Windows Engineers Edition x64

jube2

This is the post for the win7 x64 Engineering Edition, the posts for the other editions are here

http://bbs.eetop.cn/thread-319820-1-1.html
http://bbs.eetop.cn/thread-319823-1-1.html


What is Windows Engineers Edition ?

Engineers expect their tools to work well, efficiently, with minimal setup and continuously without glitches or problems, furthermore they should be easily configurable to individual
engineers needs, and any licensing should be non-existent or at least transparent to everyday work-flow and setup.
When it comes to software tools the same should be true, and mostly is. ( if you pick the correct package ) except when it comes to the most important software tool, the operating system.
As engineers we have had to put up with XP pro for years, although at core a beautifully crafted os it is covered in additions and bloatware which make it much less than it could be.
Then came Vista, an OS so bad that it was totally unusable and in fact the exact opposite of what an engineering tool should be
Finally Win7 which like XP had potential to make a suitable engineers tool but again the bloat and illogicality of the protection scheme killed its usefulness.

I as an engineer and as loud-spoken advocate of the philosophy of the engineering tradition,I have undertaken to remedy this situation.
So with the help of Nlite,RTlite, and black vipers site, and many hours of surfing i have created 5 new editions of windows which i hope fulfill all the criteria
of good engineering software tools

winxp_EE_2_1.iso............Codename "Alex"
Based on Windows XP pro SP 3 Corporate edition, incorporated, aug 2011
Pre activated and registered for life ( no serial or activation needed or wanted )
All bloatware services, progs, processes either removed or deactivated
Designed to run as a single user ( admin )
Security streamlined and made more logical
No compatibility with corporate networks
When installed and fully loaded with drivers progs etc, runs with <100mb memory footprint
Numerous tweaks to lay bare the inner workings and settings making OS management easier
Much faster installation, with no mysterious Microsoft call home activity ( in fact all non essential MS activity has been blocked )
Most suitable for netbooks, and other low power devices.
Some files or DLL's may be missing for specific progs, ( i have found 1 prog installation the missed a dll,i just downloaded the dll and put it in system32 dir )
I will release patches addressing some program dependency requirements as they appear


winxp_EE_2_3.iso............Codename "Temujin"
Identical to "Alex" EXCEPT !
The level of optimization is much less, and the level of compatibility is much greater.
Compatible with all networks
Compatible with all software ( extensively tested )
When installed and fully loaded with drivers progs etc, runs with >110mb memory footprint
Suitable for laptops and small systems
This is the version i personally have been running for 6 months now, not a fault in all that time, with progs from Comsol4 to Altium10 to Synopsis to MSOffice 2010 all run faultless


winxp_EE_2_3.iso............Codename "Xiang_Chin_De"
Identical to "Temugin" EXCEPT !
The level of optimization is much less, and the level of compatibility is much greater.
This make Xang 100% compatible with any piece of crap software you want to add, and 100% compatible with any weird multi-user or network configuration or anything else you can think of
but obviously adding all the crap back in will turn it into a standard xp setup,so why use Xang at all
When installed and fully loaded with drivers progs etc, runs with >140mb memory footprint


What is Win7 Engineers Edition ?

Unfortunately windows Xp is dying a slow but certain death ( as are we all ! ), drivers for laptops are getting harder and herder to find ( thats PM and key drivers especially),
and Software houses are now rapidly moving to pure 64 bit and win7, Cuda 4 is only on win7 for laptops, Some adobe products, Ansys and Comsol are on their way to win7 only,
and this is the last year for solidworks on Xp. So it looks like we are all being forced to abandon xp and with that in mind i have created Win7 Engineers Edition.

