[jbj]

I am currently building a tool similar to nLite but that runs on the Linux/Unix platform, specifically focused on building Windows XP images for virtualization purposes.



I wish there was a guide that explained what files nLite manipulates for every different thing it removes, but I can't find any. Any such guide would greatly accelerate development. Can anyone help me with this?

[Maxfutur]

As much as i can see, it removes many types of files and modifies some inf files packed and nonpacked.

If you get in touch with nuhi, maybe he can tell you some but is not going to give you the code source.

Have you tried to get in touch by email?

Good to have a tool like that to "nlite" from Linux...

[XIII]

nLite works good. Very good!

[jmbattle]

Before nLite existed, I believe the more knowledgeable folks used to use Joe someone-or-other's batch files to slip-down Windows 2k/XP.

I could be wrong, however I gather that nuhi took the basis of these scripts and transformed them into a user-friendly tool, and of course, extended the functionality and safety aspect greatly beyond anything that could be achieved using batch files.

On a separate note, is it not possible to use nLite on a Linux system using WINE and .NET/MONO?

Cheers,
James
x

[jbj]

jmbattle, on Oct 4 2008, 09:40 AM, said:

Before nLite existed, I believe the more knowledgeable folks used to use Joe someone-or-other's batch files to slip-down Windows 2k/XP.

I could be wrong, however I gather that nuhi took the basis of these scripts and transformed them into a user-friendly tool, and of course, extended the functionality and safety aspect greatly beyond anything that could be achieved using batch files.

On a separate note, is it not possible to use nLite on a Linux system using WINE and .NET/MONO?

Cheers,
James
x

That would be very useful to me if I could find it! Anyone else have any information?

[anonymous_user]

Here you go: Bold_Fortune Forums

[Maxfutur]

Not too good, have to pay por batch files but i dont trust on that...

[jmbattle]

No, I believe this was well before Bold Fortune ever got involved.

Cheers,
James
x

[zipzap]

jmbattle, on Oct 4 2008, 09:57 PM, said:

No, I believe this was well before Bold Fortune ever got involved.

Cheers,
James
x

Is Bold Fortune actually making a Fortune for his batch files.? http://www.bold-fort...ex.php?act=home He claims he doesnt delete approx 350 system32 Files
Also http://boldfortune.blogspot.com/
I had a bit of a look at his forums but cant be to sure what he is offering apart from pages of info shown but what does your dollar get if you decided to purchase his batch files.? Do you get some working program or what.? I note those websites appear to be about a year old so guess non of his info is current and up to date.?
Or on ther other hand rather than anyone going down that road maybe they would be better off with XPlite. http://www.litepc.com/ Both costing money and results I dont know how good they are.?
But of course you cant make a slim install with those which Nlite offers. At least Nuhi keeps that updated along with Ryans Forums etc. With the custon CD DVD makes future installations quick.

This post has been edited by zipzap: 05 October 2008 - 02:28 AM

[Kelsenellenelvian]

You get exactly what it says you get a package of batch files that are made to modify your source.

No program, no interface, just .bat files.

Plus they are not updated to SP3 last I saw.

[jaclaz]

If I may, the approach of Bold Fortune and of nuhi is completely different.

Bold Fortune published each of his findings and asks for money for a set of batches that will replicate automatically each of them.

nuhi gives for free the application but won't tell you (or not completely tell) what is inside it.

I personally do not like either approach, I like to share my (very little and NOT comparable to the great work done by nuhi and Bold Fortune) findings and, when I make it, the batch file to automate it, but this is my idea of sharing, not necessarily the "right" and "only" one.

As well, it is my personal idea that using .Net is a waste of resources/disk space, but again this may be just because batch is the only scripting language I can write into.

For the record there is (or maybe was) a mostly unknown third guy:
http://manoa.flnet.org/
(the site is offline, but a few pages can be found with google cache)
that took some of Bold Fortune's (and info from other sources) posts and "translated" them into batches that you can (could) download for free.

