new to windows XPe, need help with components selection.

[Sandro]

Hi there!



I'm trying to put together a « carputer »

And I'm trying out windows XP embedded.



But I'm a little confused with the devices reported by the component
builder.

And I'm looking for some guidance on how to proceed with;

Building a custom image that fits my needs, as a device and capability
standpoint.



In case anyone has time to have a look. my hardware is this.



VIA EPIA SP 13000 motherboard.

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/mini_itx/epia_sp/



Linksys WMP54GS wireless network adaptor

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Sate...826820&pagename=Linksys/Common/VisitorWrapper



iogear USB Bluetooth Adaptor.

http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GBU201



Xenarc 7" Touch screen

http://www.xenarc.com/product/700ts.html



Microsoft USB GPS Locator.



The hard drive is a Maxtor 40 Gb IDE drive.





What did I do so far.



I installed windows XP on the device

Installed drivers for most of the devices the board provides.

Video drivers

Audio drivers

Network drivers

Chipset drivers



Installed drivers for the additional devices.

Linksys drivers

the touch screen mouse kit.

The rest was automatically detected and managed by windows.



After I was satisfied that the devices all worked I ran TAP.exe



I fetched components from the VIA web site and imported them into the
repository.

I created components for the linksys adaptor.



I imported the PMQ file into component builder, and created a component that
can be edited with the selector component.

Now, I am faces with a huge list of components that have no real
significance to me aside from the obvious ones.Disk drive, ACPI.

Honestly the documentation does not explain anything about the component's
use in the system, or what it is really needed for, for example why would I
need Terminal server Mouse or keyboard.



I need to be able to make sense, of all the components.don't I ?

( if you need the PMQ file to help me I'll send it over no problem )





What I am planning to do as a start.

I'll try to throw as much information as I can,

so you can have a general idea of my project.



-- GPS Guidance with Streets and Trip,

or maybe some other software, whichever provides a SDK I can play with

because S&T is not touch screen friendly

-- MP3 Music Playback

-- Video Playback.

I'm guessing this will be time consuming to get all the codec's

Included into the image, I'll have to make components

-- USB Mass Storage connectivity ( USB Key / Digital Camera / External USB
Storage )

-- TCP/IP Networking

The carputer will be part of a workgroup there is no domain controller.

And needs to be able to browse that workgroup for shares

The carputer does not share any files.



I would also like to know if it is possible for me to install software on
the image if needed and how would I go about that.



Also if I ever need to install a new device, to add a feature to my carputer

Something like a XM radio or some car telemetry, or a usb camera, or any
other USB device. How would I proceed about that.



Thank you in advance for any help you can provide or any link to tutorials /
documentation / pointers that you can provide.



Sandro.

 

[Sean Liming \(eMVP\)]

The XPe SP2 help file has a better description of components. The components
pulled in by TAP are a combination of drivers and middleware for multimedia,
cummunications, etc. Since your system is going to use multimedia, I suggest
that you keep the components as they are. You can install software once the
image has been built so long as you have the necessary components / suport
built into the image. You will want to have the Windows Installer component
built into the image.

Regards,

Sean Liming
www.sjjmicro.com / www.seanliming.com
XP Embedded Book Author - XP Embedded Advanced, XP Embedded Supplemental
Toolkit.

 

[Sandro]

Sean
Thank you.

Sandro.

The XPe SP2 help file has a better description of components. The
components pulled in by TAP are a combination of drivers and middleware
for multimedia, cummunications, etc. Since your system is going to use
multimedia, I suggest that you keep the components as they are. You can
install software once the image has been built so long as you have the
necessary components / suport built into the image. You will want to have
the Windows Installer component built into the image.

Regards,

Sean Liming
www.sjjmicro.com / www.seanliming.com
XP Embedded Book Author - XP Embedded Advanced, XP Embedded Supplemental
Toolkit.

 

[Fidelio]

I'm in a similar project but since my car is a Jeep Wrangler to do off-road
I trying to use a PC without hard disk, so I'm exploring WinXPe and WinCE as
O.S. but... since you have a PC with 40 GB hard disk why are you trying to
install Windows XP Embedded??? Just install a XP Pro and use the Hibernate
option in order to startup quickly.

Regards,
Fidelio