I'd also be interested, can't type too much at mo though as have a fractured elbow. I've been longing for this solution for the past few years but never found any1 to help with it as a project. Barry -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 6:23 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hi, I would be interested working in this project. Thanks. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: 06 March 2010 16:53 To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution. I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible. If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested: Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with. What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment. All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic. Chears, Ben. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4921 (20100306) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4924 (20100308) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com

Hey all; I'm glad that people are interested. I've been doing a bit of research, and one thing that I keep on coming up against is legal problems. I mean at the end of the day, to be honest, I don't really care since I really don't see what I'm doing wrong in a situation like this, but still, it would be nice to find a platform which we could use with out breaking some form of eula especially if this gets popula. For example, if you use bart pe, your *meant* to have a windows licence for it for every machine that you put it on even if theres a windows coa on the case. This might have changed now, but I remember a while back it was only oem's that were meant to have access to windows pe for customising the installation process on machines that they sold. Xp embedded isn't allowed to be used by consumers; only companies who make devices such as cash machines and freeview boxes are allowed to purchase it. I briefly considdered making a linux distro probably based off something like vinux, stripping down all the stuff that wouldn't be needed and putting more helpfull tools on it, but its really not my area of expertese and I don't kno of any anty malware apps for linux that fix windows infections and that work with orca. Ryan: Glad to see that I was wrong about pe; it only started including sound support since v2.0 which is what the vista install is based off, so perhaps you were using a older version - at any rate, drivers do need to be slipstreamed. I plan to use the collections of drivers available at driverpacks.net so that people would be able to walk up to most machines and just boot the cd and start using it. Xp embedded is a really nice option and I'm glad that windoweyes works under it - that sounds promissing. There are how ever legal problems (See above) since your not meant to have it if your a consumer Obtaining it is a bit of a grey area. The main problem that I think might be a bit hard to overcome is to find a gui that nvda or maybe satogo will work with and to make said screenreader work in a rather stripped down version of windows. This is why I really want to base it off xp e since it is actually a propper version of windows that hasn't been hacked to hell and back to make it boot off a cd - windows code was changed by microsoft to make it work. I'll keep you all posted though; as people have said, it really should have been done before now and since it would be so helpfull it would be a shame if it didn't work out. As always, any thoughts are welcome. Ben. On 06/03/2010, Ryan Shugart wrote:

Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution.

I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible.

If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested:

Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with.

What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment.

All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic.

Chears, Ben.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Hello: I've done some research on this over the past few days. Unfortunately, Windows PE is out the window completely. According to this http://x220.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30227 Windows PE has no audio stack. Even injecting the right drivers isn't enough, it just doesn't have the ability to utilize them and play audio. I find this very disappointing, not only does this mean that we can't use it to create an accessible recovery CD, but it means Windows install process just won't talk. Ever. I'm not sure what MS's basis for the decision was, considering other major operating systems (MacOSX and Ubuntu Linux) both include the audio stack and screen reading software in their images, but oh well. On the other hand, apparently there's an PElike environment out there called Bart PE, and I guess at least at one point people were trying to integrate NVDA into that http://www.freelists.org/post/nvda/nvda-on-bart-cd,4 The only thing is it doesn't look like Bart PE has been updated since 2006, probably because Win PE is now free for anyone to use. Its still based off of XP or 2003 at the latest. The point being I'm not sure how well that'd work to recover a Vista or Windows 7 machine, it'd still be interesting to see though. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 2:54 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments In actual fact, microsoft seem to have changed the licencing for xpe which is now called windows embedded standard 2009. Your still not meant to put it on a computer, but there offering a trial for download which I'm now downloading and will report back on the result. On 06/03/2010, Ben Mustill-Rose wrote:

Hey all; I'm glad that people are interested.

I've been doing a bit of research, and one thing that I keep on coming up against is legal problems. I mean at the end of the day, to be honest, I don't really care since I really don't see what I'm doing wrong in a situation like this, but still, it would be nice to find a platform which we could use with out breaking some form of eula especially if this gets popula.

