Hey @George King , I know it is in your long term goals to make whatever changes to XP2ESD that are required to make the output compatible with POWIS. I don't suppose that will be included in v1.6, but just curious when you think that may happen?
It won't be POWIS compatible, but some features are taken and adapted from POWIS now for example MultiLanguage RunOnceEx. My goal is to create XP2ESD ISO and then be able to merge it with others, Vista and newer ISO - I already started some work on new POWIS feature to be able to do it, but I will continue in testing after XP2ESD v1.6 release
but do you think it is enough to change two files and modify the registry to change the Windows version ?! what do I have to read ...
But, it says "Windows XP Server" instead of "Windows XP Professional" on the system properties. Watermark also says "Windows .NET Standard Server" instead of XP Professional. But you're right about converting Windows version. Because it's not an easy task to do. I got many BSODs (c000021a) or installation errors while doing so. This is also very weird: Converting client to server (.NET Server build 2600) is easier than backwards version (XP build 3790). I was expecting both conversions will have same difficulty.
I added disk.sys (Disk Pnp Driver) and partmgr.sys (Partition Manager Driver) from Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise SP2 to XP Pro Sp3 to provide GPT Support and to my surprise, it worked not only to recognize GPT disks but to run and boot the os from the same drive (but converted to GPT using AOEMI partition assistant). I tried to use Paragon GPT Loader but I can't download it anywhere, so I had to copy the gpt_loader.sys file from HBCD Mini XP and all the gpt_loader registry values (from the Mini XP's registry) to .reg files but applying the reg values on my VHD OS resulted in BSOD after reboot so I gave up with the Paragon GPT Loader. The disk.sys and partmgr.sys files from WK2003 R2 SP2 not worked really well for booting the windows XP after converting the VHD partitions to GPT but also for being able to see the contents of a GPT USB Drive, so I guess that these two files from WK2003 have GPT support while the XP ones don't, so I guess that explains why it works.
Unfortunately, even replacing the two XP system files with those of W2K3 Server R2 SP2 Enterprise Edition, I have never experienced recognition of GPT disks on my system. The same with Paragon GPT Loader, never worked. And I can't figure out if it might depend on the disk model or the sata driver. Out of curiosity, with which disk and which driver did you get GPT partition recognition? P.S.: SFC is disabled on my system.