XP-Based "Appliance" Computer

[dilettante]

Hacking Your Car: Install Windows on a CompactFlash Card looks pretty interesting.

Take something like a surplus fanless x86-based Thin Client, pull out the flash module and replace the software on it, and drop in your Hacked Windows XP... and you're on your way.

A lot of those units use a small card with flash memory that plugs into a laptop (44 pin) IDE socket on the board. If you can't figure out how to reflash that (or it's too small) you might drop in a fast CF-card and CF-to-IDE44 adapter.

And no more Linux grief! You can write your own code to run on the thing without resorting to caveman level coding in C or Java using tools predating the Harvard Mark I.


The basic idea described there is to start with a few bits from the XPe Trial package (which will expire on you, so no go) plus a retail full XP license and build a full XP safe to run from flash. You take a fresh XP install, turn off paging and indexing, etc., strip out stuff you don't need using a 3rd party tool if necessary, and then graft on a few system files from the XPe package.

I especially like the Hibernate Once, Resume Many option to make rebooting even faster.


This might be useful for lots of things. Webcam servers, robots, NAS, whatever.

Has anyone tried anything like this?

[Nightwalker83]

No, although, it looks interesting might give it a go later.

[dilettante]

Well don't wait too long.

The XPe Trial downloads are difficult to find now. As far as I know you get them by first downloading a "downloader" application then running that to get the pieces and parts of the Trial from some Microsoft server. I got lucky and found a site hosting the downloader.

Microsoft's pages on Embedded Windows keep trying to point you to versins based on Vista, Win7, and even Win8 now. And I don't think I even saw one for the Vista ("Standard") version anymore. The main downside of these newer ones is (you guessed it) higher hardware requirements.

[Nightwalker83]

If I'm not mistaken this is the page for the XP version. There is a link for it on the sidebar on the left-hand side of the page "Standard & XPe".

[dilettante]

Glad you found that, but I don't see the Trial link there.

I found a site that could provide the XPe Trial downloader (which when run, downloads the pieces of XPe Trial) but I never found that Microsoft Web page.

The approach I was considering only uses a few small files from the Trial, and then you use those with a full XP license and install disk.

You could also do something similar based on BartPE: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/...-drive/5928902

[Nightwalker83]

Damn, XPESP(n).iso must be something else then. That is the file I downloaded, n is number of the service pack.

[dilettante]

Those downloads are probably the ISO images of the XPe installation. But you'd need a license to use them and they are very hard to come by for an experimenter.

For a while they were running a "hobbyist" program with a lot of strings attached but even that's gone ("on hold") these days. I suspect they have abandoned the hobby market to Linux.

[dilettante]

I got hold of a Wyse V10L thin client for $80 new in box with keyboard and mouse.

So far I've done some testing and the BIOS looks conventional, can boot from USB, etc. Looks like Win XP will go on here fine. It came with 128K of Flash plugged into its IDE port (there's a second port on the board but no connector), which can easily be unplugged and replaced by a hard drive, SSD, or Laptop IDE-to-CF card adapter.

No room inside for a hard drive, but there's a cover you can take off to expose a slot big enough to get an IDE cable through as long as you want to recrimp the connector back on after threading it through.

There was 128K of RAM but it was a standard, slower SO-DIMM. I was able to replace that with a slightly faster 1GB SO-DIMM from an earlier upgrade of an older laptop. Seems to test out just fine.

The model I have has a DVI port and plug-in VGA adapter, PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, two USB ports in the rear and one up front, a fast Ethernet port, and audio in/out jacks up front. The power switch is on the front face too, and I believe I can configure Windows to shut down when it is pressed, allowing "headless" operation. The BIOS has an option to not fail on "no keyboard" errors.

If I get XP on there and configured for driveless operation I should be set: just add a cheap USB WiFi adapter or plug in a network cable.

The trick may be drivers, so I'll have to see how far I get. I think my next step will be to unplug the 128K Flash and boot from a USB DVD/CD drive, installing onto a USB hard drive.