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Three Transparent Full Disk Compression Betas


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#1 simonking

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Posted 26 June 2014 - 12:25 AM

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

It is my please to offer three full disk compressors up for the forum members as betas to enjoy. These are all 100% transparent tools, letting applications access your data as if they were completely uncompressed.

 

1. Stacker

Risk: Zero

Technology: Data Deduplication

Requirements: 64 bit Windows NT 6.2 or Windows NT 6.3 (Server Edition)

Download: www.zipmagic.co/stacker.zip (rename to 7zip before extraction - while I fix the server configuration)

License: Please license ZIPmagic at www.zipmagic.co if you find the tool useful. 100% free to try and keep for all forum members who provide beta feedback and suggestions; together with a license of ZIPmagic 12 which will contain the final binary.

Application: For all non-boot-disk compression. Provides the highest compression ratios. Does not require console access to run. Can be used to compress non-boot storage on (virtual/private) servers. Can run 100% online.

 

2. DriveSpace

Risk: Zero

Technology: NTFS Compression

Requirements: Any 32 bit or 64 bit Windows NT 5.1 or newer platform (starting with Service Pack 0); ZIPmagic must be installed from www.zipmagic.co (re-branding has not been completed yet for the site and download) for the licensing to work

Download: www.zipmagic.co/drivespace.zip (rename to 7zip before extraction - while I fix the server configuration)

License: DriveSpace is already tied in to the ZIPmagic licensing mechanism and will refuse to compress more than 1 GB on each run without a valid license. 100% free to try and keep for all forum members who provide beta feedback and suggestions; together with a free license of ZIPmagic 12 which will contain the final binary. Just hit me up for a free license today, if you wish to use the tool without limitations RE: 1 GB cap.

Application: For all full-disk compression requirements. Supports boot disks and regular disks. Does not require console access to run. Can be used to compress (virtual/private) servers as well, including boot storage. Can run 100% online. Provides the least compression rates of the tools in the suite; however is the most versatile in being able to run 100% online, on all Windows versions, and without any foreseeable limitations or side effects.

 

3. DoubleSpace

Risk: Moderate with Undo Disk; High without Undo Disk

Technology: WIMBoot, using both WIMGAPI (Windows Imaging API) and WIMLIB (by Eric Biggers).

Requirements: Windows 8.1 with Update 1. While DoubleSpace will support 32 bit Windows, currently I have uploaded only the 64 bit build. 32 bit build will be made available upon request on immediate notice. You will, however, need to build a Windows PE 5.1, together with the binaries provided in the link below (no trivial task). To assist with the automation of this component, please visit the thread at http://reboot.pro/to...fi-boot-issues/

Download: www.zipmagic.co/doublespace.zip (rename to 7zip before extraction - while I fix the server configuration)

License: 100% free to try and keep indefinitely in its current form. A free license for ZIPmagic 12 Server Edition when it is released, which will contain the final version of DoubleSpace. Since this tool comes with high risk, I especially appreciate any feedback that will be provided on it. You are willingly taking the risk of blowing up your computer, and I am grateful.

Application: For boot disks only. Provides very high compression ratios, second only to Stacker. The only major drawback is that console access is required to be able to run from Windows PE. As such, will not be usable on servers if you do not have console access.

 

Acknowledgements and Thanks:

Sinan Karaca of InstallAware Software for building the original precursors of ZIPmagic, and providing proto versions of DoubleSpace and Stacker.

Eric Biggers of the open source WIMLIB project for his excellent support of WIMLIB, and also of course, for building the excellent WIMLIB libraries.

Christopher Ryan of Tom's Hardware, for using the precursor of DriveSpace in an SSD review, and for his forgiveness with a big mistake of mine.

 

User Manual:

 

DriveSpace and Stacker are 100% intuitive. Just point and click, they are 1-click operation tools.

 

For DoubleSpace, first choose the drive to compress. Next, choose an undo disk. Your undo disk must be large enough to compress your WIM file. You can use any internal or external storage. The undo disk will not be required after processing. If you skip using an undo disk, you can still try the tool - in this case, files will be deleted immediately after being added to the WIM file. Note! This is inherently dangerous. If anything goes wrong with the WIM process, you will lose access to all files that were deleted during processing.