win7_EE_2_1_32.iso............Codename "Alex7"
Based on Windows 7 Professional SP1 x32, incorporated sep 2011
Fully activated with up to date activator ....Note the medicine that has to be applied to activate the copy is integrated into the installer
but be aware that some machines ( dell !! ) are notoriously difficult to patch so be patient and let the installer restart a few times if running
the hard to patch machines
All bloatware services and OS features removed or deactivated.
Security totally overhauled, all intrusive security features REMOVED !!!! Standard ( XP ) security retained
Retain the ability for full Glass desktop but configured as standard for functional desktop which takes half the memory
Not compatible with corporate networks
When installed and fully loaded with drivers progs etc, runs with <200mb memory footprint
<1GB install size ( not including hibernate file and pagefile )


win7_EE_2_1_64.iso............Codename "Alex764"
Based on Windows 7 Professional SP1 x64, incorporated sep 2011
Fully activated with up to date activator ....Note the medicine that has to be applied to activate the copy is integrated into the installer
but be aware that some machines ( dell !! ) are notoriously difficult to patch so be patient and let the installer restart a few times if running
the hard to patch machines
All bloatware services and OS features removed or deactivated.
Security totally overhauled, all intrusive security features REMOVED !!!! Standard ( XP ) security retained
Retain the ability for full Glass desktop but configured as standard for functional desktop which takes half the memory
Not compatible with corporate networks
When installed and fully loaded with drivers progs etc, runs with <200mb memory footprint
<1GB install size ( not including hibernate file and pagefile )



What Engineers Editions ARE NOT !!

These editions of windows OS are NOT for social networking, NOT for watching u tube, NOT for downloading mp3's from suspect sites, NOT for plugging into
restrictive governmental networks, NOT for tweaking ( all the best and working tweaks have been done for you ), NOT for inexperienced computer users.
If you want xp or win7 system tailored for social networking etc DOWNLOAD A NORMAL COPY OF WIN7, do not use a Engineers Edition


MultiBoot Notes.

These editions are most comfortable in a multiboot environment please refer to my article about how to successfully setup a multiboot, linux,
driven environment



***************************Win7 editions Post Install Instructions

In the case of Win7 EE there are a few post installation tasks to perform.
1)go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Task Scheduler,
2) Expand Task Scheduler Library, and get to windows tasks
3)Delete all non relevant tasks, read each entry to decide weather to keep or not, there is a hell of a load
of crap to remove there

**************************EE recommended utilities.

The EE editions are deliberately utility free which allows users to load their own utilities without being tied to microsoft products,
but which utilities to chose? Below is a list of utilities which are recommended by me for the EE editions,i do not make these
recommendations lightly,they come from many years of experience and i feel each is the best of its class for a whole host of reasons
i will not go into here, you simply have to trust me, if a particular util conflicts with your own personal preference please
seriously consider learning to use my recommendation, as i said you have to trust me on this
Most of these utils are actually free, so easy to download and update, the archives and such, which are not free, are easy to find on here or
elsewhere, if users of EE have more suggestions please post them here with a detailed explanation of why a particular util should appear in the list.

Web Browser...... Pale Moon
Text editor....... Notepad ++
Archivers......... Winrar AND UltraISO
System............ SysInternals Suite
Virtulisation..... Virtual Box
Privacy........... Xp AntiSpy
Anivirus ( should only be installed on one dirty partition, check your dl,s then migrate the data to a clen partition/system ).... Antivir
Office............ MSOffice 2010
Graphics.......... Adobe CS5.5 Master Collection



****************************Windows Update
Again quite deliberately the windows EE editions have no web update facility, updating via MS website it VERY VERY dangerous
for your system and you personally, so i point win EE users to the Autopatcher forums for all your windows updates
in a safe clean and unobserved manner, i will be including Autopatcher in a futuire service pack for those who cannot use Google
Please note the Autopatcher project is in need of funds please donate to them, this project is VERY important for EE and all
people interested in windows without the eye of microsoft upon us.







