Jump to content











Photo
- - - - -

Speed of tools installed in WinFE

winpe winfe

  • Please log in to reply
8 replies to this topic

#1 Blackbeauty

Blackbeauty

    Newbie

  • Members
  • 27 posts
  •  
    India

Posted 24 June 2015 - 12:34 PM

Hi

I have created a bootable external Hdd with WinFE image and added a disk hash software utility in it. While testing,I found that the speed of this hash utility running in normal windows platform is higher than in Windows FE environment(Same machine). Why this happen?

Is there any method to improve the speed of this utility? do I have to add/ set any cab/parameters to WinPE image to increase the execution speed of the added tools ?


Edited by Blackbeauty, 24 June 2015 - 12:37 PM.


#2 Wonko the Sane

Wonko the Sane

    The Finder

  • Advanced user
  • 16066 posts
  • Location:The Outside of the Asylum (gate is closed)
  •  
    Italy

Posted 24 June 2015 - 03:00 PM

Does *any other* hashing utility works with the same speed on the same system when in the "normal" windows install and when in the PE?

Which differences (installed devices and drivers) are there?

 

In other words, when the hash tool is working fast in the "normal" Windows install it may take advantage of only 3 (three) things:

  1. a particular hardware driver (disk controller or chipset/bus) that is different or missing in the PE/WinFE
  2. a particular setting in a .ini or Registry that is missing in the PE/WinFE
  3. a particular subsystem (let's say just as an example the WMI) that is missing in the PE/WinFE

 

IF your PE uses the same drivers as your "full install", try tracing the tool with Dependency Walker and with Procmon, the latter being (though unrelated) another example of something needing an added subsystem to work in a PE:

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=19028

and see if you can find a difference in the behaviours.

:

:duff:

Wpnko


  • Blackbeauty likes this

#3 Blackbeauty

Blackbeauty

    Newbie

  • Members
  • 27 posts
  •  
    India

Posted 25 June 2015 - 10:41 AM

Thanks Wonko..Moving in the direction you pointed out :)



#4 Blackbeauty

Blackbeauty

    Newbie

  • Members
  • 27 posts
  •  
    India

Posted 12 August 2015 - 09:49 AM

Hi Wonko,

Sorry for the late update.

 

//Does *any other* hashing utility works with the same speed on the same system when in the "normal" windows install and when in the PE?//

 

I have created a physical image of a disk using FTK imager in WinFE and in normal windows environment . The result is same as my hashing utility ie. FTK imager takes more time to create the image of a disk in WinFE compared to normal windows environment in same system.

 

I had added driver packages(of Chipset,Serial ATA,Removable disk) for the specific system(Dell Laptop) to the PE - but It doesn't make any change.

 

I have found a driver cab for WinPE from Dell website(http://en.community....-5-0-driver-cab).  I tried these drivers too but nothing solves the problem

 

In my hashing tool, there is a provision to view the speed of processing data and I noticed that this speed is maximum at begining(say 80 MB/S) and then it is slowly decreases and come to a constant value(say 50MB/S).

 

I tried to trace my hashing tool using Dependency Walker and with Procmon. But it seems all depended dll files and subsystem are available in PE also.



#5 Wonko the Sane

Wonko the Sane

    The Finder

  • Advanced user
  • 16066 posts
  • Location:The Outside of the Asylum (gate is closed)
  •  
    Italy

Posted 12 August 2015 - 09:58 AM

Try making a (small) hard disk image.

Load it into a (slightly larger) Ramdisk using IMDISK.

Try hashing it on the "real" windows and on the PE.

This way we should be able to exclude *anything* connected with hard disk drivers (or related settings) and/or with Mount Manager interactions (an IMDISK is hooked at a "higher" level than the Mount Manager, or if you prefer it does not expose a \\.\Physicaldrive).

 

:duff:

Wonko



#6 Blackbeauty

Blackbeauty

    Newbie

  • Members
  • 27 posts
  •  
    India

Posted 13 August 2015 - 08:42 AM

Thanks Wonko..

 

I followed your procedure. The problem is still exist. ie, In normal windows the speed of hashing of mounted image(as RAM disk) is around 60mbps but in WinFE , the hashing speed reduced to 20mbps. So the problem is not with dependent files or disk drivers .. :(



#7 Wonko the Sane

Wonko the Sane

    The Finder

  • Advanced user
  • 16066 posts
  • Location:The Outside of the Asylum (gate is closed)
  •  
    Italy

Posted 13 August 2015 - 08:47 AM

Hmmm. :unsure:

I wonder how to "catch" the differences.

Maybe a full trace with Process Monitor? :dubbio:

 

Try re-doing the same experiment in the ramdisk with the (small) hard disk image using another tool (like clonedisk or even the slower dsfo) to see if there is the same difference (i.e. it is a system difference) or if it is just FTK, it is possible that that particular tool achieves usually faster transfer times using some (again *whatever* trick/setting/subsytem/etc,) *somehow* only available in the "full" install (maybe multithreading?).

 

:duff:

Wonko



#8 Brito

Brito

    Platinum Member

  • .script developer
  • 10616 posts
  • Location:boot.wim
  • Interests:I'm just a quiet simple person with a very quiet simple life living one day at a time..
  •  
    European Union

Posted 14 August 2015 - 07:03 AM

I noted similar behavior when creating large files and in my opinion this is related with the file system caching.

 

Might be interesting to try this tool from within WinFE: http://www.superspee.../supercache.php

 

The driver caches often-used data to RAM, but the most interesting feature for this context is the lazy-write algorithm. On my case, using the RAM as buffer to reduce the number of repeated writes on the HDD has brought a performance boost to break the possible disk I/O bottleneck.

 

:cheers:



#9 Blackbeauty

Blackbeauty

    Newbie

  • Members
  • 27 posts
  •  
    India

Posted 18 August 2015 - 11:07 AM

Thanks Nuno Brito,

 

I tried to install Supercache in WinFE but failed. :(







Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: winpe, winfe

1 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users