If you select the MaxSpeed compression rate, the WIMGAPI will be used. If you select the MaxSpace compression rate, or anything else in between, the WIMLIB API will be used. Note that there is currently an issue with the WIMLIB API which may effect your ability to use any compression grade above MaxSpeed. This will be fixed in future iterations, thanks to the support of Eric Biggers.

To access advanced options, double-click the tool icon in the tool window. Here, you will be able to manually select the WIM file path to backup from and restore to, whether to backup, restore, or do both; and whether to do a system restore. A system restore simply applies your selected WIM file in non-WIMBoot (regular) mode. You will be able to use the system restore mode to restore your original system (as long as you took the undo disk option) if anything went wrong during WIM application in WIMBoot mode. The delete-files-on-the-fly option will format your disk before applying your WIM when running with an undo disk. If you are not using an undo disk, this option will immediately delete files, as soon as they have been added to a target WIM.

 

Caution:

 

Due at least in part to issues I have been having with my development Surface Pro's as documented at the UEFI Boot topic above, sometimes when I have used DoubleSpace, I have had trouble WIMBoot'ing. As far as I can tell, these issues are localized to my strange Surface Pro hardware. However, I cannot guarantee that they are, therefore I have classified the risk involved in using DoubleSpace to Medium/High. I am very much interested in your feedback using DoubleSpace on your UEFI and BIOS hardware, and especially on your Surface Pro's. However, please be advised that you may be left with an unworkable system, if the issues I am experiencing are not localized to my Surface Pro's, and/or my UEFI environment. Please make sure you have a full system backup before experimenting with DoubleSpace.

 

Notes:

 

DriveSpace is the upgraded version of Drive Press. Enhancements:

- Completely eliminated pre-scan of disk. Full disk compression begins immediately.

- Automatic SSD detection (even on RAID arrays and VMs).


Edited by simonking, 26 June 2014 - 12:43 AM.


#2 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 26 June 2014 - 09:25 AM

Interesting set of names chosen. :dubbio:

 

The Billy-Bob saga starts again. :w00t: Just as a reference: http://reboot.pro/to...lly-bob-thread/

 

http://en.wikipedia....tac_Electronics

http://support.micro.../kb/71787/en-us

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Doublespace

 

:duff:

Wonko



#3 simonking

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Posted 26 June 2014 - 10:04 AM

OK, the URLs have been fixed at the server. The correct download links (and the file formats) are below:

 

Stacker: www.zipmagic.co/stacker.7zip

DriveSpace: www.zipmagic.co/drivespace.7zip

DoubleSpace: www.zipmagic.co/doublespace.7zip

 

DoubleSpace has just been updated with a new contribution by WIMLIB. The previous error where any compression grade above MaxSpeed was disabled should now be resolved.

 

I also have a screenshot to share from my development Surface Pro 2 64 GB:

www.zipmagic.co/zipmagic-doublespace-maxspeed.png

 

This is the compression gains that I obtained on my system AFTER it was ALREADY compressed using DriveSpace (100% NTFS compression, including areas that are normally skipped by Windows), and had only 1 GB free space left. The compression grade used in this test was DoubleSpace-MaxSpeed. I will now use the latest available build of DoubleSpace with the fixed WIMLIB to recompress this drive even further using DoubleSpace-MaxSpace!

 

Current statistics reported on the drive:

Size: 92.6 GB

Size on Disk: 52.4 GB

This is immediately after some updates have been applied (a 1 GB Office 2013 update), after I did a new build of DoubleSpace, and some additional Adobe CC updates; so there's already been some space-bleeding at the WIMBoot side of things. But it appears the tool DoubleSpace will indeed live up to its name :)


Edited by simonking, 26 June 2014 - 10:06 AM.


