ramloading Windows 10 vhd-core

Sorry Wonko, i do not know if that is exactly booting or something else, but if I have a "pure" install.wim from an iso, I always apply it with gimagex64 to, say, H:\vhd.vhd, and when I reboot, it takes me to the "intermediate?" installation stage where it looks for hardware and then it takes me to the full interface at next reboot. whether it is booting or not, I can move anywhere from there and then on; not so if I try the same thing with boot.wim, even though I tried bcdboot h:\windows /s h: and bootsect nt60 etc after the gimagex64 kinda thing.

sorry again for the informality of my rendering. can I move from the tiniest boot.wim to the smallest possible windows installation? Correct me if i am wrong, but i believe that it will not boot because it does not have the necessary files to do so. If the necessary files could be added, then it would almost be it.

There are many guides for creating a Windows 10 WinPE including videos on YouTube. Sometimes when one way doesn't make sense for me when I'm trying something new I try and find other tutorials and guides to see if there is another way or at least a way that is easier for me to understand:

https://www.google.c...indows 10 WinPE

Sure and - besides - the documentation by Misty for specifically building a MistyPE (already given link), comprising the actual correctly pre-configured builder, etc., etc. is some of the best, simpler, logically arranged set of instructions I ever saw.

Sometimes I am called grumpy (and old and bastard, mainly because I am actually an old, grumpy bastard ).

But really antonino, if you don't have enough knowledge and experience on the matters at hand, it is fine , everyone has to start somewhere, but if you ask for help, assistance, explanations, etc., you cannot insist, at every suggestion of doing A, then B, and then D with a "ah, OK but if I do C and E but not D it doesn't work (or it works differently)".

The way C (and E but not D) work may be different from the way of doing A and B and then D (or it may be the same) but you are suggested to do A, then B, then D AND NOT C and E but not D..

Your experience is a precious resource, but not every experience can be extended to other topics, try setting it aside for a moment, temporarily forget everything you know about install.wim, gimagex64 or whatever other tool or method (good, bad, right or wrong) you have been using till now (BTW to do a DIFFERENT thing) and open your mind to the known methods to create/build (or make bootable media from) a PE.

I will repeat myself:

If you want to learn how to make the most basic WinPE from a Windows 10 source, READ the Microsoft article you were given:

https://docs.microso...boot-or-non-ram

and do what is there (and NOTHING else).

If you want to learn how to make a "better" PE get the MistyPE project:

http://mistyprojects....2018.01.21.zip

read its (good) documentation:

http://mistyprojects...ocs/readme.html

and do what is is written there (and NOT something else). 

Once you will have succeeded in following those (and not some other) instructions to the letter (and thus you will be more familiar with the concepts and tools used) then there will be time to introduce variations, make comparisons on the tools and methods used, etc.

If you have doubts/questions/whatever about the suggested methods/tools feel of course free to ask for assistance, but please stop this "but if I do the same thing I have always done with something else it doesn't work as it does when I do it on something else" kind of stuff.

The general idea of the suggestion is to compare two PE's (one very minimal and one more complete) to your (reduced) "full install" of Windows 10.

To do this you need three things:

1) your (reduced) full install of Windows 10
2) a minimal WinPE (based on Windows 10)

3) a more complete PE (possibly built with the same method as the above #2)

If you want to follow this general idea you need to learn how to build #2 and #3 and actually build them, otherwise all you have is #1 and you have no comparison to make.

Wonko

Dear Wonko,

I'm afraid I inexorably have to agree with u on this too - the path of true knowledge knows no shortcuts. Knowledge is costly. The price to pay is devotion and dedication with a final reward that will pay u back in the end. What I was half-consciously trying to do is avoiding both, and the reward along with it. I was in the wrong, so I will delve into all there is to be known. Self-honesty is the only road to self-respect. Now I am having trouble with updating my video card drivers (btw, from geforce 47something.something it is almost impossible to simply update the drivers, and I think this is due to misplaced directories, so I will hold a big vhd with no misplacement in order to get these drivers installed and then I will restore the junction placement of folders). This is just another drawback I have forgotten to mention. as soon as I get this done I will try to get somewhere from misty's pe.

nino

I like to use Junction Links to install some games that do not let you install them on a diferent than C drive, also I have used Junction Links to avoid SSD wear sending to the secondary HDD all FireFox cache and defs folder of Avast, also using a RamDisk for Temp files, so I can say I'm familiar with Junction Links and how to use them.

But my question here is this:

Isn't this approach you are using here very similar to Win 8.1 update 1 WimBoot install, wich by the way give you smaller files (source and VHD)?

I have used WimBoot installs creating 7, 8 and 8.1 (very small) VHDs wich are linked to a *.wim file (used as source for WimBoot). If that is the case I think WinNTSetup can do it for you.

