Wednesday 25 April 2018

Play WAV files from FreeDOS with E2B

You can play wav files using FreeDOS through your PC speaker, the sound quality is amazingly good!

This works on computers that have an internal PC speaker fitted but won't work on a VM as the PC Speaker is connected to a hardware timer chip which is not emulated by most VMs.

1. Go to http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/Digital_Sound_System#Download and download the 2006 version
2. Unpack the contents to a newly created \DSS folder on your E2B drive
3. Edit the \DSS\dss.ini file and change the SoundDevice section to use the PC Speaker as  device 8

[SoundDevice]
Device=8

4. Copy a .wav file to the \DSS folder (or several)

To play the wav file (e.g. ring03.wav)

1. Boot to E2B on a system that has a PC Speaker
2. Go to the DOS menu and boot to the FreeDOS floppy image
3. At the C: prompt type

cd \DSS
DSS ring03.wav /L-

The /L- tells it not to loop

You can press F1 for help, or type DSS /? for command line options.

Try pressing the Fn keys for different screen affects whilst it is playing.

I got a repetitive clicking sound approx. every second, but if you use the down-arrow to reduce the volume, it is less intrusive.

If you play an MP3 file, you get some horrible noise for a few seconds, but then it plays OK.
You cannot play midi files via the PC Speaker.

It does not seem to work on all systems for some strange reason (e.g no sound, bad sound or DSS crashes!), but does work on other systems.

Good Luck!

Saturday 21 April 2018

Installing Avaya Appliance Virtualization Platform (AVP) using E2B

When installing the Avaya Appliance Virtualization Platform v7 to a server, you usually need a DVD which contains an OS that installs onto the internal hard disk and a USB flash drive that contains a configuration file.

If you have an E2B (Removable-type) of Flash drive, you can install AVP without needing a DVD.

1. Download the AVP ISO
2. Drag-and-drop it onto the MPI_FAT32 Desktop shortcut
3. Run \MAKE_THIS_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.cmd
4. Run \_ISO\SWITCH_E2B.exe and switch in the new image file
5. Open Windows Explorer and copy your AVP .cfg configuration file to the root of the USB drive (there should be \EFI and \clover and \e2b folders present if you have the correct partition).

You should now find that you can boot to the E2B drive's CSM menu and select option 1 to MBR-boot to start the formatting of the internal drive and the unattended installation of AVP.

I have not tested this process using an E2B USB HDD, but it has been tested using an E2B USB Flash drive. As I think the script searches only Removable USB drives for the .cfg file, this does not work under a VM like VBox if the E2B USB drive appears as a IDE\SATA\SCSI fixed disk and not a true USB drive. You could connect a 2nd USB flash drive containing the .cfg file instead of placing the file on the E2B drive.

Headless Server

If your appliance has no keyboard or monitor, we need to make some changes to the \menu.lst file so that it runs automatically (which is dangerous because it will format the internal HDD!):

Thursday 19 April 2018

The Windows Answer File Generator website has moved!

It is now at www.windowsafg.com

This allows you to generate autounattend.xml files easily for both MBR and UEFI installs.

You can use XMLtoE2B.exe to tweak the xml file for use with E2B.

As I have lost the source files for XMLtoE2B, the top buttons which try to open pages on the old WAFG site will no longer work.


Easy2Boot v1.99b Beta now available


Changes from v1.98 are:
v1.99a - updated "\_ISO\WINDOWS\INSTALLS\APPS\CHOCBOX\chocolatey-core.extension.1.3.1.nupkg" to 1.3.3. Automatic bugfix for menu.lst file in old .imgPTN files if selected via the E2B menu system.

v1.99b - setting redir now suppresses the 'System Hard Disk (hd1) not detected' warning message, GIFtoIMA.cmd script now asks user for transparency\opaque background setting, Utilities Menu - List Files entry now has extra option to list UTILITIES_MEMTEST files, UPDATE_E2B_DRIVE.cmd now repositions cmd shell window, fix dpms2.g4b so doesn't crash VBox 5.2.8.

v1.99b is available from Alternate Download Areas.

I am still working on the eBook (it will be available as a PDF). There are still a few chapters to write, then lots of pictures to add + proof checking!

Tuesday 3 April 2018

Using SDI_CHOCO with Windows 10 1709 (and fixing the 'No internet' prompt)

The 1709 version of Windows (as well a many other versions - but not all versions!) seems to have broken internet connectivity during the Specialize pass of an automated install again and also broken something in MSOOBE.exe too!