#4 simonking

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Posted 28 June 2014 - 12:31 PM

I have posted a fresh new build of DoubleSpace:

 

www.zipmagic.co/doublespace.7zip

 

This build can now apply LZX compression (dubbed as MaxSpace in the UI) successfully with WIMBoot!

 

I have phenomenal results to report. On my development Surface Pro 2 64 GB, my hard disk was already full to the brink with NTFS compression (maxed out by DriveSpace referenced earlier, above and over what can be done with Windows's own NTFS compression, by about three times more). I had barely 1 GB free space left on my fully-compressed drive. After LZX'ing this already compressed drive, I now have:

 

23 GB free space

A higher than 2.0:1 compression ratio, with:

Total file size of 93 GB on disk, where the real size on disk is actually only 42 GB!

The actual compression ratio is currently 2.21:1!

 

The golden days of Stacker for Windows 3.1 are about to be back, thanks to the efforts of yours truly :)

 

I am lowering the risk for DoubleSpace from Medium to Low when an Undo Disk is used for the operation.

 

Presently, I still have some testing work left on:

 

1) Re-compressing an existing drive (yes, this is possible with DoubleSpace, when you use an Undo Disk).

2) De-compressing an existing drive (also supported with DoubleSpace).

3) On-the-fly processing of a drive. You will probably never be able to de-compress or re-compress without an Undo Disk, but you will be able to do it to initially compress your drive.



#5 simonking

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Posted 29 June 2014 - 12:25 AM

Uploaded a newer build of DoubleSpace:

 

www.zipmagic.co/doublespace.7zip

 

Changes:

- Updated version of WIMLIB. Now fixes file exclusions, so drive recompression should work as intended (previously, it was not reclaiming as much space as it could).

- At MaxSpeed compression, the capture was not being done using WIMGAPI. Now it is done using WIMGAPI instead, providing a way to test both capture engines on different systems if one or the other fails.

 

I am really pleased by the extra space savings LZX (Eric's API) compression provides over XPRESS (MSFT's API) compression. The speed impact is nominal. WIMLIB is truly great!

 

Welcoming feedback,



#6 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 30 June 2014 - 06:29 PM

Interesting set of names chosen. :dubbio:

 

It might be interesting to search TESS:

http://www.uspto.gov...marks/index.jsp

for these names.

 

Our apparently "legally naive" friend Simon King has just revamped the trademark for Stacker on March 30, 2014.

The Doublespace that also expired October 6, 2001 has been taken over by InstallAware :whistling: on March 24, 2014.

The Drivespace also canceled October 12, 2002 is still "dead".

 

:duff:

Wonko



#7 simonking

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Posted 01 July 2014 - 01:02 AM

Here's a newer build of DoubleSpace: www.zipmagic.co/doublespace.7zip

 

Fixes:

 

- Disk formatting issues where drive was locked are now no longer a problem.

- When using an Undo Disk, progress is finally available for copying the WIM file from the Undo Disk to the target partition.

 

Enjoy, and please send feedback,



#8 simonking

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Posted 02 July 2014 - 10:46 AM

A new bug has been resolved with DoubleSpace. This bug was causing some types of file exclusions to not be processed correctly.

 

Current statistics on my production drive are:

 

101 GB of files, size on disk 45 GB, effective compression ratio: 2.24:1.

 

Total partition capacity: 58.9 GB, used space: 40.2 GB, free space: 18.7 GB.

 

When I first booted the system up, free space was 20.7 GB, which dropped rapidly to 18.7 GB as the system continued booting, I launched Outlook, etc. This seems to be the only drawback of DoubleSpace - that, there is some "dead space" in WIM files, which cannot be reclaimed in a straight-forward manner. Looking to build a smart file exclusion mechanism to deal with this; such files which have to be excluded can always be recompressed using DriveSpace's NTFS strategy.

 

I've also finished uploading a fresh new build. This build has the following fixes:

 

- Much more improved and accurate progress display, including processing speed of MB/sec during compression

- Some more problems with the Format routine fixed

 

Download at the same place as before:

 

www.zipmagic.co/doublespace.7zip

 

Current Risk Ratings:

 

with Undo Disk: Very Low

without Undo Disk: High

 

There ought to be virtually no issues left when running with an Undo Disk. When the tool is out of beta, the risk of that usage mode will be Zero.