For example, if you use bart pe, your *meant* to have a windows licence for it for every machine that you put it on even if theres a windows coa on the case. This might have changed now, but I remember a while back it was only oem's that were meant to have access to windows pe for customising the installation process on machines that they sold. Xp embedded isn't allowed to be used by consumers; only companies who make devices such as cash machines and freeview boxes are allowed to purchase it. I briefly considdered making a linux distro probably based off something like vinux, stripping down all the stuff that wouldn't be needed and putting more helpfull tools on it, but its really not my area of expertese and I don't kno of any anty malware apps for linux that fix windows infections and that work with orca.

Ryan:

Glad to see that I was wrong about pe; it only started including sound support since v2.0 which is what the vista install is based off, so perhaps you were using a older version - at any rate, drivers do need to be slipstreamed. I plan to use the collections of drivers available at driverpacks.net so that people would be able to walk up to most machines and just boot the cd and start using it. Xp embedded is a really nice option and I'm glad that windoweyes works under it - that sounds promissing. There are how ever legal problems (See above) since your not meant to have it if your a consumer Obtaining it is a bit of a grey area.

The main problem that I think might be a bit hard to overcome is to find a gui that nvda or maybe satogo will work with and to make said screenreader work in a rather stripped down version of windows. This is why I really want to base it off xp e since it is actually a propper version of windows that hasn't been hacked to hell and back to make it boot off a cd - windows code was changed by microsoft to make it work.

I'll keep you all posted though; as people have said, it really should have been done before now and since it would be so helpfull it would be a shame if it didn't work out.

As always, any thoughts are welcome.

Ben.

On 06/03/2010, Ryan Shugart wrote:

...

Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution.

I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible.

If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested:

Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with.

What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment.

All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic.

Chears, Ben.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

What advantages would a Windows live CD have over a ubuntu CD? Could a ubuntu or grml CD be modified to include tools to help Windows system administrators? To tell you the truth, this problem sounds like yet another thing for the International Association of Visually Impaired Technologists to get involved in. I haven't done a thing wrt IAVIT for several months because we were waiting for our 503C certification. But it looks like that is going to take a long time. Maybe we can get started on our advocacy w/o it. We already are a non-profit corporation but we're not a 503C (for what its worth). But I don't think we need the IRS certification in order to start contacting vendors of technology to work with them to make their products accessible. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan Shugart" To: "Blind sysadmins list" Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:56 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

Hello: I've done some research on this over the past few days. Unfortunately, Windows PE is out the window completely. According to this http://x220.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30227 Windows PE has no audio stack. Even injecting the right drivers isn't enough, it just doesn't have the ability to utilize them and play audio. I find this very disappointing, not only does this mean that we can't use it to create an accessible recovery CD, but it means Windows install process just won't talk. Ever. I'm not sure what MS's basis for the decision was, considering other major operating systems (MacOSX and Ubuntu Linux) both include the audio stack and screen reading software in their images, but oh well. On the other hand, apparently there's an PElike environment out there called Bart PE, and I guess at least at one point people were trying to integrate NVDA into that http://www.freelists.org/post/nvda/nvda-on-bart-cd,4

The only thing is it doesn't look like Bart PE has been updated since 2006, probably because Win PE is now free for anyone to use. Its still based off of XP or 2003 at the latest. The point being I'm not sure how well that'd work to recover a Vista or Windows 7 machine, it'd still be interesting to see though. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 2:54 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

In actual fact, microsoft seem to have changed the licencing for xpe which is now called windows embedded standard 2009. Your still not meant to put it on a computer, but there offering a trial for download which I'm now downloading and will report back on the result.

On 06/03/2010, Ben Mustill-Rose wrote:

...

Hey all; I'm glad that people are interested.

I've been doing a bit of research, and one thing that I keep on coming up against is legal problems. I mean at the end of the day, to be honest, I don't really care since I really don't see what I'm doing wrong in a situation like this, but still, it would be nice to find a platform which we could use with out breaking some form of eula especially if this gets popula.

