[MicroWin] Preparation for 2025

[CodingWonders]

Type of Change

• New feature
• Bug fix
• Security patch

Description

A new year is coming, and so does a new MicroWin PR. This mainly focuses on fixes to most issues reported by users.

Key features:

• Boot Manager entry will no longer have a timeout of 30 on default, single-boot installations of Windows
• User passwords are now encoded in Base64 (yes, that's the only way to protect this important info, according to Microsoft)
• You can now include the contents of the VirtIO image in your image.
  • The VirtIO driver ISO is downloaded using BITS
  • The files will be copied to <ISO Root>\VirtIO
  • Instructions are provided after copying the VirtIO files

Here are some screenshots:

Note

The ability to add them automatically will be introduced later

• Removed some jargon related to the scratch directory
• It fixes issues related to Windows Hello drivers and printing with the Print command of the context menu
• It fixes conflicts between the MicroWin image and Ventoy drives with a config file
• Added DISM commands for information getters as fallbacks

Testing

Testing has concluded successfully on a 24H2 image but, given that this is a draft, more testing will be done in the future

Impact

Primarily to reduce the issue amount and make it more reliable

Issue related to PR

• Resolves Boot Menu on Fresh MicroWin #2562
• Resolves [Microwin] Class Not Registered issue #2738 (should fix, I was unable to test)
• Resolves Winutil error while printing photo #2851
• Resolves Windows 11 24H2 / MicroWin 24.10.07 - After fresh install device manager shows "HelloFace" driver missing. #3059
• Resolves Microwin admin password stored in plain text in unattend.xml #3064
• Resolves MICROWIN - Scratch Space Directory Typo (trivial) #3104

Additional Information

Documentation updates are required, but they will be done on the Hugo-powered website

Checklist

• My code adheres to the coding and style guidelines of the project.
• I have performed a self-review of my own code.
• I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas.
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation.
• My changes generate no errors/warnings/merge conflicts.

[devil1234]

A single thing we found out the WMIC is still stripped from image, but we checked your code and is there. I think the best to leave aswell the openssh-client installed, we found usefull to not have to install putty or other remote tools for ssh, using straight the terminal app for it.

We added the followed lines in Microwin-RemovePackages.ps1 for ssh:

$_ -NotLike "*OpenSSH-Client*" -AND