I have to clarify I haven't tested WinNTSetup WimBoot installs with any Win 10 version as this is not my favorite OS.

alacran

Isn't this approach you are using here very similar to Win 8.1 update 1 WimBoot install, wich by the way give you smaller files (source and VHD)?

 

WinNTSetup can indeed be used for WIMBOOT Install of Win10 x64 in small VHD of Size 5 GB connected to file install.wim elsewhere on harddisk.

That does not mean that booting with Grub4dos from RAMDISK using SVBus driver is possible for such WIMBOOT VHD.

Nevertheless, it can be realised .... The VHD of Size 5GB is loaded into RAM in 45 seconds and then Win10 x64 is booting in 10 seconds from RAMDISK.

== 

@ wimb

I made a wimboot install of W864ESP1 made first with your VHD_W8C_85 and installing on it Office 2003 (only Word and Excell), 7-Zip v18.06, diskmod and Sumatra PDF reader, then recaptured for wimboot (Express 4k) with Winlib-clc (wim file is 2 GB size) and copied this file to second partition (NTFS) on a USB 3.0 adapter (with a 32 GB Micro SD U1), then created a very small VHD 1.5 GB (but latter found 1 GB was enought) on same partition and installed on it on wimboot mode with WinNTSetup, so I used 2 GB for source image and 1.5 GB for VHD = 3.5 GB total.

Just yesterday used your UEFI_MULTI-87 to let me run linuxmint-19.1-cinnamon-64bit.iso from folder images (had to modify the menus a little), also put all my portables on first Fat32 partition so they can be used with all my Isos and  boot.wim files, also from W864ESP1 as it has diskmod installed.

By the way just saw there is a new version of your great tool: VHD_W8C_87-E

I think a portable device with a Win10XPE is a much better option than a 5 GB Win10 VHD + source wim.

But a portable device with a 1 GB W864ESP1 VHD + 2 GB source wim sounds practical to me.

Well, 1 thing at a time:

@wonko and the pre installation environment crew.

As I promised, after looking into the nvidia driver update, which stays almost impossible to make, unless one does not "bake" the vhd again ex novo (ie. from scratch), which I did (I am so used to it by now that i can make my-install-type vhd in half a day), I tried to study some of the pe world, namely winbuilder and pebakery. I must confess that I still do not know what a PE is for. I saw misty pe to see if some sort of comparison with what I have already in \windows and windows\system32 in order to follow a neater approach than just the empirical moving-files-about score by score. I have to admit that even playing with dependencies concerning exes to see wha dlls they were connected to did not yield substantially advantageous results - you finally come to the conclusion that almost all dlls are connected (and dlls make for the most conspicuous system32 folder content). Then, to stop feeling completely at a loss, I tried the empirical approach on the exes, to discover that the only ones u can move "safely" are those that do not accrue great advantages spacewise. they are so tiny that the free space on the vhd hardly changes. I tried moving all *.nls and it proved impossible to reboot. so I decided to give up after moving 4hundred something files that gave me a negligible extra free space.

@Alacran

For the past few years I have only purported a somewhat untechnical philosophical idea of what windows shoud be in terms of folder placement. Taking cues from some linux distros that I have interpreted to the best of my poor knowledge and belief, the philosophy behind my initiative is that an operating system should take the user to the operating base (which for the average user is the desktop interface) with as few files and folders as possible, meaning only the strictly necessary software to take u there. all the rest should be someplace else. In other posts I have explained in more detail what the practical advantages of this are - to make it short, let me say that no matter how many windows builds I have tried (i love experimenting) i never had to even care to know what my password to this, my key to that or my sat tv channels (I have a tuner) are, because I simply overwrite the software containing sensible data from the program files and program data to the vhd and then back out with junctions, etc. so I hardly ever reinstall anything. this is enough for me to conclude that there is more to it than philosophy, or rather, if I had the technical knowledge that i unfortunately lack, let me tell you this in your language, ... otro gallo me hubiera cantado. all this is to say that the approach I use is that of installing the os on a 20gb vhd, debloating it, customizing it to suit my liking, moving all folders I can onto the drive hosting the vhd and leaving in only what wonko once called, very hilariously for that matter, a core version/part of windows, which is later cut into 3.5gb with vhd resizer. if you find this similar to winntsetup and wimboot, that is fine with me. much less fine is what wimb says about  the size (he says 5gb). You will have reckoned that mine is mostly a manual post-install edition. if you can think of a script that could tell windows how to install and where to put which folders in the first place, on a pre-install basis, it would spare me the trouble of moving and junctioning them myself, as well as it would probably tell us what to avoid moving anywhere, if it is better for it to stay on c:\.

anyway I wanna try for the sake of comparison. you never know. I already set the source, now I have two things to sort out. can boot drive and installation drive be 2 vhds?

