The networking and provenance release. A built PE now configures its own hardware and reaches
the network at boot — and, with network-ui, shows that connection on the desktop, not just
the command line. Every build leaves a receipt recording exactly what it was made from, which
pebuild verify checks against the tool that produced it. Windows Server 2003 joins the
supported sources, and new inspection (pebuild image) and debugging (serialdebug) tools round
out the toolbox.
Added
- A PE configures its hardware and networking at boot. The
hardwareplugin runs the PnP
driver-install pass a PE otherwise never gets — letting setupapi choose each driver, installed
read-only so nothing is written to boot media — then installs the network components through
INetCfg, so an image binds its NIC and takes a DHCP address. Its companionnetwork-tools
stages the command-line utilities (ipconfig,ping,route,arp,tracert,nslookup,
hostname). Verified on 32-bit XP; see Known limitations for build 3790. - The network is visible on the desktop. The
network-uiplugin adds the Network
Connections folder to Control Panel and a notification-area icon showing link state and
activity, with the adapter Status and Properties dialogs behind it — until now a configured
network had no sign of itself outside the command line. It ships no code: it stages the shell
components that draw the UI, including the ones they load by name that no import scan can see,
and registers them. The icon is user-toggled, as it is on stock XP. - Windows Server 2003 sources build the Explorer desktop, on both architectures — which took
reading the NT product type from the source (to tell it from XP x64, which shares its build
number), a product-aware splash banner, and staging Common-Controls from the cabinet 2003 media
pack it in. - Published plugin conventions (
docs/plugins/conventions.md) —
the documentation, C-lint, version-resource and architecture-scoping standards a plugin follows. - A one-shot startup-task contract. The
startupplugin declares a registry list of tasks to
run once at boot and shipsperunto walk it — from the shell's splash on a desktop build, or
startnet.cmdon a console build — recording each task's verdict so a failed task never costs the
boot.hardwareis its first consumer. pebuild verify— what an image was built from. Every build now writes a receipt
(PEBUILD.TXT) into the image: the manifest, the Windows source, the resolved plugin set with its
option values, a content hash of pebuild's embedded base and built-in plugins, and a taint
verdict for anything out-of-tree.verifyreads it back and reports what has changed since, so a
stale ISO is no longer indistinguishable from a fresh one.pebuild image ls|extract— read files out of a built PE (a mastered.iso, an output
directory, or a reference image from another tool), completing the inspection surface beside
sourceandhive dump.- A
serialdebugplugin boots the image with the kernel debugger enabled on COM1;
pebuild run --serialattaches the host to it. pebuild plugins infolists a plugin's[Options]— the knobs a manifest may set, with each
default and allowed set.- Taskbar locking is a plugin option on
explorer-shell. - Every binary the build emits carries a Windows version resource (product, author, version,
copyright), so a shipped PE identifies itself in Windows Properties → Details and Task Manager.
Changed
- The Shutdown Event Tracker is turned off — a PE has no use for the "why did you shut down?"
prompt.
Fixed
- The output ISO is published atomically — mastered to a scratch file and renamed into place,
so a failed or interrupted build never leaves a truncated image where a good one should be. - UTF-16
.inffiles are decoded inside the parser rather than misread. - The
hardwareplugin's console output no longer garbles. Its runtime messages used em dashes
that rendered as mojibake in the console's OEM code page on every locale; they're ASCII now. peshutlinks freestanding on both architectures.- The "My Documents" desktop icon is hidden — in a PE it opens nothing, so it no longer sits
there dead. - The base no longer seeds
portmon.exe/tzchange.exe, which are XP-only.
Known limitations
- Networking does not work on build 3790 (Windows XP x64 / Server 2003, both architectures): the
component install succeeds but the win32 co-services that would use it do not start. It tracks the
codebase, not the architecture — 32-bit Server 2003 fails identically. The same limitation stops
network-ui's Status and Properties dialogs there: the connection never finishes coming up, and
the property sheet enumerates components throughINetCfg. The folder and the tray icon work. See
docs/supported.md. - Carried forward from 0.5.0: no sound; on amd64 the wallpaper, Folder Options and a drive's
Properties dialog do not work. Full detail indocs/supported.md.