Hello. I'm running into a frustration that I somehow dealt with yesteryear.

Throughout the days I've used PEBuilder, WinBuilder and the trusty MKIMG.CMD against a copy of 03SP2 to create a premastered image of WinPE. I get what I need from each builder as long as I use the exact source used to create the original image in the first place.
I start the image in vmware and everything works right. I can get Notepad to pop up. I can install Windows with it, the whole shebang. However, I need to stick to MKIMG.CMD to keep the process under the contract and within legally supported boundaries.

Here's what I'm doing:

I created a LEGACY root for premastered images in ISO9660 and Joliet with modification titles. This is good so that when I run into a serious ****up I can just go back to the last good configuration by ripping the contents of the previously working image and starting from that point. To give you an idea, it looks a little something like this:
DaemonPE_0.01_ForgedRip1.iso 156,772 KB
DaemonPE_0.02_FBWF-6001.iso 157,016 KB

and so on...


I'm encountering a serious problem once I screw up somewhere:
I can't get the previous model working again. I use WinImage to rip the image contents and if I use a premastering tool like CDIMAGE, the build simply doesn't work right. This makes itself apparent once I launch WinPE in vmware and attempt to launch an application. I get an error saying the program can't be executed. CMD will load but that's it. It's about as useless as PicoXP except this build is several times bigger. I notice that the premastered image made from the ripped contents of a working image always has a bigger image size by about 70KB. Has anyone else experienced this problem? Why does this happen?

I had some serious issues when trying to copy the contents of an image some time ago with reactOS since I thought the image was extracted 1:1 - but it was not..

Empty folders were simply ignored and this caused BSOD while booting.

Solution:

Mounted the image as a drive and copied all contents of this image to a folder on disk - this worked like a charm.. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)


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Don't really know if this applies to your case but I'd at least compare both target and source directories to view differences.

ReactOS can be a pain. You know they're making an open source Windows with the same operation of WinPE right? They don't even know this. I was able to point out a fix for the start menu a few years back when I was having the menu hell in Longhorn. Not sure where the ReactOS project is headed right now. I haven't touched it for 3 years maybe. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

Anyway I've had the path difference happen before but I don't exactly know what's going on here.
I don't really notice anything out of the ordinary. Same file count, same folder count. Same There's a slight size mismatch somewhere. I think I might have gotten one of my build numbers mixed. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

ReactOS is slowly moving forward. Their latest release *looks* quite good - there is a ready to download/use qemu image available on sourceforge with qemu included - you see it working out of the box as quickly as it gets.

The only issue is a lot of apps failing to start when trying to run under ROS - hope things can improve over the next 10 years.

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I have no more ideas, but wish you good luck getting this issue sorted out.. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif)

10 years?! That's the lifespan of a Windows OS. What do you think we'll be using for a final stand then? Windows Server 2011?










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There needs to be a better marketing tool than just numbers. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

So far it looks like I fixed the problem. Now I can get back to fixing diskpart. The SP1 OPK is fine. It seems when I build from MKIMG(no args) with SP2, diskpart breaks. I might post a bolt when I get this figured out later. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/frusty.gif)

It already took them 10 years to reach this state and still seems halfway there.. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

10 years to; 10 years from? That's depressing. (IMG:../forums/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)