast FAT File System Driver
  
• SCSI MiniPort Drivers
  
• Compaq support
  
• Toshiba floppy support
  

Expanding compressed setup files to speed up boot process

By default XP setup will expand any files it needs on the fly into memory. The problem with this is when you are installing from CD this could be a big performance hit on setup, and it'll take up more memory. One way to avoid this performance hit is by expanding the files setup needs.

The post-HFSLIP SPEEDUP script will expand these specific compressed setup files to speed up the boot process.

Download

HFSLIP_POST_SCRIPTS_V0.2.ZIP

Extract the downloaded archive to a temporary location and copy the post-HFSLIP script(s) you wish to use to your HFTOOLS folder.

The post-HFSLIP NOLOAD script makes use of sed, a stream editor to perform basic text transformations. Please download GNU sed v3.02.80 for Windows (3x, 9x, NT, 2K), extract the downloaded archive to a temporary location and copy the file sed.exe to your HFTOOLS folder.

Mirrors

- HFSLIP_POST_SCRIPTS_V0.2.ZIP

- GNU sed v3.02.80 for Windows (3x, 9x, NT, 2K)

Changelog

HFSLIP_POST_SCRIPTS_V0.2:

- Added processor architecture verification; currently only x86 is supported

- Removed some unnecessary code

HFSLIP_POST_SCRIPTS_V0.1:

- Initial public release; enjoy!

Credits

I would like to thank the following people (in alphabetical order):

- gosh

- Tomcat76

- tommyp

- Yzöwl

Edited February 28, 2008 by Arie

[XibaD]

What happens with sed.exe if you run HFSLIP in a x64 enviroment? It gives an error... :s

[Arie]

What happens with sed.exe if you run HFSLIP in a x64 enviroment? It gives an error... :s

I have only tested this on an x86 edition of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 and all the latest hotfixes. Perhaps there is a version of sed around which is x64 compatible, I don't know. I don't have the means to test it if I would come across an x64 compatible version, but I'll see what I can find.

[wela]

Works great with german xpsp2

THX

[GrofLuigi]

I have some questions (please forgive me if I got something wrong, I didn't study this too much):

- Why are you uncompressing the drivers that will not be loaded?

- Why fastfat (I agree with all others)? What if user wants to install on FAT partition?

- Can this be used with something else (nLite)?

GL

[fdv]

It's mentioned in the other thread, but I want to point out that users can avail themselves of no-load capability by using semicolons in TXTSETUP.SIF.

For example, if you want to eliminate the Compaq array driver from loading:

[Hal.Load]
;sgiborg_mp     = halborg.dll

Careful, you might find that one day you'll install XP on some older, spare machine and you might run into a problem. (Okay, okay, maybe not!)

As for pre-expanding your files and renaming them back to ending an underscore, that will (if you do enough large files) cause a HUGE installation speed-up, I find.

I encourage everyone to mess with their TXTSETUP files and make note of the result(s). Just be careful with your originals - make copies.

This is my favorite method for integrating (as opposed to removing) things like drivers though it can be a hassle.

Edited February 28, 2008 by fdv

[Arie]

- Why are you uncompressing the drivers that will not be loaded?

You're referring to expanding setup files using SPEEDUP which will not be loaded due to NOLOAD. Both scripts do not depend on each other, meaning that you can use either or both scripts as you please. If you would only use SPEEDUP, you will need to expand all the setup files that my script expands. Indeed, if you use SPEEDUP in combination with NOLOAD, certain files will be expanded which don't need to be expanded. The reason for this is simply so that you can use either or both scripts. A future version should perhaps check if both scripts are used and then take the appropriate actions, but for now this is fine for me as the space "wasted" by expanding these few setup files which won't be loaded anyway isn't that much.

- Why fastfat (I agree with all others)? What if user wants to install on FAT partition?

See the topic by gosh which I mentioned in my first posting. If this is a problem for you however, you can always comment out the line which refers to FASTFAT.SYS in NOLOAD. Perhaps a future version will work with an answer file.

