Windows XP Embedded (XPe)

[BennieBoy]

Thanks idioteque

Now I would like to have this diskless system (thin client).
There are several solutions, but they all mention XPe as base and not XP.

I know XPe is the componenticed version of XP.
So, what is the best solution?

[Smirnuff]

I tried nlite once and had nothing but problems as time went by, others have had similar experiences. Initially things seemed good but...

Not trying to put you guys off with my negative comments, just reporting my personal experiences. I would really love to see a totally problem free solution come from an XPe image that others could modify to suit their own hardware.

If anyone does go the XPe route I'd suggest you try it out using a VMware product (Workstation, Server, ESX not so good for this; use it everyday and its great for server apps but not this kind of experimentation). You won't be able to get MP running but you will get some idea of the work involved in creating an image.

[Smirnuff]

Now I would like to have this diskless system

Another solution is to use iSCSI but it is far from being cheap. There are free iSCSI Target applications, for both Linux and Windows but neither are able to offer the performance that the technology is capable of. I purchased a copy of WinTarget prior to Microsoft buying the company and it does provide the necessary performance.

Sadly Microsoft dedided to roll WinTarget (excellent app, stable and very easy to use) into Windows Storage Server rather than make it a downloadable like their iSCSI Initiator.

There is also a software based bootable iSCSI solution available from here but they aren't nice people to deal with if you give the slightest mention that you are interested in using at home.

My MP box is diskless, using a QLogic 4050C connected over a dedicated VLAN through a gigabit switch, sharing an array of 4 Seagate 15k.4 drives and a couple of large SATA drives... it flies lke the wind; its a benefit of working as a server-side developer from home, loads of super cool hardware I would not be prepared or able to pay for.

The nicest benefit IMO of such a solution, beyond no noise, is that the hard drives are not having to spin up and down each time you shutdown or suspend the machine... its at both these times that the greatest wear is placed upon the drives. Resume is also faster.

[supra_x206]

well actually i have MP running on XPe on a set top box...

[THDBASED]

Isn't there a way to export some sort of file that we can use to make our own XP embedded image?

[Dexx]

Is there a lite version of MS dotnet framework that will work with MP? The full v2.0 release is over 200mb installed

[stoked]

Originally Posted by supra_x206

well actually i have MP running on XPe on a set top box...

Care to provide a few more details? Which set top box is this? Outputs HD?

[BennieBoy]

Hi again,

Eventually I went another way with my diskless system.
Actually, it is not really diskless, but on the other hand, there is no disk in it either :-)

My MP Client system is a USB bootable system which, as I already revealed, boots from a USB disk (in my case, a USB-Stick).

The USB stick is formatted as an NTFS drive and I installed a tweaked XP on it (to make XP USB-Bootable).
How to make this tweaked XP can be found here ()Ngine.de - Welcome.

However, this tweaked XP is only working from a USB hard disk. I had to install 2 USBXXXX.sys files from XPe to get things working.

The USB stick I'm using is the cheapest I could find and 2 Gbyte was enough to get things going. However, 4Gbyte would be a bit more pleasant. This system runs since November 2007, so it seems to be OK.

As a backend I have a PC which acts as my server. This server contains the TV-Cards and Satellite card (last one not connected since I moved into my new home). Works quite nice after I installed the TV-Server build of April 4th.
The server is located in place far, far away ... :-)

The next solution I am going to try is a MP HTPC system booting from a Compact flash card.
I already have a Compact flash card bootable Multimedia System in my bedroom, but it is old hardware and with the build in graphic card and a duron 900 not the fastest system. But then again, it boots in 1 minute and 15 seconds so .... Workable.

Booting from a compact flash card has the advantage that you do not have to tweak XP.

I just bought 3 compact flash card to IDE converters from eBay for less than 3 euros each (transport was more expensive). So, experimentation can begin.

Greetz,
Ben

[Paranoid Delusion]

Ben

Really impressed by this, how did MP's GUI react with this, nice and fluid, would not mind the full specs on this system.

How does video streaming cope, no sign of slowdown\bottleneck\cache issues.

Cheers

[BennieBoy]

MP Gui is working like a treat.
Really smooth.
However, after I saw how smooth the Dreambox GUI is, I give it a 7 (out of 10).
Dreambox would get a 9 for smoothness.

Then again, with the network drive containing all my music and movies I introduced a bit of delay.
First time I connect to the TV-Server, it takes a while too (about 8 seconds). The second time it is almost instant.

Specs:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9
Processor: AMD Athlon64 3000 socket 939
Processor Cooling: Arctic Silencer 64 Ultra (removed fan and replaced with papst 12cm fan
Power: 300W (removed original fan and casing and replaced with papst 12cm fan and cardboard :-)
Casing: Coolermaster Cavalier 4 (removed each and every fan and replaced with papst 12 cm fan
Memory: 2x256 Mbyte DDR ram (is a bit too little, better would be 2x512 as there is no swap disk)
USB-Drive: 2 Gbyte doing about 10Mbyte read and about 6 write (estimated)
CD-Drive: It's in there, but never used as everything is streamed from the server.
Graphics: Nvidia 6600LE passive cooled

As server I have a redheaded overheated Pentium4 3.2 Ghz and a MSI board. Nothing special, but everything is on it including onboard video)
There is a Hauppauge dual analogue tuner, an NVTV card (not used at the moment because it crashed the TV server) and a Nova satelite card (not used either because there is still no dish on connected).
The server has about 1.1 Tbyte diskspace which is spread on 4 harddrives (2x250Gbyte 1x300Gbyte and 1x320Gbyte).

All is connected on a 100Mb network (which is composed of CAT5e cables, so should be capable of doing 1 Gb when the right swith is used).

I did some experiments (in the past) and was able to record 4 programs and timeshift 2 of them to different clients)

Greetz,
Ben