Hello folks... Been modding/Hacking/playing around with xp media for some time, have a very good collection of genuine media in various languages, & have a good repository of oembios files pulled from the various media... The one file I always kept along with the oembios files, was the setupp.ini... There's 2 lines of text in these .ini files... The "ExtraData" line & the "Pid" line... I know that the 1st 3 numbers in the "Pid" line are the designated language, numbers 4 & 5 are the designated client type numbers{pro/home} etc, numbers 6,7 & 8 are whether it's a retail, OEM or VLK, but the 1st line that says "ExtraData",,, has anyone ever fully understood the meaning of the entire row of numbers/letters, or even part of it..? The one thing I've always noticed too on the various OEM CDs I have here, is that every CD with different branding, has an entirely different 1st line = "ExtraData", & for that reason, every time I made my own OEM CDs/ISO's in the past, I always used the original OEMs setupp.ini, though judging by the posts here, it doesn't appear as though it's stopping too many people from acheiving their goals with successful activation after ISO modding, though I doubt the 1st line is insignificant...
That was my thought on the matter which is why I finished off with the last paragraph of & the link you provided only gives an insight into the last 3 digits regarding the "PID" line in the setupp.ini, not the "ExtraData" line... & if the ExtraData line is indeed related to the pid generated during the setup, then why aren't the setup.ini's packed along with the oembios files hosted here... I own more than one genuine copy of XP pro oem, bought from a retail outlet, & they all contain the same "ExtraData" numbers/letters in the line, so I was thinking that this ExtraData line was unique to each OEM supplier, as each "different" branding of XP I have here, have different ExtraData lines...
You maybe right with it being bound to the OEM, only way to know is to check if different DELL, HP etc have the same ExtraData string. Is that what you meant when you wrote this ? I don't think that is the case, ExtraData is sometimes used as a count of some sort. If mixing them up doesn't cause issues then it's not critical.
Yeah that part I wrote was a bit confusing, what I meant from that statement was, the various OEM copies brought from a retail outlet, all had the exact same setupp.ini's, however, the various OEM branded CDs I have that came with a manufacturer's pre-installed laptop or main box, Dell, HP, toshiba etc etc, all have varying setupp.ini's as far as the ExtraData is concerned... Well, I've read the forum here on & off for about 6 months before joining, & one thing I did notice when reading the posts regarding the building of OEM branded disks, was that the success here for some wasn't always 100%, even though it read as though they followed the right procedure involving the building of thier CDs... For the sake of giving back for the files i've downloaded from here in the past, when time permits i'll dig out the entire setupp.ini's I have collected from my own genuine media, & place them in corresponding folder names & post a link to them here, for the sake of just in case there is something in this ExtraData line in these Setupp.ini's, can't hurt to...
Hello Ken, Did you ever track down a meaning to the "ExtraData" field? Likewise, did you ever get to the point of listing the various values you found in the various disks to which you have access? Thanks, Mike
Just a small note: I wondered about the meaning of the ExtraData field myself and tried to track down its usage during the setup process by disassembling some of the relevant files. The last time I looked at this was some years ago, so I might remember some of the details wrong, but nevertheless: As far as I could find out, the field doesn't have much use, but seems only to act as an additional control to distinguish between full and upgrade media. The ExtraData field consists of a hexadecimal string representing 15 bytes. As it follows the standard of a certain Windows API function for binary data in INI files, the last four bytes are actually a checksum -- I'd have to lookup the exact name of the function responsible. So, the interesting data is actually contained within the first 11 bytes. (Side note: If interpreted as ASCII values, these bytes are lower-case characters ("a"-"z"). The Windows setup DLL files subtract 61 ("a") from each byte, but that step does not seem to have any particular interesting effect.) The only thing that setup seems to care about is whether two of the bytes (I think it was the third and the fifth) have the same parity (i.e. are both even or both uneven) or not. One of the two constellations causes setup to assume a full installation media, while the other leads to an upgrade installation. Other that that, the ExtraData field does not seem to have any particular effect. I played around with several self-constructed values, and I didn't notice any effects beside the above-mentioned full/upgrade distinction.
Hi MaJo24, long time no see Looking at, say SP2b: Code: VX2HFPP_EN [Pid] ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF Pid=76477000 VX2HOEM_EN [Pid] ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF Pid=76477OEM VX2PCCP_EN [Pid] ExtraData=70656C7063627770737A9EA8ADEC29 Pid=76488000 VX2PFPP_EN [Pid] ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF Pid=76487000 VX2POEM_EN [Pid] ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF Pid=76487OEM VX2PVOL_EN [Pid] ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF Pid=76487270 Looks like you are right, ED field is only different for upgrade, and of course 4th last number in PID is up a notch.
Hi Oz, thanks for looking this up. As far as I can remember, the ExtraData "786F687170637175716954806365EF" has even been used outside of Windows XP installs (Server 2003?) and different language versions, so it is most probably even not directly connected to the Pid. Who knows what additional information Microsoft might have encoded into this field ...