.pmq files

[Jim]

I am looking for a reference guide to what is being
captured (specifically) in the .pmq files. Is there
anything that would help in the translation?

 

[Brad Combs]

Jim,

Open a PMQ in notepad. It's essentially an XML document that contains all
the device ID's for devices in the targeted system. If you know XML (or even
if you don't) take a look at one.

HTH,
Brad Combs
Imago Technologies

 

[KM]

Jim,

As Brad pointed out, a pmq file is a xml based info file. So, you may easy
to read/modify your pmq file with notepad.

Also, if you are trying to understand what's been captured in the pmq file,
you may run Device Manager (make sure you "Show hidden devices" option
turned on) to see all the devices, or run similar command line tool
devcon.exe. Another way would be to go through the HKLM\System registry hive
on your target machine (WInPe or XP Pro booted) to see all the devices being
installed/PnP'ed/etc.

KM

J> I am looking for a reference guide to what is being captured
J> (specifically) in the .pmq files. Is there anything that would help
J> in the translation?

 

[Guest]

I can read the pmq file in a text editor with no problem.
I am looking for a tool that translates the Device
information into a format suitable for a "lamen" to read
and know what it says.

 

[KM]

Then, probably, the Device Manager is your friend.

KM

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

In addition to that: Read "How to Configure Device Manager to Display
Detailed Information".

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304514


Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the information. I still didn't say it
correctly. I'm going to try again: I ran ta.exe on over
1400 dos based machines out in the field. I have the
capability of viewing their .pmq files now just fine.
What I am wondering about, though, if there is a way to
take those 1400+ files and put them into a "report
viewer" type thing that would allow people to know
specifically what type of devices were listed. EX
<DEVICEID Order="1" >ACPI\GenuineIntel_-

 

[Slobodan Brcin]

If you PMQ in TD or CD they will import all components that matches your
hardware.
But you still wont have details you want like "Intel PIII > 2.4GHz".

To obtain this type of info you can use devcon.exe on target device.

devcon hwids * >log1.txt
devcon drivernodes * >log2.txt

You can decide what better suits to your needs.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[KM]

I don't know of any such tools you ask for. XPe Tools (TD, CD, utilities)
seem to be want you want but they hardly allow to automate analyzing and
importing procedures.

Do all of your 1400+ devices have different hardware and do you want to have
one XPe image that will run on all of the devices?
If so, you've got a problem - you will need to do much work to grab all the
hardware specific component information and put it in one image. I am not
even talking about testing the image on all the devices.
For most PnP devices you don't need to have components in your image but you
may rather include related inf's, sys's, dll's in to your image and this way
have the hardware supported.

If you still want to stick with TA analyzing, you may want to look at
"\Program Files\Windows Embedded\utilities\econvert.exe" utility. At least
you will be able automate PQM parsing and converting to SLD process. Then
you may automate importing all the SLD files to your XPe database by using
CMI objects (e.g. CMI Explorer may help you to automate the procedure). And
then you again use CMI to create your configuration that include all the
platforms' objects. This approach may work for you but keep in mind that CMI
is not documented by MS.

KM

 

[Guest]

All 1400+ devices are different (with different
devices).
The initial run of TA.EXE was to see if we could
interperet the information and determine just how many
types of hardware profiles we had out in the field. That
would help us in determinning whether or not XPE was a
viable option or not to show just how many images we'd
have to maintain. This answered my question. Thanks for
your help.
Jim