**************************Grub 2 a Multibooting Masterclass

Warning this article pre-depends quite a degree of knowledge in a few areas, it is after all a masterclass :)

1) you should know your way round grub2, you should know how to create a  40_custom file
2) you should know your favorite partition backup tool, i recommend Acronis TrueImmage 2011
3) you should know your way round your favorite linux distro, obviously featuring Grub2 rather than grub legacy
4) you should know your way round windows setups, 7 and XP

**** a note here, grub legacy still works very well in booting windows partitions, is much simpler to use,
and has fewer issues all round, so if you plan to stick to grub legacy most of this article will be irrelevant to you,
( a big nod to Arch users here ) BUT 90% of distro's have moved to grub2, grub legacy is now officially unsupported,
( if you dont count BURG ) and in linux that means certain death, it wont be long before a lot of distros require grub2
to boot.

Software tools needed

1) Acronis True Image ( or equivalent ) on bootable cd or memory stick ( dl Acronis set it up on a working computer, use the
  bootable medium tool to create Acronis on a disk or mem stick )
  
***** a note here not all mem sticks are created equally !!!!!!!!! depending on your usb controller hardware, the stick hardware,
the ,stick firmware and revision, your stick might or MIGHT NOT boot an os when plugged into your pc, it really is pot luck
so if your continually getting no joy try another stick and keep trying, i wish i could recommend a brand but after having gone through
20different types, i cant find a single brand where a 4gb and 8gb stick of the same range behave the same when booting!

2) Your favorite distro's on disc or mem stick
3) Your windows installations with working serials ( if not using EE's ), winXP only on cd ( dont try to get it on usb,it is a
nightmare and often fucks up the installation ) , win7 on stick or DVD ( will be too big for cd )


Common steps
These are the tasks to perform before anything else. I will be assuming for here on in that you are using the win EE
copies, it makes this easier since win EE were designed with multi-booting in mind.

1) Take a Acronis immage of a base XP istallation.
1a) Boot up you favorite distro, on a live cd/stick ( obviously ) find gparted, partition your discs so there are only
2 active partitions ( NOT logical ) the first should start from the first sector on the disc and be over 50gb,the second can be anywhere
( following the first is easiest ) and should be over 50gb
1b) Set up win EE xp ( Alex, Temugin or Xang ) on the first partition, add any drivers for the specific machine, add all the base utils,
do all the necessary start-up tweaking.
1c) Boot the machine with Acronis, take a image of EE xp the copy location being the second partition

2) Take a Acronis image of a base Win7 istallation.
2a) Boot up you favorite distro, on a live cd/stick ( obviously ) find gparted, format the first partition that contains the EE xp installation
from 1)
2b) Set up win7 EE ( Alex7 x64 or x32 ) on the first partition, add any drivers for the specific machine, add all the base utils,
do all the necessary start-up tweaking.
2c) Boot the machine with Acronis, take a image of win7 EE the copy location being the second partition

***** a note here, even with win7 EE ( could not stop this behavior without rewriting the installer !!! ) when setting win7 up you MUST force
the installer to install into a specific partition, DO NOT allow the installer to do its own partitioning, otherwise it will delete partitions
and arrange stuff to its own needs VERY BAD NEWS !!!

**** a note here, if you are going to be running different xp EE version, repeat stage 2 with Alex Temujin and Xian, so you have an image of each

3) Gparted your final Partition sceme
3a) Boot up you favorite distro, on a live cd/stick ( obviously ) move all your EE versions images to a removable drive of suitable
size.
3b) Use gparted to partition all your discs to your final partition configuration, see partitioning considerations below.

Partitioning Considerations
Ok now things get tricky and where the "masterclass" comes in :)
Your final partition scheme is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, you MUST get it right or you will end up having to do it again and again,
obviously i cannot tell you what your individual partition scheme should look like, it depends on your particular needs in
computing, but i can help by enlightening your design decisions with some hints

Hint 0..... If you only have 1 drive you will be making some very tough choices, get used to it :)

Hint 1.....Each hard disc can contain 4 primary partitions, each primary partition can be replaced with 4 logical partitions,
thus the combination's are as follows
4 primary
3 primary 4 logical
2 primary 8 logical
1 primary 12 logical
16 logical

Hint 2.....Xp partitions need primary partitions, any modern linux distro will run from primary or logical,
win7 will work from primary or logical, although i can only confirm correct function from a primary from
personal experience. Data only partitions should be in NTFS and on a logical partition

Hint 3.....Do not put 2 win7 partitions on the same disc, even with one of them hidden ( parttool statement from
grub2 ) they conflict because win7 has a nasty habit of writing to track0, which we will go into later.

