This is a minor release that contains only bug fixes for the following functions:

• Dependency Tree Viewer in WES7 & POSReady 7
• Integration into POSReady 7 with /integrate switch
• Language Pack installation only when needed
• minor fixes

The new version of DISMUI received many updates including support for the current Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP1. One major change is the support of Modules which are the new way of adding features in Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP1.
A module is not only a combination of features of the OS itself – a Module can also contain custom files, drivers and custom commands that are executed when installed. This way you are again able to easily add your own application to your image.

Because Microsoft supports Modules only with Windows Embedded Standard 8 – DISMUI has an additional feature that brings Modules also to Windows Embedded Standard 7 and POSReady 7!

At the moment there is still the need to create the Module for Windows Embedded Standard 7 and POSReady 7 manually but it uses the exact same format as the Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP1 Modules.

I will publish a short manual soon how to create a Module and how to install it with DISMUI.

New Features

• Support for Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP1
• Module Installation in Windows Embedded Standard 7 and Windows Embedded POSReady 7
• Advanced OS detection and DS/Catalog Version detection
• Additional security checks
• Much faster detection of installed feature packages
• Option to switch the view between tree and list view
• Enhanced dependency and conflict checking

Feature Overview

• Online & Offline Servicing of
• Windows Embedded Standard 7
• Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP1
• Windows Embedded POSReady 7
• Online Configuration of Windows Embedded POSReady 7 and automated offline servicing
  (Important feature for POSReady 7 to stay supported)
• Integration into POSReady 7 – easy UI to service OS – even by the End Customer!
• Module Installation for Windows Embedded Standard 7 & POSReady 7
• Driver Installation
• Dependency Tree Viewer
• Dependency Checking
• Conflict Checking
• Footprint impact calculation
• Minimum Requirements Check
• and many more!

Our new tool "Windows Offline Configurator” is now available to download as an evaluation version from our website.

The tool allows you to build images offline on your development machine for

• Windows Embedded Standard 7
• Windows Embedded Standard 8 (CTP)
• Windows Embedded POSReady 7

The tool can be very helpful in the following scenarios:

• You have a slow target device where building take a very long time
• You want to fully customize POSReady 7 prior installation
  You can add and remove feature packages before installing the image
• You want to fully customize your image prior installation
  Including Out-Of-Box experience (Username, Computername, Product Key, Timezone, etc.)
• Install an image directly to a VHD file for easy deployment
• Have a footprint calculation during feature package and module selection (also for Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP!)
• Would like an easy to use and fast setup with many additional features
• Install Windows Embedded Standard 8 CTP with dependency and conflict check and all feature listed above

More details are on the product site.

DISMUI has received many new features and has been optimized – therefore it made it to Version 2.
The tool also received a dedicated site on the Elbacom website.

New Features

Automated Offline Servicing

POSReady 7 does not support online servicing of the operating system. Therefore DISMUI offers the "Service image offline" option which will automate the offline servicing for you. The configuration can be done online but all the servicing operations will be done in an on-the-fly created Windows PE environment!

This method can be used for Windows Embedded Standard 7 too.

DISMUI needs two files from the Setup media to create the Windows PE system. Please ensure that you have a setup media connected when choosing this option.

Footprint Calculation

DISMUI will calculate the estimated OS footprint when selecting or deselecting feature packages. This will inform you how your current selection will impact on the operating systems size.

Operating System Detection

When launching DISMUI it will detect on which operating system it runs on. The best option (Online, Online with offline servicing, Offline) will be chosen based on the current system. It will also disable the online mode when running on a full Windows 7 system. On Windows PE it will automatically find the image location.

Update Check

DISMUI now offers the ability to check for new updates from within the tool.

Icons

The tool has now received icons that were missing in the previous version to make it look more complete.

Required Components

DISMUI will now include all required components to run out-of-the box (or out-of-the-zip).

Other changes

• Improved automatic detection of distribution share
• Improved detection of MUI DVD
• Improved responsiveness while executing tasks
• Bugfixes & Other small improvements

Branding

We now offer to create a customized branded version of DISMUI.

If you are interested please contact us for more information.

DISMUI has been updated to fix some issues when installing Feature Packages in Offline Mode.

For bigger packages there was a need to create a scratch directory. DISMUI 1.4.2.1 is now creating a temporary scratch directory to solve the issue. This directory will be removed afterwards.

Other improvements:

• DISMUI detects if it is running under Windows PE (e.g. POSReady 7 Setup) and switches to Offline Mode and searches for the Windows installation automatically
• Logfiles are now saved in the correct location
• Scratchdir handling

A new version of DISMUI is now available. The new version features enhanced support for POSReady 7.

The following features have been added:

• Language Pack OPK DVD is now supported as Distribution Share Directory
  By selecting the DVD drive that contains the language pack DVD from the OPK you can easily add and remove language packs from your POSReady installation
• Language Pack directory of POSReady 7 OPK DVD added automatically
  DISMUI now adds the LangPacks directory of the POSReady 7 DVD automatically.
• Minor bug fixes

Olivier Bloch from the Microsoft Windows Embedded team created several very informative videos about various scenarios for Windows Embedded Standard 7 devices. He covers topics like why use Windows Embedded Standard 7, how to create a customized Media Center experience and shows how to benefit from features like DLNA.

The videos can be found in his blog on MSDN:

Windows 7 features for Embedded

Custom Media Center Experience with Windows Embedded Standard 7

DLNA support in Windows Embedded Standard 7

Microsoft has published a workaround for the case that you use EWF and that WinSAT is included in your image and it consumes too much memory.

