Windows PE and AutoIt

[mattw112]

I've found a few past posts where people say they have gotten this working?

I'm curious if anyone has a list of commands that don't work when one is in a PE environment (Latest Windows PE that comes with SCCM SP1 R2, 3 maybe)

I'm trying to simply query the registry for a value, then write a line to a .inf file. But everytime the Autoit.exe just errors. of course since I'm in the middle of an image build I dont really see what happens, I just see an Error 50 was posted. Which is little help.

Here's what I have so far, if anyone has a better way or notices something that wont work in PE let me know.

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Global $HAL = ""
Global $sHALsource = "C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386\sp3.cab"
Global $sSystem32 = "c:\windows\system32\Unpack"

$HAL = RegRead("HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\ACPI_HAL\0000", "HardwareID")

Select

Case $HAL = "acpipic"
    IniWrite("c:\sysprep\sysprep.inf", "Unattended", "UpdateUPHAL", "ACPIPIC_UP,C:\Windows\Inf\Hal.inf")
    $sHal = "HALACPI.DLL"
    $sNtoskrnl = "NTOSKRNL.EXE" 
    $sNkrnlpa = "NTKRNLPA.EXE"
    
Case $HAL = "acpipic_up"
    IniWrite("c:\sysprep\sysprep.inf", "Unattended", "UpdateUPHAL", "ACPIPIC_UP,C:\Windows\Inf\Hal.inf")
    $sHal = "HALACPI.DLL"
    $sNtoskrnl = "NTOSKRNL.EXE" 
    $sNkrnlpa = "NTKRNLPA.EXE"

Case $HAL = "acpiapic"
    If EnvGet("NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS") > 1 Then
        IniWrite("c:\sysprep\sysprep.inf", "Unattended", "UpdateHAL", "ACPIAPIC_MP,C:\Windows\Inf\Hal.inf")
        $sHal = "HALMACPI.DLL"
        $sNtoskrnl = "NTKRNLMP.EXE" 
        $sNkrnlpa = "NTKRPAMP.EXE"    
    Else
        IniWrite("c:\sysprep\sysprep.inf", "Unattended", "UpdateUPHAL", "ACPIAPIC_UP,C:\Windows\Inf\Hal.inf")
        $sHal = "HALAACPI.DLL"
        $sNtoskrnl = "NTOSKRNL.EXE" 
        $sNkrnlpa = "NTKRNLPA.EXE"
    EndIf
    
Case $HAL = "acpiapic_up"
    If EnvGet("NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS") > 1 Then
        IniWrite("c:\sysprep\sysprep.inf", "Unattended", "UpdateHAL", "ACPIAPIC_MP,C:\Windows\Inf\Hal.inf")
        $sHal = "HALMACPI.DLL"
        $sNtoskrnl = "NTKRNLMP.EXE" 
        $sNkrnlpa = "NTKRPAMP.EXE"    
    Else
        IniWrite("c:\sysprep\sysprep.inf", "Unattended", "UpdateUPHAL", "ACPIAPIC_UP,C:\Windows\Inf\Hal.inf")
        $sHal = "HALAACPI.DLL"
        $sNtoskrnl = "NTOSKRNL.EXE" 
        $sNkrnlpa = "NTKRNLPA.EXE"
    EndIf

Case $HAL = "acpiapic_mp"
    IniWrite("c:\sysprep\sysprep.inf", "Unattended", "UpdateHAL", "ACPIAPIC_MP,C:\Windows\Inf\Hal.inf")
    $sHal = "HALMACPI.DLL"
    $sNtoskrnl = "NTKRNLMP.EXE" 
    $sNkrnlpa = "NTKRPAMP.EXE"
EndSelect

; Unpack Files
DirCreate($sSystem32)
Runwait('cmd.exe /c expand ' & '"' & $sHalSource & '"' & ' -f:' & $sHAL & ' ' & $sSystem32)
Runwait('cmd.exe /c expand ' & '"' & $sHalSource & '"' & ' -f:' & $sNtoskrnl & ' ' & $sSystem32)
Runwait('cmd.exe /c expand ' & '"' & $sHalSource & '"' & ' -f:' & $sNkrnlpa & ' ' & $sSystem32)

; Copy files to System32
FileCopy($sSystem32 & '\' & $sHal, "C:\windows\system32\HAL.dll", 1)
FileCopy($sSystem32 & '\' & $sNtoskrnl, "C:\windows\system32\NTOSKRNL.EXE", 1)
FileCopy($sSystem32 & '\' & $sNkrnlpa, "C:\windows\system32\NTKRNLPA.EXE", 1)

Exit(0)

Thanks,

Terry

[spudw2k]

I'm not sure the RegRead will work, because it may or may not be using the system reg file from the hard drive...depending on the PE setup.

that's my guess; but I don't know for sure.

[mattw112]

Interesting idea. Can you think of anyway to test that or work around it?

Some more info though:

I am able to stop the deployment using F8 and get a command prompt. From here I was able to launch Regedit and I can see the path and keys I am looking for... I am also able to use the command 'set' to see the variables and I see the number of processors varible in there...

Somethign must be causing it to die though

I just ran another test I created a blank autoit with just "Exit(0)" in it and compiled and tried that and it failed too... so must not be related to Autoit? Must be something else? Hmm...

[mattw112]

I figured it out. Apparently no SCCM packages can be ran during a WinPE phase (even though they let you create them and assign them to run at that time). So it wasn't an issue with Autoit at all. Instead of installing through SCCM package I ran from a command line task during the WinPE phase and everything worked fine. Not sure why SCCM wont run a SCCM package, pretty much the same thing as running from a command line? Weird.

However I'm still curious if there are commands that wont work in Windows PE... someday when I have more time I'll test it out.

Terry

[Danny35d]

RegRead will work under WinPe. All depent which version of WinPe you are using. You need to load the registry hive located at HardDiskDriverLetter:\Windows\System32\Config they are called SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, and SYSTEM. WinPe 2.0 and lastest already load the registry hive for you just run regedit and look for them. A good learning example is RegEditPe you can download the .exe file or source code.

[TurionAltec]

I believe the poster here is trying to read what HAL WinPE is using (using regread), and modifying the Windows installation on the C: drive to match the hardware (by modifying sysprep.inf, and the HAL files).

If anyone is interested in modifying the registry of an offline Windows installation, use the Windows console commands "Reg /load" and "reg /unload"

reg load /?

Console Registry Tool for Windows - version 3.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1981-2001.  All rights reserved


REG LOAD KeyName FileName

  KeyName    ROOTKEY\SubKey (local machine only)
    ROOTKEY  [ HKLM | HKU ]
    SubKey   The key name to load the hive file into. Creating a new key
  FileName   The name of the hive file to load
             You must use REG SAVE to create this file

Examples:

  REG LOAD HKLM\TempHive TempHive.hiv
    Loads the file TempHive.hiv to the Key HKLM\TempHive