 

I haven't had much of a chance to look at the version without the Undo Disk as yet. Going to do that soon, and I hope to be able to release that final code with a risk rating of "Low" - data loss only when unexpected power loss occurs.

 

Enjoy,



#9 simonking

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Posted 02 July 2014 - 11:39 PM

Today we have an update for Stacker:

 

www.zipmagic.co/stacker.7zip

 

Enhancements:

 

- Progress display on taskbar.

- Main progress display fixed.

- Correct warning shown when data dedup services are not installed, instead of an app crash.



#10 simonking

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Posted 04 July 2014 - 04:51 PM

I've built an update pack for Stacker, DoubleSpace, and DriveSpace combined - together with readme.txt's in each folder:

 

www.zipmagic.co/zipmagic12fulldiskcompressors.7zip

 

Fixes in this update:

 

1) Proper app manifests which request elevation, for all three of the apps.

2) A lot of stability and performance enhancements to DoubleSpace. DoubleSpace is now feature complete :)

 

DoubleSpace is almost production ready! DriveSpace and Stacker may now be considered the final builds. Please enjoy!



#11 simonking

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Posted 06 July 2014 - 10:49 PM

OK, the release candidate of the DoubleSpace software is here:

 

www.zipmagic.co/doublespace.7zip

 

Risk with Undo Disk: Zero

Risk without Undo Disk: Low (power loss only)

 

I've also updated the combined package for all three full disk compressors:

 

www.zipmagic.co/zipmagic12fulldiskcompressors.7zip

 

All work like a charm :)

 

Updates in DoubleSpace:

- Fixes issues with displaying message boxes at the end of, or during, an operation.

- Some additional; progress bar issues fixed.

- Loading additional error information with the WIMLIB library was broken, now it is working properly.

 

DoubleSpace has been tested for the following scenarios:

 

1) First time compression of a boot partition with an Undo Disk - OK, with both WIMLIB (enhanced compression) and WIMGAPI.

2) First time compression of a boot partition without an Undo Disk - OK, with both WIMLIB (enhanced compression) and WIMGAPI.

3) Repeat compression of a previously compressed boot partition - OK, with both WIMLIB (enhanced compression) and WIMGAPI. Undo Disk mandatory in this scenario.

4) Decompression of a previously compressed boot partition - OK, with WIMGAPI (WIMLIB not used in this scenario). Undo Disk mandatory in this scenario.

 

You may want to do #3 when you've already compressed a partition, but have deleted files from it since, and wish to reclaim that space. Since all your data resides in a WIM file, when you delete files found in your base image, you will not be able to reclaim any space. That is why you may recompress your partition as many times as you need!

 

Additionally, you can use DriveSpace to recompress any new files you have added to your WIM backed partition. This works very well, and is an excellent placeholder for additional compression gains you can eventually realize by recompressing with DoubleSpace.

 

DoubleSpace also compresses an existing drive already compressed with DriveSpace. The two play really well.

 

Enjoy!


Edited by simonking, 06 July 2014 - 10:50 PM.


#12 TheHive

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Posted 09 July 2014 - 06:45 AM

Had to use 7-Zip 9.20 to uncompress files.

doublespace name reminds me of an old program back in the past.

you have to have a license for magicrar



#13 simonking

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Posted 09 July 2014 - 11:21 AM

Currently only DriveSpace is tied in to ZIPmagic licensing (I have almost completed the rebranding from MagicRAR to ZIPmagic). This must have been what you were trying to say, because DoubleSpace and Stacker are not currently tied in to ZIPmagic licensing.

 

You can extract the archive using ZIPmagic too, of course.


Edited by simonking, 09 July 2014 - 11:22 AM.


#14 simonking

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Posted 11 July 2014 - 01:20 AM

I have uploaded www.zipmagic.co/zipmagic.msi - this upload supersedes all previous uploads above, and contains all their payloads :)

 

1) The rebranding from MagicRAR to ZIPmagic is now complete (except the website, of course).

