[Help] Gena Win PE 1 rambooting tutorial

Hello Lancelot!

I am stuck up at importing wireless profile. After some trial and error runs with and without PENM here is my conclusion.

1. Without PENM Gena boots and smoothly connects to a wifi ssid. But after every reboot it forgets the profile.

2. With PENM Gena boots ok, but does not connect to any wifi ssid. It shows available ssids though. PENM thows up an error when adding or importing a preferred network.

I think option 1 is the way forward. Interestingly, I found a comment in 20CoreNet.script that there is a bug in creating wlan interface. This fact is evident from a command : netsh interface show interface

The above command lists all the network interfaces recognised by the system. When I add PENM the list is empty. But when I use native network support instead of PENM, the list is populated with 3 interfaces one of which is wifi lan.

Is there any way to add wifi profile ? This is the last step in automating my setup. Do you recollect what happened 10 years back? 

Thank you!

-Gamma

Hi Gamma,

Flat boot will not save registry setting on all PE

which is a persistent boot.

no it is not.

+
It is a bit complicated to boot Gena Flat Boot but there is an easy path
use
BootDI to create image
(imdisk required like RegFactory case )

(I can not test now, I hope all continue working fine with BootDI ... change image size on BootDI ui if required ... )

copy content of .img file created by BootDI to usb disk (or partition ....) - media
(inside .iso you will find ...img file which contains Gena ... )

rest is adjusting your media bootloader to flat boot Gena.

---->
Keep in mind registry not saved ....

**
I hope you are testing with the latest PENetwork.


**
> Do you recollect what happened 10 years back?
You are using the best collection 
That is the reason wi-fi works on your path with one of possible path now.

10 years back I was not using wifi on Gena (I still do not use wifi on PE).

as a result I never tested PENetwork with wifi or wifi-profile .

ps:
I guess you need to run PENetwork first at HostOS to save profile and later add this profile file to Gena ....

But
since Native wifi works on your side but PENetwork do not,

something Holger can fix on PENetwork.

Better report to Holger on another topic
http://theoven.org/index.php?topic=247.msg36881#msg36881

post such things to any developer in a reproducible simple way providing all possible info,
 so a developer can understand what is going on.


****
What you are trying to figure out is saving wifi profile settings of windows
and use it after Gena Boots.

I believe there should be applications doing such backup-restore things around internet. ?

*******
You are running on a very very long topic, split your problems and solve one by one .
Open a topic for each of your independent cases,
 so it will also be easy for others to find in the future.
  and you can get feedback from people who read topic title
    and .....

The current topic "[Help] Gena Win PE 1 rambooting tutorial" already solved.
backup/restore "wifi" profile is a different independent subject,
PENetwork profile related things (or bug report) is a different independent subject.
and so on ........


********
I can not test things for now , all written from memory, good luck. 

Hi Lancelot,

Thank you for your prompt response.

A big thanks for warning me about Gena flatbooting. You saved a lot of my time. 

As per your suggestion I was collecting info about PENM's connection problems. As I experimented with different versions of PENM, I found that ver 0.59.B2 is the most stable one. It actually helped me exporting and reimporting a wifi profile successfully. I just need to find out (from Holger) a shell command to import a wifi profile. 

As you pointed out, I need to split up my questions into different problems. But this project is almoast near to the end. So I won't be continuing this thread anyways.

I still need to produce a writeup. I suppose we can discuss about it over direct message .... ?

There is an interesting phenomena I noticed which I feel should share here. While playing with network tools, I mixed PENM and native support options. I first built Gena with PENM and the big blue button. Then I switched over to native network support. And instead of big blue, I chose little green button. Then over to create iso panel, I again hit little green button. Effectively I had native support as well as PENM. This is certainly not a clean way of doing the things. But it worked.

Thank you once again!

-Gamma

Hi Lancelot,

I have a quick question about flatbooting. I ran the '2 Create Image/BootDI' panel. But I could not locate the image file *.img. Can I use the contect of '...\Target\Gena' folder for flatbooting? That seems the closest content I can get, when BootDI image is missing.

Thank you!

-Gamma

If BootDI builds an iso ? there must be an .img file inside ....

+
It is quite long to explain to do manually (and I can not test for a while more ... )
Thanks to NIKZZZZ all done with BootDI very easy.

So, The easiest path is, make BootDI work to create iso 
 inside .iso you will find a disk image file (BootDI.img)
  Extract BootDI.img (probably 7z will work fine) to the media you want to disk boot ....

Hi Lancelot,

Thanks for your suggestion. I got this fatal error :

StrFormat - converted: [%IsoFile%] to variable: [%IsoFolder%] with result: [\]

The preceding line is :
IniRead - [%BaseDir%\Projects\Gena\script.project] Section [IniVariables] Key [BootSector] to variable: [%BootSector%] with value [bootsect.bin]

I checked %BaseDir%\Projects\Gena\script.project.script . The %IsoFile% variable is set to \Gena_RAM.ISO . But the section is [Variables] instead of [IniVariables].

I added the missing %IsoFile% variable in [IniVariables] section. But there is another error asking for %IsoFolder%. I guess I am missing something obvious here .... ! Is there any checklist which I can go through?

Thanks!

-Gamma

Hi Gamma,

I will try to find time to test this weekend (or hopefully before, no promise ) .....

I am sure very small things required to fix. 

Thanks for the update. I too will try my luck. Let us see how it goes...! :-)
-Gamma

Sorry Gamma,

very busy these days sadly including last weekend ......

On my top to-do list when I can find the time. 

Hi Gamma,

Took time,
one simple fix that takes time to figure out which missed from eyes in very past. (missed from eyes at 2017.11.22  )

+ Download Gena - Main Plugin (Plugin with a big green-white picture writing GENA FUN FREEDOM FLEXIBILITY)
+ Download Finals\2 Create Image\BootDI

ps: Memo: See: Small Green Download Button on Plugins - Reply 1: Update Plugins

 

*
Memo:
To have BootDI build :
Basic\BootsectorPE Plugin -> select grub4dos
Gena\Drivers\5 Ramdisk\WinVBlock - Plugin Enabled
Gena\Finals\2 Create Image\BootDI - Plugin Enabled

It takes a lot time during build at imdisk mount/unmount steps especiallay at BootDI step,
 wait patiently,
  I just build successfullly on Win10x64 host. 

*
Further after BootDI build for flat boot:
.\ISO\Gena\Gena_RAM.ISO
--> extract  7z you will find
BOOTDISKIMAGE.IMG
--> extract wiith 7z

\GenaPrograms\
\I386\
BOOTFLAG
bootsect.bin
MEDIA.DRIVE
ntdetect.com
ntldr

------> these are files ready for Gena flat boot. copy to the media (usb drive, 2nd partition of hd or whatever)



at this point, the media is ready for Gena flat boot,

further making flat boot of the media on your hands whatever bootloader you use

I can not remember details, write here bootloader & settings & adjustments you use to flat boot when you success. 

ps:
 I remember Vista already installed and you should be able to add setting to vista bootmngr to flatboot Gena,
  but I remember it was easier to me to add grub4dos to Vista bootmngr and make settings on menu.lst
  .... well too many options, on your hands now. 


Let us know