All three, as I see it, want to have control on what they do, one way or the other, nuhi is exceptionally fast to resolve problems and bugs and he is admirable in the way he kept nlite (and now keeps nlite and vlite also) constantly updated, and I hope that he will go on forever, but what would happen once he loses interest in the matter, or for any reason he stops developing nlite and vlite?

I personally think that "collaborative" projects, though of course much more difficult to manage, offer more probabilities to survive for a longer stretch of time and often can solve problems otherwise unresolved by using the contribution of new and different points of view.

jaclaz

[MCT]

Quote

nuhi is exceptionally fast to resolve problems and bugs and he is admirable in the way he kept nlite (and now keeps nlite and vlite also) constantly updated, and I hope that he will go on forever

i agree, nuhi is awesome!
hes not just a good programmer, hes very knowledgable in other aspects of computers aswell

This post has been edited by MCT: 05 October 2008 - 06:23 AM

[iheartsims]

Not trying to be mean or disrespectful to nuhi or anything, but I think that nLite sucks. It wont work on my Windows XP Tablet PC Edition VLK disc. I integrated SP3 onto it using nlite and now it wont accept my product key. I got this from MSFN. cross that out - I mean "MSDN" GRR. I wasted a CD for this . It also appends a bunch of stuff to the end of some files.

This post has been edited by iheartsims: 10 October 2008 - 02:52 PM

[crashfly]

jbj, on Oct 3 2008, 09:39 PM, said:

I am currently building a tool similar to nLite but that runs on the Linux/Unix platform, specifically focused on building Windows XP images for virtualization purposes.


I wish there was a guide that explained what files nLite manipulates for every different thing it removes, but I can't find any. Any such guide would greatly accelerate development. Can anyone help me with this?

While nlite is created by nuhi and the source is generally kept a secret, there are similar, albeit not necessarily competing, programs that can perform some of the same functions that nlite does. One such program is Ryan's Integrator. It is developed by Siginet and some of the developers, and as long as you are helping with the project, you can get access to the source code of the Integrator. I do not know how difficult it would be to port over to linux, however it is a completely viable option you might want to consider. The forum for the Integrator is located here: http://siginetsoftwa...forum/index.php

This post has been edited by crashfly: 06 October 2008 - 11:01 PM

[epic]

You could RE and find out, if you do you can't use the same code otherwise it would be illegal usage.

Also, for those who'll make pokes at stating RE is illegal, RE is no where illegal regardless of what a Program EULA states, as long as the person doing the RE is not writing for the usage of Circumvention and/or copying the exact code, which violates several laws under the DMCA. The sole purpose of legalizing RE is to achieve interoperability.

The legal tidbits of information http://www.chillinge...reverse/faq.cgi / http://www.chillinge.../faq.cgi#QID208

This post has been edited by epic: 07 October 2008 - 02:06 PM

[pacav69]

jbj, on Oct 4 2008, 10:39 AM, said:

I wish there was a guide that explained what files nLite manipulates for every different thing it removes, but I can't find any. Any such guide would greatly accelerate development. Can anyone help me with this?

Whilst there is no guide for someone to use for other development like nlite, i can give some ideas on what i know about winxp installs.

This file TXTSETUP.SIF contains a list of files that are loaded during the first phase of install if there are any files to be added or deleted then this is what file that should be modified if you make changes to TXTSETUP.SIF they also have to be changed in DOSNET.INF . So if you want to modify these files you can therefore add or delete files listed in them. Take note that when you add files you have to use the CAB compression program that not only compresses the file but to rename it such as filename.ex_

This file WINNT.SIF is the setup file for the gui part of installation which are a list of answers to the prompts that the install program would ask.

To create the ISO a program called mkisofs.exe is used and xpboot.bin or something like this that runs the winxp setupldr file is used for the boot aspect.
There is some more information in the deploy files that are sometimes on the winxp cd.