I don´t know if you saw my previous post, it seems to me we were tiping simultaneously, you only make one VHD where Win is installed as wimboot, but majority of all files on that VHD are linked to the source file wich is the same you use to make the install on the VHD, source files need to be available/redable from the VHD when you run the OS into the VHD.

yes I noticed that, but I have not yet succeeded in getting it installed. I downloaded winntsetup and image always fails

I do not know what is wrong

do i have to choose a boot partition even in bios?

i tried with 3 different images that do work otherwise, but no dice

yes I noticed that, but I have not yet succeeded in getting it installed. I downloaded winntsetup and image always fails

I do not know what is wrong

do i have to choose a boot partition even in bios?

Yes, you have to select the three:

Boot partition (can be the same as install partition) as MBR needs a formated NTFS primary active partition, (or FAT32 for UEFI).

Install partition (on MBR can be the same as boot partition) needs to be a formated NTFS, primary partition.

 and Install.wim file location

to make it clear, My present boot drive is the host drive of the vhd, of program files, of program files (x86), of program data, of windows, of users and of the boot files (boot folder plus bootmgr) and grub4dos for preramloading. can all this be included in an install.wim file? is it worth my while, since it gets updated everytime I install anything?

nino

these directories i have mentioned are not the original ones from the install.esd, but they are integrated with all software I have had for decades

it is the stuff of hundreds of gigs

Please re read my previous post I re edited it to make it more clear.

 

to make it clear, My present boot drive is the host drive of the vhd, of program files, of program files (x86), of program data, of windows, of users and of the boot files (boot folder plus bootmgr) and grub4dos for preramloading. can all this be included in an install.wim file? is it worth my while, since it gets updated everytime I install anything?

Yes you can make a very big *.wim image but that would be usefull as backup, not for creating an small install.

I suggest you to make a second partition or use a secondary disk or even better another PC to run experiments and do not mix with your working OS, and then start since the begining making a new fresh install on that partition.

I do not have another pc, nor do I have another disk. I have a couple of flash drives and some space on the existing drives on the existing pc. as I have explained to u, i have a vhd containing boot files and a slim part of windows containing slightly more than the minimum necessary to get to the interface + program files, program files (x86), programdata and users entrirely on d: (the host drive that the vhd is on). the folders on d: are junctioned to c: (the vhd). now, how would all this translate into winntsetup terms and conditions? I am willing to try, but pls, from here as much as possible. otherwise I find it hard to get everything back together, or at least I think so.

nino

The size of the WIMBOOT Install of Win10x64 in VHD can be reduced to 1 GB when we take care to have no internet connection.

Additional drivers can be installed later by using a known Driverstore as source instead of letting Windows Update from internet doing this thing.

== 

It is a nice result.

A drawback is that RAMDISK booting is only available in BIOS mode booting and not in UEFI mode ....

This is due to the fact that Grub4dos booting is needed for using SVBus driver in booting from RAMDISK.

The VHD of Size 4 GB is loaded into RAM in 35 seconds and then Win10 x64 is booting in 10 seconds from RAMDISK.

More Info is here

Dear Wimb,

I really appreciate your suggestions and links to tutorials. there are a lot of alternatives, If I only knew which one is the best for me! I have an install.wim, an empty vhd (not vhdx), some free usb drives, winpebakery, winntsetup. Pls tell me where to start from.

I also have other drives with some free space each, but in order to make it easiest for both, would you pls tell me what should be placed where in order to start successfully with minimal install?

Edited by antonino61, 19 February 2019 - 02:06 PM.

WinNTSetup can be used for WIMBOOT Install of Win10 x64 in small VHD of Size 4 GB connected to file install.wim elsewhere on harddisk.

Disconnect your LAN cable from the computer so that during Installation there is NO Internet connection (otherwise Installation grows too much)

0. In x64 OS Run WinNTSetup_x64.exe (architectures must correspond)

1. In WinNTSetup use VHD>>> to Create VHD file of Size 5 GB on NTFS primary partition e.g. your drive C:

    The VHD file is then auto mounted as the Y: Installation drive

2. Select as Windows Installation file your install.wim , located in my case in folder C:\WIM_SRC\sources

    I have downloaded Win10_1803_English_x64.iso from TechBench to get fresh install.wim file

3. Select Edition - Windows 10 Home 1803

4. Select Tweaks - Disable Hibernate and Disable Page file

5. Usually the Boot drive is already auto selected, in my case the SSD_EFI drive mounted as Z: (otherwise Select your Boot Drive)

6. Select Mode WIMBOOT and then Click Setup to start the Installation

    It is important that all 4 control signs are green (and not red, since then installation will fail)

7. Reboot to finish the Installation

What windows calls my c: drive has no room, it is only a vhd file hosted on what windows calls D:. Is this why winntsetup insists on failing the install process?

Can you give Screenshots of DiskManagement and Windows Explorer showing your Drives ?

And give Screenshot of your WinNTSetup configuration.

 sure, I have also taken pics of them, if only I knew how to send them here!

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