- Can this be used with something else (nLite)?

No, not in it's current form. These scripts are specifically written to be used with HFSLIP. By using my scripts as an example though and by reading the before mentioned topic by gosh you can make your own nLite compatible script if you want.

[Sherwin]

hi i'm a total newbie

really confusing at first but i just downloaded everything

i had to edit the HFSLIP_POST_NOLOAD_V0.2.CMD file because the source folder was spelled sourcess not sure why?

it works now i think

ok i get error when i try in virtual box to run my iso it says NTKRNLMP.EXE is corrupt or missing

[fdv]

ok i get error when i try in virtual box to run my iso it says NTKRNLMP.EXE is corrupt or missing

When you get this, it means that Virtual Box, or VMWare, or MS Virtual PC, was faking out the OS by using one of the drivers you got rid of. Comment fewer of them out. And IMHO you ought to be doing this in your original source file.

[tain]

i had to edit the HFSLIP_POST_NOLOAD_V0.2.CMD file because the source folder was spelled sourcess not sure why?

The SOURCES folder is your original, unmodified source. SOURCESS is the post-HFSLIP folder. I think the extra S is for Slipstreamed.

[johndoe74]

i had to edit the HFSLIP_POST_NOLOAD_V0.2.CMD file because the source folder was spelled sourcess not sure why?

The SOURCES folder is your original, unmodified source. SOURCESS is the post-HFSLIP folder. I think the extra S is for Slipstreamed.

a minor correction. the source (no 's' at the end) is your original, unmodified source. the sourcess (two 's' at the end) is your slipstreamed folder

Edited March 18, 2008 by johndoe74

[tain]

Good catch. Thanks!

[Oleg_II]

I want to try it on VMWare (don't think it gives much speed on virtual machine but anyway

As for pre-expanding your files and renaming them back to ending an underscore, that will (if you do enough large files) cause a HUGE installation speed-up, I find.

Just to confirm - you mean if for example I expand one file say 'FILE.EX_' to 'FILE.EXT' and then rename the last letter to '_' (the file will look like 'FILE.EX_' again)?

[Arie]

I want to try it on VMWare (don't think it gives much speed on virtual machine but anyway

As for pre-expanding your files and renaming them back to ending an underscore, that will (if you do enough large files) cause a HUGE installation speed-up, I find.

Just to confirm - you mean if for example I expand one file say 'FILE.EX_' to 'FILE.EXT' and then rename the last letter to '_' (the file will look like 'FILE.EX_' again)?

There is no need to rename the file after expanding it.

[caps_buster]

I'm sure this looks like a great idea. However I prefer do things "by hand" as I like FAT32 system for OS partition for speed reasons, so... So I tried to take a look how a script file can be used, but ended up in total dismay. First, this middle line looks messed up pretty bad:

REM ECHO>>HFNOLOAD.SED s/syspro_mp	  = hal.dll/syspro_mp	  = hal.dll,,noload/g
REM ECHO>>HFNOLOAD.SED s/mps_up		 = halapic.dll,,noload ,2,hal.dll/mps_up		 = halapic.dll ,2,hal.dll/g
REM DO NOT LOAD SCSI MINIPORT DRIVERS

Second - the major annoyance is the SED tool itself. It suxx beyond words to describe. I was hoped for something like...

SED --in-place -f noload.sed txtsetup.sif

or

SED -i -f noload.sed txtsetup.sif

...witch, according to the docs should perform the noload.sed script upon the unsuspecting and naked txtsetup.sif file. But it does not work at all.

`-i[sUFFIX]'

`--in-place[=SUFFIX]'

This option specifies that files are to be edited in-place. GNU

`sed' does this by creating a temporary file and sending output to

this file rather than to the standard output.(1).

This option implies `-s'.

When the end of the file is reached, the temporary file is renamed

to the output file's original name.

I probably can't read documentation at all, or something like it. Nevermind, I have to done everything by hand again. Sigh.