2) Stacker, DoubleSpace, and DriveSpace are now installed directly from the ZIPmagic installer.

3) I also took this opportunity to make sure ZIPmagic does not nag for the first 10 days of usage.

4) GitHub does not yet have a ZIPmagic OSS repo, so please deselect open source updates when installing. If you don't, the installer will try and fail eventually, but nothing blows up so you're still safe, even if you choose to install this contentious feature. As soon as the ZIPmagic OSS repo is live, this same installer will start magically working, of course.

 

Everything that works in MagicRAR 11.x ought to work in the ZIPmagic 12.0 beta above.

 

Of course, all the new features are in beta still, with the issues/exceptions as noted above.

 

Stacker is now tied in to ZIPmagic licensing, but see #2 above :)

 

DoubleSpace is not tied in to any licensing yet, partially because the modus of running it is not yet known :)

 

If you want a free license, just email or PM me, and I'd be happy to oblige anyways - I really appreciate the support of all reboot.pro members :D

 

Last but not least, here's the scoop on DoubleSpace changes:

 

1) You would still need to manually copy DoubleSpace, along with its DLLs (Eric's excellent WIMLIB), manually to a PE 5.1 USB media and run it from there. I hope to finish the automation of that last part of things real soon now, currently testing it running live under WinRE with VMware. Tip: If you will be attempting this at home, use any compression grade other than MaxSpeed, because WinRE does not appear to be updated for Windows 8.1 Update 1, as such lacking native WIMBoot support at the API level, even if your Windows already has been upgraded for it. Using MaxSpace or anything else in between will fall back to WIMLIB, and as such will work even on an "outdated" WinRE installation.

2) DoubleSpace now uses WIMLIB to apply captured images when you are not using the MaxSpeed compression mode. So MaxSpace or any other compression mode in between now uses WIMLIB to apply. I have not yet finished testing, so I cannot guarantee whether this may or may not create an indefinitely spinning boot loader for you. Use at your own risk.

3) Be sure to use an Undo Disk when running DoubleSpace. It's the smart thing to do :) And you will always be able to restore from it, just in case anything at all goes wrong for any reason (such as power loss, or an as yet undiscovered bug).

4) DoubleSpace is available in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions, automagically correctly installed by the setup routine. However, I have not tested the 32 bit version of DoubleSpace at all, and chances are you'd be using the 64 bit version anyways. Of course, I'll be doing more work on that front very soon, and officially qualifying DoubleSpace 32 bit before launch.

 

I hope you enjoy the new, compact setup experience.

 

PS: All other obsolete uploads above have been removed from the server.

 

PPS: To enjoy Stacker on a non-Server OS, please see:

 
PPPS: The installer will not let you install Stacker or DoubleSpace if your OS is unqualified due to technical reasons (wrong bitness, missing service pack, etc.), so you need not worry about that side of things.

Edited by simonking, 11 July 2014 - 01:25 AM.


#15 simonking

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Posted 11 July 2014 - 01:50 AM

PPPPS: The installer creates an icon for DoubleSpace...you can use it to process a copy of Windows on an extra partition, as long as that Windows is offline. Just be sure to not use that icon to process your live Windows partition :)



#16 simonking

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Posted 14 July 2014 - 04:36 AM

Excellent news:

 

www.zipmagic.co/zipmagic.msi

 

Now contains the latest version of DoubleSpace, which automatically reboots your computer, shows a new menu item titled ZIPmagic DoubleSpace on your boot menu, and compresses your main boot partition offline, successfully :) Everything is 100% automated :)

 

Only remaining issues:

1) 32 bit support with higher than MaxSpeed compression is not working.

2) If you upgraded your computer from Windows 8.1 to Windows 8.1 Update 1 through Windows Update (not a clean install), the MaxSpeed compression type is unsupported, and disk recompression is also unsupported.

