Not sure to understand what you are saying... I just tested ImDisk Toolkit on XP Pro x64, and it seems to work smoothly.
Of course, there is a first warning message about the system, another about .NET Framework 4 (which also require "Windows Imaging Component" on this system), but once they are installed, the tools are working without issue.
So, I am thinking to add explicitely XP x64 as supported system.
I do not have dotnet installed (I forgot to mention) I installed it again, the first time I did not check the start menu so I missed that the general preferences is available the first time. I will install net 4 next and test again now.
One way to solve the write filter part could be to mount a vhd differencing image through DiscUtils. This will write changes to the diff vhd, which you could remove and recreate using a script or similar. Your original vhd will stay unmodified with that approach.
Thank you Olaf, as of yet I have not had success installing to vhd and booting it with Gru4Dos so I am using a USB HDD directly file-backed for most boot testing.
I am slowly learning on reboot. my awkward but useful procedure now is: basically, install XP in vmware workstation 5.5 and then use usboot to make it usb bootable. then I use clonedisk to file copy (keep ACL) that to USB drives.
so far my usage of ImDisk has been to mount .vdmk so that I can use clonedisk to file copy to elsewhere. I use Qemu manager7 to create raw images then mount them with ImDisk so that I can format them and use clonedisk for transfers.
originally I found ImDisk in diddy's Grub4Dos guide to ram booting. I have success booting in ram this way.
I dont have much time to experiment is the reason I learn slowly. I have minor success using wimbs create vhd for an empty vhd then using that vhd and transferring my usboot'd XP into it and booting that vhd with Grub4Dos but it not always repeatable because BSODs (not always 7b, sometimes is 6e an process initialization, etc.)
my goal is to learn how to install OS in vhd and boot that with Grub4Dos in ram and filebacked with firadisk and WinVblock like how wimbs tools work but without using them because they are hard for me to understand and seems to require starting each OS from scratch install.
I would like to learn to work with ImDisk like you post here so that ewf is not needed but it will take time for me.
is it possible to do this same except on OS booted on usb directly and not vhd on usb?
I have tried to use ImDisk to make an Image of exsisting drive too but I dont need unused sectors in the image.
your tool is so great that it will take me a long time to learn how to utilize it properly.
reboot is really great, so many generous advanced users here with so many cutting edge tools! I wish I could spend all day learning about these things. I try to give something back if I can somehow too but Im very limited. I will install dotnet4 on this XPx64 and report back what I see but I can not test it fully since I dont have enough knowledge of ImDisks capibilities yet. I can provide basic report is all.
thanks
edit to add: yes, installed dotnet4 in the x64 XP and the tool kit installed and apeared to be fully functional.