Hint 4.....You only need 1 linux swap partition, all your linux distros will use the same swap no problem,
your swap can be on a primary or a logical, but older distros will complain if the swap is on a logical

Hint 5.....A win7 / Xp partition fully loaded with all the ECAD, EDA,GRAPHICS programs you will ever need
weighs in at approx 210 GB

Hint 6.....A win7 / Xp partition fully loaded with all the PLC, Visual Studio, National Instruments programs
you will ever need weighs in at approx 80 GB

Hint 7..... Linux partitions are only really usefull for a Host for embedded linux programming and penetration testing
do not try to turn one of your distro partitions into a ECAD station, take it from me its just not worth it.

Hint 8..... some windows programs ( normally prog licensing ) write to the unused sectors of track 0 where the code for
grub2 lives thus making the computer unbootable,the grub2 team have been made aware of some of the worst culprits and
have relocated their code to avoid the windows code segments, but they are not psychic and can only respond to
bugs posted, so if one day you cant boot after a windows software install, don't panic, just reinstall your distro
partition that contains the current grub files.

Hint 9.... If you have replaced your laptop discs with oversize versions ( ie it came with 2 500gb and you replaced with 2 1Tb
drives ) or you are running a "fake" RAID ( ie a software RAID ) put your logical partitions AT THE END OF THE DISC,
ie furthest away from track 0


3c)Setup your linux distros, set up each distro and let grub2 do its stuff without worry, the LAST distro you install
should be the one you will be using to host the grub config files. ( while you are at it copy your Win7 and WinXP images
to a data partition, if you have a data partition, it will make recovering the images faster )

3d)Boot the Machine with Acronis, recover the Windows partitions to the locations you have sorted out for them


Making Grub2 Work Well


And now you have a fully loaded multi-boot machine, you must do a tiny bit of code to make Grub2 boot the whole thing
correctly.

The "standard" way of making a 40_custom file is to copy the entries from the OS-prober section to 40-custom, add the partool
lines to the windows entries ( the drive map statements are already there ), move OS-prober from the grub.d folder,
do a update-grub, and that's it!

BUT

That in real life will lead to unstable booting of windows partitions on a second or subsiquent drive,and by unstable
i mean really fucking annoying!!!!! , on any particular boot you might corrupt your whole partition structure and lose EVERYTHING.
[ TARA!!!!!! and here comes the exclusive !! ]
The reason for this is that os-prober is shit and adds a needless and harmful line to the windows entries.
Here is a typical os-prober windows entry


menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)" --class windows --class os {
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod ntfs
    set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 8214AA3414AA2B5D
    drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
    chainloader +1
}


and this is the statement causing all the grief

    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 8214AA3414AA2B5D


The fix is laughably simple just delete that line in your equivalent 40-custom entry so it looks like this


menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Professional (on /dev/sda1)" --class windows --class os {
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod ntfs
    parttool (hd0,1) hidden-
    parttool (hd0,2) hidden+
    parttool (hd1,1) hidden+
    parttool (hd1,2) hidden+
    set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
    drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
    parttool ${root} boot+
    chainloader +1
}

and hey presto correct and predictable booting behavior, do not though delete the line from linux entries, it is needed!

Finally, booting straight from a windows partition to your base linux partition leaves some windows drives hidden cos
one cannot edit the first entry in grub.cfg and put parttool statements in there ( sice grub.cfg gets rewritten
on each update-grub ) the fix to this is to slightly modify the main grub script to echo the statements into grub.cfg on
compile time ,a sample is shown below

alexsilvester

sharing is useful ..

inbert74

good information