Windows XP Embedded (XPe)

[stoked]

I've been playing with AoE (ATA over Ethernet) and i-SCSI. I managed to get AoE booting off the network via PXE and gPXE. When I use native linux for an AoE target, disk I/O is very fast 50MBps average, however since TVServer requires Winblows I tried it again with a Vmware guest linux system and I/O is around 15MBps. Using Gigabit without jumbo frames because my gigabit wireless router doesn't support jumbo frames (yet). I want to consolidate all network enabled services on a single server, ie. DVB cards, TVServer, filesharing, AoE/iSCSI on one machine which therefore has to be windows for TVServer. Unfortunately, there are no AoE targets for Windows, so I'm now looking at iSCSI. There are Windows iSCSI initiator and targets but no XP bootable initiators as far as I can tell. I'm trying to get Rocketdivision's Starport iSCSI client to work. Farthest I got was XP splash screen and then it crashes. Needs more testing.

[esajesa]

Just thought I might be able to give a few pointers as well..

I've tried this setup on two different models of thin clients from HP, and I've both struggled with XPe, and a stripped down (nLite) version of XP. I find that the stripped down version is easier to work with than XPe, and basically they're the same, only the exact opposites.. Opposites in the way that in XPe you build from scratch, ie you have to ADD every functionality, while with eg nLite you do it the other way, you strip away and REMOVE functionality. As long as you know what you're doing I'd say they're equally efficient.

There are a few things you need to steal from XPe if you want to do it the nLite way, and the most important thing would be the EWF (Enhanced Write Filter) to protect the flash memory. If you don't use that you will crash your flash mem really quickly, since a flash memory is made to be read a lot but written a little.

I would also suggest you remove any swapfiles on your drive.

However, keeping all this in mind, at least on my thin clients, which aren't brand new, MP runs really really slow. It works, but it's not pleasant.

The reason eg Dreambox is much smoother on "thin type" hardware is that the OS overhead is so much smaller, and the GUI application itself is compiled to leave a small footprint, whereas MP isn't exactly the most resource efficient application in the world.. ;-)

I'd much prefer finding a small form factor (and quiet) barebone PC and use that, alternatively a high spec mini-ITX PC. IF you're gonna do that and use a CF card with an IDE adapter, make sure the CF card can be used as a fixed drive, as opposed to a removable disk. Windows doesn't like having it's system drive on a removable disk, even though it could work.

Hope this helps a bit!

//Jens

[BennieBoy]

Hi again,

I have to say that I did not use the write filter.
I did some tweaks to reduce the amount of writes to the USB-Stick.

Works OK for 6 months now, so EWF is not really needed.
I find the speed of MP OK. Not really sluggish.
Maybe a bit slower than started from hard drive, but not bad at all.

Another possibility I tried was starting MP from a network drive.
Worked quite well without a real disadvantage.
For this you have to tell .NET that MP may be started form this network drive, else you will get a security exception.

I know there are issues with the Compact Flash which is identified as a removable drive, but I did not have a problem with that. I bought the cheapest I could find (19 euro for 2 Gbyte. You can buy a 4Gbyte for the same amount now). It is a 40speed version. 266x would be nicer, but not really needed.

The USB-Stick however was seen as a removable device. With some registry tweaks, it is now recognized as a fixed drive. No SWAP space is used.

Greetz,
Ben

[Gixxer]

hi BennieBoy, some time ago i open i thread to see if someone had thought about using a USB to have xp +mp and therefore no hard drive in the client pc.

i can see u have manage to do it.

could you give a little explanation on how to do it, something to start with. and important things to have in mind when doing it?

thanks !!

[BennieBoy]

Hi,

I just noticed that my first link to the explanation of a usb-bootable XP was not working
Here it is again Running Windows XP from a USB-Stick / HDD
I also changed my previous post so that link is working too.

Follow the description to build an USB bootable installation CD.
If you boot from USB harddisk, everything should be OK

If you boot from USB-Stick, you have to overwrite 2 files at least I had too)
usbstor.sys AND usbhub.sys with the versions found in a pre-service packed XP (or XPe).

Without these files I could only boot into XP using Save Boot.

Success,
Ben

[BennieBoy]

Today I installed a new XP and mediaportal onto a Compact flash card.
I first created an unattended XP installation with nLite. While ding this, I also installed the latest Service Pack and all the updates since SP2.

Installation of XP is deadslow, but it was done while I was sleeping as the install was made unattended.
To be honest, everything is quite slow, until ................

Everything started flying when I installed EWF.
EWF makes sure that every write to the CF is intercepted and written to RAM (making changes during that session still available when needed). When you restart the system, everything is the same as you started earlier.

I installed Mediaportal onto a network share, so whenever MP changed data, it is written to this share too.
Recording is done by my server.

I have to admit, it is fun to try things out now as whenever you screw up, you simply restart the PC and voila, everything is OK again.
I you want to save the changes, you can commit them to CF and reboot. This will take quite long as everything has to be written to the SLOOOW CF (40speed). But, this will not happen too much.

The result of this is that you have a very robust environment where things are almost impossible to go wrong. Even when power fails while the system is heavily writing data to the (filtered) disk, it does not get corrupt. EWF can also be used on a normal harddisk.

Booting is a treat too. The system starts up quite fast and shuts down even quicker.

Greetz,
Ben

[canarygsr]

I havent used Nlite before, are you able to use a list of required componets to install? and the unattend settings?

[xvffx]

shouldn't we try and get MP1/2 on these babies ?

Chip PC - Jack PC EFI-6900 Thin Client

can anyone tell me this is doable ?

Vff

[BennieBoy]

Nope, with these thins clients all processing power is located in the server.
At least, that's what I'm told.

I type a whole lot about using nLite which was posted and is now gone???
Is this automagically removed???

[canarygsr]

ok so there is no settings file for nlite?
I Have a Via Epia CN1000 Lying around do you think it would work ok a a front end?