Alright, hey there guys. So recently I came up with an idea to create a WinPE after a little clash from someone over other forum. But that's not significant enough to talk about. When I was thinking of the various things that I personally wanted for myself I also tried to think of ways in which it could also be used by others in probably whatever way they wanted to. Now, I know most WinPE's are already in similar state. But, just bear with me since my ideas might already be implemented/thought of by others and already discussed herein on this forum.
- First, I would like the windows part of the WinPE to be entirely separate and sort of like a one and done WinPE. I don't think once a winpe is created it actually ever needs to be updated howsoever, since the main part of the WinPE is usually the applications. (I'm talking about the windows part or the boot.wim part responsible to get the windows running, just to be clear again)
- Now, afterwards I thought of letting users use their own set of applications instead of implementing them directly. But I saw that portable apps might pose some issues if I were also to keep the WinPE suitable for older systems with less ram to boot. In that case, plugins is my best choice of route. With that users are still free to use their own set of programs via using portable apps and remove these plugins if I implement it in the "Programs" folder, outside of the boot.wim file. So, it's all fine and good up to this point.
- Third, I wanted the WinPE to be able to be flat booted easily. I think this is one of the main part that I consider the winPE being multipurpose. That you don't just need to use a USB or external media to boot the WinPE through. I realized that the way to do it was only if I used the "Run from Ram" option for all the programs, integrating all the plugins into the boot.wim nullifying and going against my first goal above. I also realized why it was necessary to boot all the programs through Ram instead, but I think I might have found an alternative which also does not require portable programs. It's doable, but I have one slight query in that procedure which I'll ask below. I'll detail the procedure and explain how I intend to tackle it.
So, the reason why it needs to run all the programs from the ram instead is because, that way they would all be in the same partition and the WinPE would be able to detect them all. Generally speaking, when I create a VHD from the boot.wim file, if the programs aren't inside the VHD file it won't be able to detect the programs since they won't be present inside the VHD. That's why a flat boot requires the programs to be present in the boot.wim file aka "Run from Ram" mode. But, what if I still used the "Run from USB" mode, which requires the media to be mounted as Y partition making the whole Programs folder path as "Y:\Programs", and then turned that whole folder into an ISO and then made it so that it mounts as Y drive at boot. It would be the same as running the programs from USB, wouldn't it? That way, if I made the VHD booted it and let it mount that ISO from say, my USB as Y drive, making the programs available at "Y:\Programs" folder, it should work the same. The only caveat would be that it won't be able to save the temporary files or program files in it.
Also, even if it's in ISO mode, it would still be possible to update the programs easily and all. So that still keeps it in line for my purposes.
But there was a slight issue here. It might be a little hard to mount the iso from the USB since I won't be able to know what partition letter it would mount the USB at and as such I might not be able to determine the exact path where the ISO might be saved at on every other system. Unless there's a program that can do that and use the drive GUID or root path to determine the path instead of requiring a partition letter. Because of that it'll be a little troublesome.
And then, in case the above issue is not able to be tackled howsoever, my second problem would be that since I am not able to mount the ISO during the startup right after the booting, so the windows won't be updating the start menu and fill it up with the program shortcuts. So, if I were to mount the ISO afterwards, how could I repopulate/refresh the start menu after it has already booted and gone past that stage where it would populate the shortcuts on it's own.
I guess, I'll keep it at that for now. These are my major goals I think and the rest are only related to the windows part of it so I'll ask them later. Just suggestions on what to keep and what not to, from other's experience.
Thanks again for listening to me. And pardon me, if some of these things are already discussed here perhaps. I could take the time and search for them and won't be troubling others but it would be a lot easier for me if I asked it around and someone experienced and knowledgeable into these things could point me in the right directions, only if they were free enough. Not trying to offend anyone here, please only reply if my partial laziness doesn't offend anyone anyhow. Thanks again.
(Also, note to mods, in case this thread seems not that relevant enough to own an actual thread feel free to PM me about it and I'll post it in the other thread as a post, after which you can delete it up.)
If the "Programs Files" are on USB and not inside Boot.wim - then User could just Update Existing "Program Files" with Newer Program File Version....
And thanks again James, I'll get back to this one later in my second part of the questions. Just wanted to point it out and not leave it dry on the other thread.