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Media Portal Frontend on Compact flash - Tutorial/Howto
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<blockquote data-quote="BennieBoy" data-source="post: 258738" data-attributes="member: 12527"><p><strong>Introduction</strong></p><p>I wanted my MP frontend as quiet as possible. For this I wanted to remove as much as moving parts as possible.</p><p>The harddisk is such a moving part which had to go. </p><p>As I have the TV-Server running on a separate computer, no TV cards are present in the frontend.</p><p>See Cold Startup at <a href="http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ8rIXTbxUs" target="_blank">YouTube - Boot XP From Compact Flash (then MediaPortal)</a></p><p></p><p><strong>Setup</strong></p><p><strong><em>Frontend </em></strong></p><p>Gigabyte AMD939 board with Athlon 3000</p><p>DVD drive</p><p>512 Mbye memory</p><p>4Gbyte Compact Flash card connected to the IDE port by use of a CF2IDE converter.</p><p>NVidia 6600LV passive cooled.</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Backend</em></strong></p><p>Intel 775 board with Pentium4 3.2Ghz</p><p>1.5 Gbyte Memory</p><p>1.2Gbyte of storage</p><p>1 Hauppage PVR500</p><p>1 NTTV card</p><p>1 Hauppauge DVB-S Nova</p><p></p><p>This tutorial will assume you will have TV Server on a separate machine and use a dedicated Client PC as frontend. To make this Client PC as small and quiet as possible the Harddisk is replaced by a compact flash card (costing no more then $30,- max).</p><p></p><p><u><strong>Hardware to buy (costs about $30 including shipping)</strong></u></p><p>Goto ebay and search for "compact flash ide" or when you have an s-ata port to spare, search for "compact flash sata".</p><p>While you are there, search for "compact flash 4G" to obtain a compact flash card. </p><p>40speed will do fine (everything faster is a nice to have)</p><p></p><p><u><strong>Tip</strong></u></p><p>Do your full install on a harddisk and after you completely finished installing everything you want, GHOST the harddisk to compact flash.</p><p></p><p><u><strong>Sofware</strong></u></p><p><em><strong>nLite</strong></em></p><p>Download, install and startup nLite ( <a href="http://www.nliteos.com" target="_blank">nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation</a> )</p><p>Click "Browse" to select your XP CD</p><p>Select your (empty) working directory</p><p><em>(you can load the ini files attached to this message)</em></p><p></p><p>Select the actions you want to perform</p><p><strong>Service packs</strong> for installing the latest XP SP3 (SP3 contains SP1 and SP2, so only SP3)</p><p><strong>Hotfixes</strong> for installing the latest updates from windows Update (and other stuff you want to include)</p><p><strong>Drivers</strong> for installing the drivers for your hardware like the graphic card, Ethernet, sound driver etc</p><p><strong>(Remove) Components</strong> for removing everything you are not going to use (like fonts obsolete drivers, etc</p><p><strong>Unattended</strong> will give you the possibility to startup the install and go to sleep.</p><p><strong>Options and Tweaks</strong> will give you the possibility to tweak the system to your needs, like the way XP starts up, the way XP looks, etc.</p><p><strong>Bootable ISO</strong> To create a bootable Disk or ISO with all your stuff included</p><p></p><p><strong>Things you really have to do with nLite</strong></p><p>You can choose to do nothing and only do the drivers section and unattended, but, do also the following to make things a bit faster:</p><p>Tweaks:</p><p> Performance: Disable Last Accessed Time stamp on files</p><p> Performance: Disable optimized hard disk when idle</p><p> Performance: Disable paging of kernel and core-os</p><p> Performance: Minimal Power Management</p><p></p><p>Startup your computer with only the CD/DVDRom and CF connected</p><p>Boot from CD/DVD Rom</p><p>When requested, select the CF as installation disk and (quick) format it as NTFS.</p><p>From this moment on, go on holiday, go to sleep, work or whatever because the installation will take a long time as writing to the CF is very slow.</p><p></p><p>When you come back (After a few hours or so), you will have a booted system, hopefully with all drivers in place and ready to go.</p><p></p><p>It will be kind of slow and sluggish and every write to the CF will be notices as an hickup.</p><p>Here EWF will be used later on to make a bleeding fast system (further in the How To).</p><p></p><p>Do not install to much at this moment as you will pollute your system.</p><p></p><p><strong>Perform the following tasks to improve the speed (can also be done in nLite)</strong></p><p>Turn off system restore</p><p>Right-click My Computer -> Properties -> System Restore tab -> Enable Turn off System restore on all drives</p><p></p><p>Disable Indexing Services</p><p>Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Window Components -> Uncheck the Indexing services</p><p></p><p>Disable Hibernation</p><p>Set Windows to auto-logon a single user</p><p>Disable Fast-user Switching</p><p>Disable System File Proctection</p><p></p><p>Disable paging</p><p>Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory</p><p>Set it to “no paging file” and press “Set”</p><p></p><p><strong>On your server, prepare the following:</strong></p><p>Create an empty directory</p><p>Create a Shared Disk from this directory e.g. \\server\MP</p><p>Download <strong>MP </strong>to this directory</p><p>Download <strong>ffdshow </strong>to this directory</p><p>Download <strong>Haali Matroska splitter </strong>to this directory</p><p>Download <strong>VNC </strong>to this directory (handy to configure things from your main PC)</p><p>Download <strong>EWF </strong>(part of a package found <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9bdf1dea-a37e-4d25-83df-aabbaa78914f&displaylang=en" target="_blank">here</a> )</p><p>Unpack this ISO to a a directory named \\server\MP\XpeSP2FeaturePack2007 (use WinRar or simular)</p><p>Within the \\server\MP\XpeSP2FeaturePack2007 directory, there is a file called xpefp2007.exe</p><p>UNpack this file (with winrar) to a directory called \\server\MP\XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007</p><p></p><p><strong>Back to your Frontend PC (Client)</strong></p><p>To run .NET applications (like MP) from a network share, you have to tell the system that the share is trusted. If you do not do this, you will get a Security Exeption.</p><p></p><p><em>Trust the share</em></p><p>open command window.</p><p>cd C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727</p><p>caspol -m -ag LocalIntranet_Zone -url \\server\MP\* FullTrust</p><p></p><p>Create a shortcut, on your desktop, to the previously created share ( \\server\MP). This will become handy because you will use this a lot.</p><p>Create a Commit.bat file on your desktop (will come in handy later on) with the following content: </p><p>“ewfmgr c: -commit”</p><p> </p><p>Install ffdshow</p><p>Install Haali Matroska splitter</p><p>Install VNC</p><p>Install MP to \\server\MP. The reason is that changes made in MP will be saved (EWF will prevent it from saving it to c:\....)</p><p></p><p>Reboot your system and make a backup (I just used ghost to write it to a temporary attached hard disk).</p><p></p><p><strong>Enhanced Write Filter</strong></p><p>EWF will sit between your applications (also the operating system) and your Hard disk or Compact Flash Card. It will intercept all writes to the Disk and store it in RAM. As RAM is very fast (in respect to HD en CF) this will done instantly. When you reboot the system, you loose all the changes. This does not sound ideal, but it really is as your system will be rock steady. Whenever you need to write changes to your hard disk or CF, you can use the Commit.bat file described previously.</p><p></p><p>Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewfntldr </p><p>to c:\ntldr (this will overwrite your original ntldr</p><p>Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewfmgr.exe</p><p> to c:\windows\system32</p><p>Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewf*.dll</p><p> to c:\windows\system32</p><p>Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewf.sys</p><p> to c:\windows\system32\drivers</p><p>Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\horm.dat</p><p> to c:\</p><p></p><p>Save the attachment <a href="https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/attachments/mediaportal-1-talk-45/20749d1210098726-media-portal-frontend-compact-flash-tutorial-howto-ewf.reg.txt" target="_blank">ewf.reg.txt</a> to C:\ewf.reg and open it.</p><p></p><p>I myself had problems with the following key</p><p>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root</p><p>If you have too, go into the registry and set the Permissions of Root (temporary) to full control.</p><p></p><p><strong>Reboot</strong></p><p></p><p>If everything is OK, you will have a relative fast booting system which handles very fast when is up and running. </p><p></p><p><strong>Some Timing</strong></p><p>12.8 Seconds when BIOS Information disappears</p><p>16.9 Seconds when I see the windows Logo with KnightRider Bar</p><p>23.0 Second when I see my Desktop</p><p>40.1 Seconds when MP is fully started</p><p></p><p><strong>Remark</strong></p><p>When the PC boots into windows and MP is automatically started, it can happen that the network is still not available. For this, I wrote a small program which can be started from the "Start Menu"/"Programs"/"Startup".</p><p>It is Called WaitForNetwork and takes 3 arguments</p><p> <em>TryForNumberOfMillisecond</em></p><p> <em>HostNameOfYourShare</em></p><p> <em>FullNetworkPathToMP</em></p><p></p><p>It will start MP the moment it finds the computer with the network share.</p><p>You should disable Automatic startup in the configuration.</p><p></p><p>You can use this small application also for starting other stuff from the network share. Just replace the FullNetworkPathToMP to the Full Path to your Program.</p><p>I wrote everything down from memory so feel free to comment.</p><p></p><p>Have fun,</p><p>Ben</p><p></p><p>______________________</p><p><span style="color: Sienna">some of my [HowTo] guides</span></p><p><a href="https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediaportal-1-talk-45/media-portal-frontend-compact-flash-tutorial-howto-38610/" target="_blank">Media Portal Frontend on Compact flash - Tutorial</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BennieBoy, post: 258738, member: 12527"] [B]Introduction[/B] I wanted my MP frontend as quiet as possible. For this I wanted to remove as much as moving parts as possible. The harddisk is such a moving part which had to go. As I have the TV-Server running on a separate computer, no TV cards are present in the frontend. See Cold Startup at [url=http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ8rIXTbxUs]YouTube - Boot XP From Compact Flash (then MediaPortal)[/url] [B]Setup[/B] [B][I]Frontend [/I][/B] Gigabyte AMD939 board with Athlon 3000 DVD drive 512 Mbye memory 4Gbyte Compact Flash card connected to the IDE port by use of a CF2IDE converter. NVidia 6600LV passive cooled. [B][I]Backend[/I][/B] Intel 775 board with Pentium4 3.2Ghz 1.5 Gbyte Memory 1.2Gbyte of storage 1 Hauppage PVR500 1 NTTV card 1 Hauppauge DVB-S Nova This tutorial will assume you will have TV Server on a separate machine and use a dedicated Client PC as frontend. To make this Client PC as small and quiet as possible the Harddisk is replaced by a compact flash card (costing no more then $30,- max). [U][B]Hardware to buy (costs about $30 including shipping)[/B][/U] Goto ebay and search for "compact flash ide" or when you have an s-ata port to spare, search for "compact flash sata". While you are there, search for "compact flash 4G" to obtain a compact flash card. 40speed will do fine (everything faster is a nice to have) [U][B]Tip[/B][/U] Do your full install on a harddisk and after you completely finished installing everything you want, GHOST the harddisk to compact flash. [U][B]Sofware[/B][/U] [I][B]nLite[/B][/I] Download, install and startup nLite ( [url=http://www.nliteos.com]nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation[/url] ) Click "Browse" to select your XP CD Select your (empty) working directory [I](you can load the ini files attached to this message)[/I] Select the actions you want to perform [B]Service packs[/B] for installing the latest XP SP3 (SP3 contains SP1 and SP2, so only SP3) [B]Hotfixes[/B] for installing the latest updates from windows Update (and other stuff you want to include) [B]Drivers[/B] for installing the drivers for your hardware like the graphic card, Ethernet, sound driver etc [B](Remove) Components[/B] for removing everything you are not going to use (like fonts obsolete drivers, etc [B]Unattended[/B] will give you the possibility to startup the install and go to sleep. [B]Options and Tweaks[/B] will give you the possibility to tweak the system to your needs, like the way XP starts up, the way XP looks, etc. [B]Bootable ISO[/B] To create a bootable Disk or ISO with all your stuff included [B]Things you really have to do with nLite[/B] You can choose to do nothing and only do the drivers section and unattended, but, do also the following to make things a bit faster: Tweaks: Performance: Disable Last Accessed Time stamp on files Performance: Disable optimized hard disk when idle Performance: Disable paging of kernel and core-os Performance: Minimal Power Management Startup your computer with only the CD/DVDRom and CF connected Boot from CD/DVD Rom When requested, select the CF as installation disk and (quick) format it as NTFS. From this moment on, go on holiday, go to sleep, work or whatever because the installation will take a long time as writing to the CF is very slow. When you come back (After a few hours or so), you will have a booted system, hopefully with all drivers in place and ready to go. It will be kind of slow and sluggish and every write to the CF will be notices as an hickup. Here EWF will be used later on to make a bleeding fast system (further in the How To). Do not install to much at this moment as you will pollute your system. [B]Perform the following tasks to improve the speed (can also be done in nLite)[/B] Turn off system restore Right-click My Computer -> Properties -> System Restore tab -> Enable Turn off System restore on all drives Disable Indexing Services Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Window Components -> Uncheck the Indexing services Disable Hibernation Set Windows to auto-logon a single user Disable Fast-user Switching Disable System File Proctection Disable paging Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings -> Advanced -> Virtual Memory Set it to “no paging file” and press “Set” [B]On your server, prepare the following:[/B] Create an empty directory Create a Shared Disk from this directory e.g. \\server\MP Download [B]MP [/B]to this directory Download [B]ffdshow [/B]to this directory Download [B]Haali Matroska splitter [/B]to this directory Download [B]VNC [/B]to this directory (handy to configure things from your main PC) Download [B]EWF [/B](part of a package found [URL="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9bdf1dea-a37e-4d25-83df-aabbaa78914f&displaylang=en"]here[/URL] ) Unpack this ISO to a a directory named \\server\MP\XpeSP2FeaturePack2007 (use WinRar or simular) Within the \\server\MP\XpeSP2FeaturePack2007 directory, there is a file called xpefp2007.exe UNpack this file (with winrar) to a directory called \\server\MP\XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007 [B]Back to your Frontend PC (Client)[/B] To run .NET applications (like MP) from a network share, you have to tell the system that the share is trusted. If you do not do this, you will get a Security Exeption. [I]Trust the share[/I] open command window. cd C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 caspol -m -ag LocalIntranet_Zone -url \\server\MP\* FullTrust Create a shortcut, on your desktop, to the previously created share ( \\server\MP). This will become handy because you will use this a lot. Create a Commit.bat file on your desktop (will come in handy later on) with the following content: “ewfmgr c: -commit” Install ffdshow Install Haali Matroska splitter Install VNC Install MP to \\server\MP. The reason is that changes made in MP will be saved (EWF will prevent it from saving it to c:\....) Reboot your system and make a backup (I just used ghost to write it to a temporary attached hard disk). [B]Enhanced Write Filter[/B] EWF will sit between your applications (also the operating system) and your Hard disk or Compact Flash Card. It will intercept all writes to the Disk and store it in RAM. As RAM is very fast (in respect to HD en CF) this will done instantly. When you reboot the system, you loose all the changes. This does not sound ideal, but it really is as your system will be rock steady. Whenever you need to write changes to your hard disk or CF, you can use the Commit.bat file described previously. Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewfntldr to c:\ntldr (this will overwrite your original ntldr Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewfmgr.exe to c:\windows\system32 Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewf*.dll to c:\windows\system32 Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\ewf.sys to c:\windows\system32\drivers Copy \\server\MP\ XpeSP2FeaturePack2007\xpefp2007\rep\horm.dat to c:\ Save the attachment [URL="https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/attachments/mediaportal-1-talk-45/20749d1210098726-media-portal-frontend-compact-flash-tutorial-howto-ewf.reg.txt"]ewf.reg.txt[/URL] to C:\ewf.reg and open it. I myself had problems with the following key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root If you have too, go into the registry and set the Permissions of Root (temporary) to full control. [B]Reboot[/B] If everything is OK, you will have a relative fast booting system which handles very fast when is up and running. [B]Some Timing[/B] 12.8 Seconds when BIOS Information disappears 16.9 Seconds when I see the windows Logo with KnightRider Bar 23.0 Second when I see my Desktop 40.1 Seconds when MP is fully started [B]Remark[/B] When the PC boots into windows and MP is automatically started, it can happen that the network is still not available. For this, I wrote a small program which can be started from the "Start Menu"/"Programs"/"Startup". It is Called WaitForNetwork and takes 3 arguments [I]TryForNumberOfMillisecond HostNameOfYourShare FullNetworkPathToMP[/I] It will start MP the moment it finds the computer with the network share. You should disable Automatic startup in the configuration. You can use this small application also for starting other stuff from the network share. Just replace the FullNetworkPathToMP to the Full Path to your Program. I wrote everything down from memory so feel free to comment. Have fun, Ben ______________________ [COLOR="Sienna"]some of my [HowTo] guides[/COLOR] [URL="https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mediaportal-1-talk-45/media-portal-frontend-compact-flash-tutorial-howto-38610/"]Media Portal Frontend on Compact flash - Tutorial[/URL] [/QUOTE]
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