The article is about the following scenario:

• You develop a Windows Embedded Standard 7 or Windows Embedded Standard 7 Service Pack 1 image for your device.
• You added "Performance Monitoring" package in your answer file using Image Configuration Editor.
• You added "Enhanced Write Filter with HORM" package in your answer file to protect the system (C:) volume.
• You deployed your image without executing "winsat prepop".
• You enabled EWF for the runtime image.

The complete article including the workaround can be found here.

Elbacom is working together with Coder for Life to provide you the Windows 7 Boot Updater tool that allows you to fully customize your Windows Embedded Standard 7 Bootlogo!
With the tool you can easily update your devices bootlogo so that the end user does not recognize that it is Windows that is running on the device.

The Windows 7 Boot Updater enables you to do the following customizations:

• Change the bootanimation
• Use a static image as bootlogo either as a fullscreen image or instead of the animation
• Change the texts and their positions
• Change the colors

The tool updates the bootscreen and also the resume animation when the device is resuming from hibernation.

Several checks assure that the update process of the customization was successful.

The tool works with the Standard Boot Environment and also with the Enhanced Write Filter Boot Environment of Windows Embedded Standard 7.

For more information and pricing please go to the Coder for Life website:

www.coderforlife.com/projects/win7boot/elbacom

Please note that the tool is modifying system files. So after a Windows Update there is a possibility that the bootlogo reverts to the original version.
The customization of the files is allowed in the ALTs of you Windows Embedded Standard product. However Microsoft will not support this change.
Elbacom and Coder for Life are not responsible for any damages - there is no warranty and no liability for any damages!

If you would like to boot the Image Build Wizard of Windows Embedded Standard 7 directly from the network via PXE from a Windows Deployment Server you can use the following script.

The script is designed to be run directly on the Windows Deployment server. To be able to run the script there are the following requirements.

Requirements

• Windows Deployment Server Role installed on a Windows Server
• Windows Deployment Server with a fixed IP Address
• Windows Automated Installation Kit 3.0 installed on the Windows Deployment Server
• Windows Embedded Standard 7 – Image Build Wizard DVD located in the DVD drive of the WDS Server

Usage

To execute the batch file copy and paste it to notepad on your Windows Deployment Server. Save it as createIBWBootImage.bat.

Launch the “Command Line for Deploymenttools” from the installed WAIK Tools with Administrator Permissions.

Start the createIBWBootImage.bat with the following arguments:

createIBWBootImage.bat <IBW Disk Drive/Path> <x86|x64> <IP Address of WDS Server> <Username> <Password>

The specified user must have permissions to access network shares on the server!

The batch file will then create a local copy of the IBW Disk and it will create a network share on the WDS.
After that it will create a new Windows PE image and modify the startcmd.net to map a network drive to the IBW Disk Share on the WDS.and launch the Setup.exe from the mapped network share. The modified image will then be added to the WDS Boot Image automatically.

After the image creation has succeeded you can boot from PXE and select the “Windows Embedded Standard 7 – Image Builder Wizard – x86” Image to start the installation.

Script

@echo off

REM ###########################################
REM # Create IBW PXE Boot Image for WDS
REM # (c) Elbacom created by Wolfgang Unger
REM ###########################################

IF "%1" == "" goto Usage
IF "%2" == "" goto Usage
IF "%3" == "" goto Usage
IF "%4" == "" goto Usage
IF "%5" == "" goto Usage

IF EXIST C:\WES7_IBW\%2 GOTO DIREXISTS

echo Creating Local IBW Image...
md C:\WES7_IBW\%2
xcopy %1\*.* C:\WES7_IBW\%2 /H /E /Y /C /V

:DIREXISTS
echo Creating Share
net share WES7IBW%2 /DELETE
net share WES7IBW%2=C:\WES7_IBW\%2

SET WORKDIR=C:\winpetemp

echo Creating Windows PE...
start /w cmd /c copype %2 %workdir%

echo Mounting Windows PE WIM...
dism /mount-wim /wimfile:%workdir%\winpe.wim /index:1 /mountdir:%workdir%\mount

echo Applying Startup Commands...
echo @echo off > %workdir%\mount\Windows\system32\startnet.cmd
echo echo Initializing... >> %workdir%\mount\Windows\system32\startnet.cmd
echo wpeinit.exe >> %workdir%\mount\Windows\system32\startnet.cmd
echo echo Connecting to server... >> %workdir%\mount\Windows\system32\startnet.cmd
echo net use N: \\%3\WES7IBW%2 /user:%4 %5 >> %workdir%\mount\Windows\system32\startnet.cmd
echo echo Launching Setup... >> %workdir%\mount\Windows\system32\startnet.cmd
echo N:\setup.exe >> %workdir%\mount\Windows\system32\startnet.cmd

echo Unmounting Windows PE WIM...
dism /unmount-wim /mountdir:%workdir%\mount /commit

echo Adding Image to Windows Deployment Services Server...
WDSUTIL /Verbose /Progress /Add-Image /ImageFile:%workdir%\winpe.wim /ImageType:Boot /Name:"Windows Embedded Standard 7 - Image Build Wizard - %2" /Description:"Windows Embedded Standard 7 - Image Build Wizard via PXE - %2" /Filename:WES7IBW%2.wim

echo Cleaning Up...
del %workdir% /s /q
rd %workdir% /s /q

echo Done!

GOTO Done
:USAGE
echo Usage: createIBWBootImage.bat IBW_Disk_Drive/Path Architecture WDS_IP_Address Username Password
echo Example: createIBWBootImage.bat D: x86 192.168.0.200 Domain\Administrator Pa$$w0rd
echo -
echo Architecture can be either x86 or x64
echo Username needs to have permission to access shares on the WDS Server!

:DONE