The problem is there's more than one way to add an entry into the system path, and these methods vary with different versions of windows.
I had a PAL and NTSC PIF dumped by someone who dumps arcade cabinet ROM chips. For the most part, it was because they had the equipment and are much better with a soldering iron. (Basically they remove the chip and attach it to a little piece of hardware I don't presume to understand ;*) There's more than one PIF rom though. There's a minimum of three--one for each region--and it's been long suspected that later version consoles were altered slightly to initialize ram at bootup. So really there are 4~6+. Mine are both earlier consoles, but the PIF roms are significantly different in structure despite being identical in function.
Instruction stepping should be viable as well, similar to the method used to capture the GB bootroms. Amusingly, if N64 hacking had really taken off we would have had the stupid things years ago, since they're embedded in the Pokémon Stadium series games ;*)
I'll have to compile my own copy, without git, and not from my home PC. Only problem with open source (or Linux for that matter) is the assumption of direct, and often fast, internet connections. That said, getting frustrated at a couple issues building something is much better than not being able to build it at all ;*)