For example, if you use bart pe, your *meant* to have a windows licence for it for every machine that you put it on even if theres a windows coa on the case. This might have changed now, but I remember a while back it was only oem's that were meant to have access to windows pe for customising the installation process on machines that they sold. Xp embedded isn't allowed to be used by consumers; only companies who make devices such as cash machines and freeview boxes are allowed to purchase it. I briefly considdered making a linux distro probably based off something like vinux, stripping down all the stuff that wouldn't be needed and putting more helpfull tools on it, but its really not my area of expertese and I don't kno of any anty malware apps for linux that fix windows infections and that work with orca.

Ryan:

Glad to see that I was wrong about pe; it only started including sound support since v2.0 which is what the vista install is based off, so perhaps you were using a older version - at any rate, drivers do need to be slipstreamed. I plan to use the collections of drivers available at driverpacks.net so that people would be able to walk up to most machines and just boot the cd and start using it. Xp embedded is a really nice option and I'm glad that windoweyes works under it - that sounds promissing. There are how ever legal problems (See above) since your not meant to have it if your a consumer Obtaining it is a bit of a grey area.

The main problem that I think might be a bit hard to overcome is to find a gui that nvda or maybe satogo will work with and to make said screenreader work in a rather stripped down version of windows. This is why I really want to base it off xp e since it is actually a propper version of windows that hasn't been hacked to hell and back to make it boot off a cd - windows code was changed by microsoft to make it work.

I'll keep you all posted though; as people have said, it really should have been done before now and since it would be so helpfull it would be a shame if it didn't work out.

As always, any thoughts are welcome.

Ben.

On 06/03/2010, Ryan Shugart wrote:

...

Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution.

I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible.

If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested:

Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with.

What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment.

All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic.

Chears, Ben.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Hi, I don't know of any Linux based anti malware products, but there must be something around. Thanks. Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: 11 March 2010 14:26 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments What advantages would a Windows live CD have over a ubuntu CD? Could a ubuntu or grml CD be modified to include tools to help Windows system administrators? To tell you the truth, this problem sounds like yet another thing for the International Association of Visually Impaired Technologists to get involved in. I haven't done a thing wrt IAVIT for several months because we were waiting for our 503C certification. But it looks like that is going to take a long time. Maybe we can get started on our advocacy w/o it. We already are a non-profit corporation but we're not a 503C (for what its worth). But I don't think we need the IRS certification in order to start contacting vendors of technology to work with them to make their products accessible. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan Shugart" To: "Blind sysadmins list" Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:56 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

Hello: I've done some research on this over the past few days. Unfortunately, Windows PE is out the window completely. According to this http://x220.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30227 Windows PE has no audio stack. Even injecting the right drivers isn't enough, it just doesn't have the ability to utilize them and play audio. I find this very disappointing, not only does this mean that we can't use it to create an accessible recovery CD, but it means Windows install process just won't talk. Ever. I'm not sure what MS's basis for the decision was, considering other major operating systems (MacOSX and Ubuntu Linux) both include the audio stack and screen reading software in their images, but oh well. On the other hand, apparently there's an PElike environment out there called Bart PE, and I guess at least at one point people were trying to integrate NVDA into that http://www.freelists.org/post/nvda/nvda-on-bart-cd,4

The only thing is it doesn't look like Bart PE has been updated since 2006, probably because Win PE is now free for anyone to use. Its still based off of XP or 2003 at the latest. The point being I'm not sure how well that'd work to recover a Vista or Windows 7 machine, it'd still be interesting to see though. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 2:54 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

In actual fact, microsoft seem to have changed the licencing for xpe which is now called windows embedded standard 2009. Your still not meant to put it on a computer, but there offering a trial for download which I'm now downloading and will report back on the result.

On 06/03/2010, Ben Mustill-Rose wrote:

...

Hey all; I'm glad that people are interested.

I've been doing a bit of research, and one thing that I keep on coming up against is legal problems. I mean at the end of the day, to be honest, I don't really care since I really don't see what I'm doing wrong in a situation like this, but still, it would be nice to find a platform which we could use with out breaking some form of eula especially if this gets popula.

