Dilema

[Turin]

Hey,

I want you guys to help me with (what appears to be an impossible) situation; I currently have TinyXP installed and it has been working perfectly for the last couple of months. I have recently encountered incompatibility issues and am finding it difficult to update intrinsic window components because in this miniture version of xp they are not included.

Whenever I try to directly install a component, or "upgrade" to XP, it provides me with a message along the lines of: Your current service pack is a higher version, we cannot continue installation.

I understand what the message is telling me, as it is a feature of TinyXP to make any windows website assume my OS is completely up to date and disallow any updates.

The first aspect of my dilema is getting around this problem, by somehow spoofing, or lowering the version of my windows so that the updates and forcefully installed. I have my reasons for installing certain updates and also understand the implications of driver conflicts arrising from backdated versions of certain files, but STILL would like to do so. Therefore is there a method of changing a registry value or some other change, which will lower the value of the System Version please?

---------------- ALTERNATIVE APPROACH --------------

Now, considering the alternative approach, I have tried to reinstall Windows XP. In the recent past I changed about some of my hardware; including the CD-DRIVE which at the time unbeknowest, I replaced with one which does not support self-boot. I am aware of the fact that there is a Windows floppy disk which will allow to install from a non-boot CD-Drive, but I do not have a floppy drive! Woop! It would for my own reasons once again be highly inconveniant if I had to buy a floppy disk or (maybe less so inconveniant, but still unwanted) a new CD Drive.

I have also explored booting off of USB Flash Drives, but my OEM Mobo doesn't have an updated BIOS on the net which allows for this...

So the only way I could see is to somehow spoof the system into installing SP2 or allowing the installation to start while the system is still online. Once again the error regarding "The system version is newer..." comes up.

Bah am I missing something?!!!

I really will appreciate any help, anyone can give and suggestions are very welcome.

Turin

 

[Turin]

Anyone =/?

Still no solution! AAh.

Turin

 

[craigy06]

best idea in ur cave is completely kill ur compute and buy a new 1 lol i cant think of any other way

 

[Turin]

Hmm, its not a bad computer tbh, I'm using the one Urban pretty much built for me a while ago, but this particular computer ... bah... nvm !! lol. I'll take your advice, I'm close to chucking it out my bedroom window. It's a big window. It'll fit.

^^
Turin

ps - Meanwhile if anyone has any bright ideas, I more than welcome them ^^

 

[Aquilo]

I know this sounds a little....extreme. But it worked for me once.

--

Grab yourself an ISO of Windows PE, and extract it to your hard drive, overwriting & disabling your current TinyXP install.

When you boot up, you'll see Windows PE's faithful command prompt.

From there, use the prompt to naviage to your CD drive, and run the Windows XP installer.

And...voila.

 

[Turin]

I know this sounds a little....extreme. But it worked for me once.

--

Grab yourself an ISO of Windows PE, and extract it to your hard drive, overwriting & disabling your current TinyXP install.

When you boot up, you'll see Windows PE's faithful command prompt.

From there, use the prompt to naviage to your CD drive, and run the Windows XP installer.

And...voila.

That may just work <3... now just got to find a preinstall enivron by itself ; shudn't that be on the CD itself too?

lol I'll give it a go. Thanks.

Turin

 

[Kaori]

is it a msi installer?
if you can find out which version your xp is telling the installer...

you can use ORCA to edit the msi and change the version requirement.
more info about ORCA (part of platform sdk)
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa370557.aspx

 

[Turin]

I know this sounds a little....extreme. But it worked for me once.

--

Grab yourself an ISO of Windows PE, and extract it to your hard drive, overwriting & disabling your current TinyXP install.

When you boot up, you'll see Windows PE's faithful command prompt.

From there, use the prompt to naviage to your CD drive, and run the Windows XP installer.

And...voila.

=/ Erm it didn't work, I installed recovery console on a third partition, so I was able to rescue my original (TinyXP) installation >.<. Thanks for the input!

Kaori, yea m8, its a few MSI's, winnt32.exe is the main one though, I need to get passed it, so I'll try your suggestion.

Turin

ps - Winver is telling it: Build 2600.xpsp.050301-1521 : Service Pack 2

 

[Turin]

Now it won't run lol xD maybe I shouldn't have changed the Package Version to 2000.

ResolveSource (WindowsBuild < PackageBuild) AND ((UILevel = 2) OR (UILevel = 3) OR NOT AdminUser) AND NOT Installed 1400
ScheduleReboot (WindowsBuild < PackageBuild) AND NOT Installed 3001
RunSetup (WindowsBuild < PackageBuild) AND ((UILevel = 2) OR (UILevel = 3) OR NOT AdminUser) AND NOT Installed 3000
MySetPath (WindowsBuild < PackageBuild) AND ((UILevel = 2) OR (UILevel = 3) OR NOT AdminUser) AND NOT Installed 1500


I'm assuming I get rid of these?


[EDIT]

I reversed the ratio signs to the opposite, which got me a step further into the process of installation until I got:

 

[Aquilo]

=/ Erm it didn't work, I installed recovery console on a third partition, so I was able to rescue my original (TinyXP) installation >.<. Thanks for the input!

How do you mean, didn't work?

You extract the WinPE ISO to the right location(read: same hard disk as your TinyXP install, different folder), and make sure the NTLDR & boot.ini are pointing to the right parts (adapt the files in the PE ISO for this).

Then, you reboot, select the Windows PE boot menu item, and install XP from the command prompt it gives you.

You shouldn't have even needed to recover your TinyXP install.....since it never actually went anywhere (Although, you might have removed it's boot.ini entry).

 

[Turin]

How do you mean, didn't work?

You extract the WinPE ISO to the right location(read: same hard disk as your TinyXP install, different folder), and make sure the NTLDR & boot.ini are pointing to the right parts (adapt the files in the PE ISO for this).

Then, you reboot, select the Windows PE boot menu item, and install XP from the command prompt it gives you.

You shouldn't have even needed to recover your TinyXP install.....since it never actually went anywhere (Although, you might have removed it's boot.ini entry).

:s I replaced it with PE's and then used TuneUp's tools to allow me to delete the Windows folder (after it had unloaded tinyxp). I'll give it another go; from my understanding of what you're advising m8 is as follows:

(1) Install Windows PE to a folder (recommended Minnit or something?)
(2) Add a Boot.ini entry for the PE
----> Mine is a bit weird

 [operating systems]
=/NoExecute=AlwaysOff /NoExecute=AlwaysOff

(3) Choose the PE system when loading up
(4) Type into cmd: D:\setup.exe (or is it D:\i386\winnt.exe)

I'll do that m8, ty.
Turin

 

[Aquilo]

That's not a correct boot.ini.

Are you using the one from C:\? It should be a hidden file, and so you'd need to expose those first.

Paste the contents of your boot.ini into a new post here, before you reboot to use it.