So in summary you need to:
1. Text edit of files.
2. Compress files using cab format
3. Create a bootable CD/DVD

Point 1 and 3 are doable on linux not sure of point 2 as i have no idea if the compression function of cab.

cheers

This post has been edited by pacav69: 08 December 2008 - 01:52 PM

[fdv]

I wish there was a guide that explained what files nLite manipulates for every different thing it removes, but I can't find any. Any such guide would greatly accelerate development. Can anyone help me with this?

I think I can tell you the obvious without incurring Nuhi's wrath.
He very meticulously found what files belong to which components.
Some files install as "base" (i.e. they are put onto disk by LAYOUT and then TXTSETUP copies them to where they belong) and some components are called by individual .INF files.
Expand SYSOC.INF and look at the "Optional" components that are listed. They install automatically but have checkboxes when called by Add/Remove Components. Commenting them out (or deleting them) will prevent them from installing at all.

Now expand and have a look at SYSSETUP.INF. Find [Infs.Always]
Here you will see a LOT of components that you just do not need. To see what one does, find the INF file listed, expand it, and examine it. Some components are a problem: look at IE.INF. There is NO list of files in it! That's because Microsoft has put the files into TXTSETUP and LAYOUT so that IE files are put onto your system no matter what. Nuhi's software edits all of the files I have mentioned, and more. I haven't really given anything away I don't think, because when you run the software, you can see just by filedate what has changed.

As for the batch files, it was Joe Deboeck IIRC. My fileset for Windows 2000 dates from November 2001. I modified SETUPAPI.DLL to be able to make changes to these INF files. Before that mod, I had to change INF files and then run a service pack slipstream to avoid digital signature errors. Nuhi does not alter SETUPAPI, but uses a different DLL. One must avoid signature checking to have altered INF files work. LAYOUT is a special case, and to modify it, you must globally replace ,_x, with ,, (in other words, delete every occurrence of underscore X between two commas in the entire file). nLite does not change LAYOUT, only TXTSETUP. Most likely Nuhi did this for speed. As a by-the-way, you can actually copy the entire file list from TXTSETUP and paste it into LAYOUT. It will work fine, you do NOT need those file byte counts, and your setup will go much faster since LAYOUT and TXTSETUP copy files twice.

This post has been edited by fdv: 11 December 2008 - 09:48 PM

[jbj]

Hello peoples,

I got PM about my progress with this, so I'm posting an update..

I stopped working on this. Mostly because of the difficulty of discovering how to have functionality similar to nLite and lack of time. If someone wants to continue development, I have attached the source code. I really didn't too much with it, there is basically 0% nLite-like logic, it's GUI is fairly complete though. It's written in C# and runs on Mono.

Jonathan

Attached File(s)

•  vmwindows.zip (31.1K)
  Number of downloads: 28

[gamehead200]

fdv, on Dec 11 2008, 06:29 PM, said:

As for the batch files, it was Joe Deboeck IIRC. My fileset for Windows 2000 dates from November 2001. I modified SETUPAPI.DLL to be able to make changes to these INF files. Before that mod, I had to change INF files and then run a service pack slipstream to avoid digital signature errors. Nuhi does not alter SETUPAPI, but uses a different DLL. One must avoid signature checking to have altered INF files work. LAYOUT is a special case, and to modify it, you must globally replace ,_x, with ,, (in other words, delete every occurrence of underscore X between two commas in the entire file). nLite does not change LAYOUT, only TXTSETUP. Most likely Nuhi did this for speed. As a by-the-way, you can actually copy the entire file list from TXTSETUP and paste it into LAYOUT. It will work fine, you do NOT need those file byte counts, and your setup will go much faster since LAYOUT and TXTSETUP copy files twice.

For anyone that cares, Joe Deboeck's site used to be a subdomain on MSFN Hosting. Here are a few archived pages from back in the day (2003-2006): http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://jdeboe...sfnhosting.com/

The archived pages still have the original batch files available for download, but I'll post them here for convenience sake.
 REMOVE.zip (84.36K)
Number of downloads: 53