For example, if you use bart pe, your *meant* to have a windows licence for it for every machine that you put it on even if theres a windows coa on the case. This might have changed now, but I remember a while back it was only oem's that were meant to have access to windows pe for customising the installation process on machines that they sold. Xp embedded isn't allowed to be used by consumers; only companies who make devices such as cash machines and freeview boxes are allowed to purchase it. I briefly considdered making a linux distro probably based off something like vinux, stripping down all the stuff that wouldn't be needed and putting more helpfull tools on it, but its really not my area of expertese and I don't kno of any anty malware apps for linux that fix windows infections and that work with orca.

Ryan:

Glad to see that I was wrong about pe; it only started including sound support since v2.0 which is what the vista install is based off, so perhaps you were using a older version - at any rate, drivers do need to be slipstreamed. I plan to use the collections of drivers available at driverpacks.net so that people would be able to walk up to most machines and just boot the cd and start using it. Xp embedded is a really nice option and I'm glad that windoweyes works under it - that sounds promissing. There are how ever legal problems (See above) since your not meant to have it if your a consumer Obtaining it is a bit of a grey area.

The main problem that I think might be a bit hard to overcome is to find a gui that nvda or maybe satogo will work with and to make said screenreader work in a rather stripped down version of windows. This is why I really want to base it off xp e since it is actually a propper version of windows that hasn't been hacked to hell and back to make it boot off a cd - windows code was changed by microsoft to make it work.

I'll keep you all posted though; as people have said, it really should have been done before now and since it would be so helpfull it would be a shame if it didn't work out.

As always, any thoughts are welcome.

Ben.

On 06/03/2010, Ryan Shugart wrote:

...

Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution.

I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible.

If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested:

Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with.

What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment.

All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic.

Chears, Ben.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Ben: The rules around PE have changed, my understanding is now anyone can run it, its not limited to OEMS anymore. I don't know if you have to have a valid Windows license, but considering you'd be using this to repair a Windows system and not a MAC or Linux system, a case could be made that its intended for use with a valid Windows license. My only concern with PE is I don't know just how broken down it is, what's there, what's not, and what you can add and not. For example, if the MSAA APIs are gone from PE, then no screen reading. Period. A lot of tools, such as Ghost, that large corporations use to do this kind of thing are based on PE so if possible that's where I'd go to. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 2:25 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hey all; I'm glad that people are interested. I've been doing a bit of research, and one thing that I keep on coming up against is legal problems. I mean at the end of the day, to be honest, I don't really care since I really don't see what I'm doing wrong in a situation like this, but still, it would be nice to find a platform which we could use with out breaking some form of eula especially if this gets popula. For example, if you use bart pe, your *meant* to have a windows licence for it for every machine that you put it on even if theres a windows coa on the case. This might have changed now, but I remember a while back it was only oem's that were meant to have access to windows pe for customising the installation process on machines that they sold. Xp embedded isn't allowed to be used by consumers; only companies who make devices such as cash machines and freeview boxes are allowed to purchase it. I briefly considdered making a linux distro probably based off something like vinux, stripping down all the stuff that wouldn't be needed and putting more helpfull tools on it, but its really not my area of expertese and I don't kno of any anty malware apps for linux that fix windows infections and that work with orca. Ryan: Glad to see that I was wrong about pe; it only started including sound support since v2.0 which is what the vista install is based off, so perhaps you were using a older version - at any rate, drivers do need to be slipstreamed. I plan to use the collections of drivers available at driverpacks.net so that people would be able to walk up to most machines and just boot the cd and start using it. Xp embedded is a really nice option and I'm glad that windoweyes works under it - that sounds promissing. There are how ever legal problems (See above) since your not meant to have it if your a consumer Obtaining it is a bit of a grey area. The main problem that I think might be a bit hard to overcome is to find a gui that nvda or maybe satogo will work with and to make said screenreader work in a rather stripped down version of windows. This is why I really want to base it off xp e since it is actually a propper version of windows that hasn't been hacked to hell and back to make it boot off a cd - windows code was changed by microsoft to make it work. I'll keep you all posted though; as people have said, it really should have been done before now and since it would be so helpfull it would be a shame if it didn't work out. As always, any thoughts are welcome. Ben. On 06/03/2010, Ryan Shugart wrote:

Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan

-----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments

Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution.

