Still SearchCopy will do a SearchCopy for you using Still Image in the Source to the Target.

This is the opposite to the function of translate2source.lst when used with Make List File.

In the User Option File filelist, if you have

D:\dadad\123.dad

but the file is found in the Source as:

E:\drivers\123.dad

123.dad will be located in the Source and copied to the Target as:

\dad\123.dad

instead of

\drivers\123.dad

In the ordinary Copy of LiveCopy & StillCopy, if there is no exact match of the whole path location, the file is regarded not found and it will not be copied.

Using Still SearchCopy will locate this file and do the Copy as stated above.

However, if there are 2 or more files of the same name as 123.dad, then only the first 123.dad file is to be copied. Other 123.dad files are not copied.

If you want to copy such uncopied files from the Source to the Target, you have to examine the dala folder and find a file called:

addednot.txt

Inside the folder, after eaching copying process, files added are listed in added.txt and files not added are listed in addednot.txt

You can then use addednot.txt as the User Option File to do another round or rounds of Still SearchCopy against the same source until the addednot.txt file does not change anymore.

Still SearchCopy is therefore useful for building say a PE from a normal running windows system drive if you have designed a right filelist and use it as the User Option File.

You of course have to supply files not found in the running system as well and add them into the Target in the same way.

Add Component helps you to add a component to the Target. You can specify the system drive as the Source or another drive or .dsk image file as the Target.

The source can be an Image File or a drive containing the Setup CD or a system image or an image with the files listed in the component to be added.

Add Component will do a SearchCopy from the Source to the Target.

If the file is not found in the Source and it will try to expand it from *.*_ file if the Source is a Setup CD or contains such *.*_ files.

To avoid the processing taking too much time, it will not expand such files from *.cab files.

It can easily be seen that this is not a perfect solution.

So it is better to Still ExpandISO to expand a Setup CD to a Target first and then use that Target as the Source for adding component to another Target.

If the Target is the system drive and the component specified contains:

.cmd files

these .cmd files will be run; and contains:

.reg files

these .reg files will be imported to the registry.

In addition, the component specification files including filelist .txt files, .cmd files and .reg files, will be copied to the Target in the following path at the root:

WinComponents

In the existing package, only one component is included. This is the Vshadow component with the filename of:

vshadow.cpn

If you wish, you may examine this .cpn file, which is just a plain notepad .txt file.

This vshadow.cpn contains other sub-component .cpn files and .txt filelist files.

And you can also design other components for use as well.

This is an initial attempt to do in a simple way the process of componentization of a system image.

So adding component by component, system images of different sizes and functionalities can be built from a basic or a minimal core.

Everybody can contribute towards this process.

Make Component is similar to Add Component except that the files listed in the filelist .txt files are not copied to the location as specified in the .txt files.

These files together with the component specification files are instead copied to the component path of the respective components in the WinComponents folder at the root of the Target.

As explained in the Add Component post above, to speed up the matching process and to correctly identify the files to be copied, it is desirable to expand and copy the files of the Setup CD first before doing the Add Component or Make Component process.

This function therefore helps to expand the Setup CD in the Source to the Target either as an image file or as a drive.

It copies from the Source all files not in the *.*_ and *.cab formats and expand all the *.*_ and *.cab files to the Target.

Using LiveCopy can produce a bootable system image of about 250MB or so.

Using StillDelete Source, one can design different filelists to be applied to this LiveCopy system image to make it into smaller and smaller cores.

Using Add Component, one can design components to be added to such basic or minimal cores to add services and functionalities to the system image as desired.

Efforts will be done in the near future to address to other issues such as system universalization.

Everybody can help improve the design and the framework of the present schema and help contribute to the process started by this little tool.

Project Angel will be started later towards this direction.

Prizes in the form of Diskless Angel End User Licenses will be awarded to those making such contributions. Details will be announced later.