I was able to retrieve the .sld file referenced using the wayback machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100117054140/http://blog.zachtib.com/2008/06/using-vmware-to-build-and-run-xp-embedded/

Thanks!

I also got VMware Tools working in XPe. Add the following components to your target:
* Windows Installer Service –otherwise the Tools installer won’t run
* Class Installer – Display adapters –needed for the VMware SVGA II driver
* Standard PS/2 Port Mouse –includes i8042prt.sys, which is needed for the VMware mouse driver
When running the Tools installer in the target, click OK and ignore the error for the printer driver (don’t know what components are needed for that, but I don’t want it anyway). When it prompts for the location of i8042prt.sys, type in / browse to C:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers.

That got *all* Tools features working except for printers.

I suppose the next logical step would be to install Tools in a clean, fresh XP VM with InCtrl5 monitoring it, then collect the resulting files and registry keys to package them into a component. Then you could probably eliminate Windows Installer from the build since Tools would already be installed.

The other issue I had was that *nothing* was in the Start menu, and there were no right-click context menus anywhere. The solution is simple but sort of non-obvious: Expand the “User Interface Core” component in your configuration, click Settings and look in the right pane.

One more thing: You don’t actually need to use Linux to set the bootable flag on your new XPe partition. In XP’s Disk Manager, right-click the partition and Mark Partition as Active.

I build XP E using your tutorial but after I booted it, it is empty. I mean there aren’t any icons, start menu is empty, I can’t ‘right click’ on desktop. Nothing. I can only logoff and reboot/turn off WinXP E.
Any suggestions?

I’ve got 3 VMs in the same folder. The dev system, the XPe system, and a knoppix system that boots up a CD iso and mounts the XPe system’s hard drive so I can fiddle with it with fdisk if I need to.

First time I tried it I got a bios error that I didn’t have a bootable hard disk, even though I had set the drive with knoppix as bootable and used mkfs to make the drive. So I wiped it clean and had windows do the format, and knoppix set the bootable flag, then did a build and that worked.

Thank you for doing all the hard work and posting it. This would have taken *forever* without your article.

Thanks for the excellent article.

Please can you kindly assist? I keep getting this error message when performing the dependency checks.

Missing dependency target in: “VMware Hardware Profile 6 [Version 1.0, R4]“: “Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller”

But there are no tasks icons where I can double click and add the options to satify that dependency.

Thank you in advance