I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible.

If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested:

Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with.

What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment.

All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic.

Chears, Ben.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

I actually read something very interesting on this topic last night. Apparently, Windows 7 has the ability to create a live DVD based on the currently running environment. I don't have any Windows 7 machines at home, so this will have to wait until I get into work to play with this on one of the Windows 7 machines there. I have no idea if the OS on the live environment is just PE or is a real Windows 7, what drivers are available, and if its just meant to boot your existing computer or can be taken to other machines and booted there, but this looks like a very interesting possibility assuming the post I read about it wasn't exaggerating. Anyone on the list with Windows 7 want to try this and see how well it really works? You can get to it from the recovery control panel applet. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Barry Toner Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 6:39 AM To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Exact same experiences as Ryan. Barry -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ryan Shugart Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 8:17 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hi Ben: I, along with a lot of people I'm sure, would be very interested in this. I'm not sure how easy it'd be to take Windows and turn it into a live CD, its just not ment to run that way. However, there are two options I can think of off the top of my head. Microsoft actually makes a bootable Windows environment called Windows PE. It is freely downloadable, just download the Windows Automated Instalation Kit and PE comes with that. I tried at one point to get NVDA to work under that but was unsuccessful. I couldn't get sound to work at all, but that might have been because I wasn't sure how to include drivers at the time. Also, I don't know if PE has accessibility support. The other option, Microsoft makes a version of windows called Windows Embeded. I think the latest version is based on XP, with a Windows 7 version soon to follow. This is designed for things like settop boxes, thin clients, etc. Quite a few of the thin clients where I work use this. I know for a fact, Window-Eyes at least, will run in that environment just as it would normally so I'dimagine NVDA would as well, or SAtoGO or something like that. I don't know how you get your hands on this though. But as I said, it's a great idea and should have been done a long time ago. Thanks. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:53 AM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] ot: live cd windows based environments Hey all, I'm sorry for the ot but I thought that since my question is fairly technical someone here might have a solution. I've been getting a few machines lately with infections. Pretty bad 100000 icon type infections. The problem here is that most of the removal tools that I use won't run due to things stopping them. One option would be to just format the machines and start fresh, but thats not an option in every situation and if I could get something like malware bytes to run then cleaning the box out may actually be quicker than formatting. Sighted people are able to go into safemode and remove a handfull of nasties, boot into the os normally and continue the removal process but thats not an option for totals due to the lack of sound. What I've currently been doing is removing the drive and slaving it in another box and running tools on the drive that way but thats far from ideal and not always effective. Because of all of these issues, lately I've been thinking about windows based live cd environments and how usefull it would be if they were accessible. If anyone has done, has thoughts on or wants to work with me on any of the below then I would be very interested: Does nvda coupled with brltty and a display work under safemode? if so, how well does it cope with things like malware bytes and super antyspyware? How about creating a live cd based on bart pe with a xpe pluggin to allow audio support and slipstreaming nvda along with the sound driver packs from driverpacks.net? would nvda like the gui since its not strictly like windows? As of v2 of win pe which is microsofts answer to bart pe sound is supported. Whilst pe is commandline, how about hacking a premade gui onto it and again, including nvda and sound drivers? Ubcd4win doesn't have sound support, but its a very complete boot cd full of handy tools based on bart pe. Perhaps it would be nice to get nvda with brltty working on this? As a last resort, whilst its not strictly allowed under the eula, windows xp embedded has built in audio support and the same gui found in xp, so I'm guessing that this might be a good one to play with. What would be nice is if some of us who had knolige about these sorts of things got together and worked on one of the above solutions; I think its something that technicly minded blind computer users as a hole would really benefit from since its nonexistant at the moment. All thoughts are welcome and once again, sorry for the off topic. Chears, Ben. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4921 (20100306) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4924 (20100308) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins