Some usefull hints

[JouriM]

Here is set of some usefulls Iv found during experiments with WebDT.

1. WinXPe contains nice tool named BOOTPREP.EXE.
Its a DOS application which write MBR with loader used in WinNT-style OSes (WinNT 4+, Win2k, WinXP).
Its a fastest and easyest way i know to restore MBR damaged by OS selector, another OS (like vista or MSDOS) and so on and make WinXP to start without resetup it.

2. If you experimenting with differend OSes on WebDT u will need an external bootable media.
Its possible to use a CD but its slowerst possible method.
Much faster to make bootable flash-drive.
Where are several ways to make a boot flash but all this methods are too complicated and u need to have some additional (useless in moust cases) soft.
If your desktop PC has FDD and your BIOS supports USB loading (almoust all do) u can use easy way to make boot flash.
a) format flash using FAT16 or FAT32 using any format tool
b) create bootable floppy (Right mouse button on FDD with floppy inserted, select format, check "create MS-DOS startup disk")
c) insert your formatted flash unto USB and boot from floppy created
d) find out which letter BIOS set to USB dongle (lets say it will be "D:")
e) transfer system to your flash using:

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sys a: d:

Sometimes sys cant copy command.com to dest drive. if so just copy it:

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copy a:\command.com d:

Now you can boot from your flash on your desktop or WebDT.
U can fill it with all tools need to setup or repair OS.

3. If you trying to create custop XPe instalation u will need to copy ton of files with long names.
Where are 3 ways to make this:
a) Hardest way
burn all files to CD, make it bootable, put some installer on it and install XPE from CD.
b) Medium way
Somehow create XPe flash disk, copy XPe setup files on the flash, boot from it and, after GUI starts, copy files to WebDT using explorer.
Very slow. Starting XPe from USB will take tens of mununes and, after it at last booted, u will need copy lots of files to WebDT by slow USB1.0...
c) Fastest way
Create bootable DOS flash, copy all nessesary files on flash on desktop and just copy files to WebDT under DOS.
DOS loads very fast (several seconts) and u will wait only util all XPe files will be copyed.
The only problem with DOS - it does not support long names.
Solution:
- download FAR (File and Archive Manager) from www.farmanager.com
Its very powerfull console application for manipulation with files.
- download DosWin32 (dos extender which allows to run Win32 executables under DOS) from www.doswin32.com
Run FAR using extender.
U got all power of windows console manager under DOS, including long names, plugins and so on!

[vinograd19]

For that issue I've used freedos once. It boots in 8 seconds.

[serialjoepsycho]

if anyone wants to make up a bart's pe image you can use this to make it a bootable usb: http://www.filefactory.com/file/ahg6b34 ... _0_0_7_zip

perhaps it could be used to make windows xp bootable with out barts pe I don't know using the windows pe environment that would already be on a  copy os windows. I don't know. I'd test it out but it doesn't work well in wine.