 

That's it. Everything else works like a charm :)

 

PS: When installing, please deselect open source updates for now, as the online repo has not yet caught up to date with the pace of changes thus far.

 

PPS: Hardened-Surface tested and validated :D

 

Risk: With Undo Disk, Zero; Without Undo Disk: Very Low.


Edited by simonking, 14 July 2014 - 04:38 AM.


#17 simonking

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Posted 17 August 2014 - 07:47 AM

Please note that ZIPmagic 12.1 is currently live for download at www.zipmagic.co - everything works 100%, the software is bullet-proof in every regard now :) This is the end of the beta and the beginning of the next development cycle where I'm asking for feedback on new product features to be included in the next major version release. Don't hesitate to ping me with any ideas :)

 

PS: When I say everything is working, previously unsupported scenarios such as disk recompression, 32 bit compression above the MaxSpeed grade, and MaxSpeed operation on Windows 8.1 Update 1 installed through Windows Update are ALL supported, so enjoy! :D



#18 geordieandy

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Posted 20 August 2014 - 01:58 PM

Hi Simon

 

Just registered here to ask a quick question about your ZIPmagic DoubleSpace software which I have downloaded via the link on your web site and trying to get working on my Dell Venue Pro 11 with a 64GB SSD.

 

Everything appears to be installed ok but when I reboot and go into your DoubleSpace boot environment I get the following error pop up: 

 

Unable to capture C:\ into new WIM

 

Cause: Unknown error

 

[Warning] D:\config.ini:5: Unrecgonized section

"[CompressionExclusionList]"

[Warning] D:\config.ini:70: Unrecgonized section

"[CompressionFolderList]"

 

 

D:\ currently is a MicroSD card so I suppose I could remove that to see if that solves the issue and / or change it's drive letter?

 

Thanks for any help with this!

 

EDIT:

Tried with MicroSD as drive F: on reboot same issue

Tried with MicroSD as drive F: and running DoubleSpace as Administrator from within Windows before the reboot but same issue

Tried with MicroSD removed completly and running DoubleSpace as Administrator but on reboot same issue except this time the warnings above are C:\ related

 

Just to check... I am meant to be selecting C:\ as the drive to compress when in the reboot area!?

 

Thanks


Edited by geordieandy, 20 August 2014 - 02:11 PM.


#19 simonking

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Posted 20 August 2014 - 02:21 PM

Thanks for the feedback.

 

After the reboot, DoubleSpace ought to automatically start compressing - without you having to manually select anything. Is this not the case?

 

Do you have Bitlocker enabled on your drive?



#20 simonking

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Posted 06 September 2014 - 11:03 PM

I've posted ZIPmagic 12.3 to the public download site at http://www.zipmagic.co.

 

This version primarily focuses on the archiver aspects of ZIPmagic, but there are also some enhancements to DoubleSpace and DriveSpace:

 

- DoubleSpace correctly detects Bitlocker encrypted drives, instead of a cryptic error message.

- DriveSpace correctly interacts with DoubleSpace'd volumes, when those volumes were not previously DriveSpace'd.

 

So now you may run both DoubleSpace and DriveSpace at any time, with no particular ordering required - and you'll get maximum compression either way.

 

Enjoy!



#21 simonking

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Posted 11 September 2014 - 10:59 AM

I have uploaded version 12.4 of ZIPmagic to the public download site.

 

This version fixes some more archiver side issues, but it is mainly focused on DoubleSpace:

 

- Hidden settings are now propagated across reboots (to access these settings, double-click the program icon in the window while idling)

- You now get to choose the WIMGAPI engine or the WIMLIB engine for your processing mode at your own discretion

- DoubleSpace automatically defaults to WIMGAPI on 32 bit Windows 8.1 and to WIMLIB on 64 bit Windows 8.1

 

A lot of customers have been having strange issues around WIMLIB and I hope to get their feedback on whether WIMGAPI can work around their issues.

 

Please don't hesitate to provide your input!



#22 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 11 September 2014 - 11:26 AM

Here:

http://www.msfn.org/...ernates-slowly/

 

:duff:

Wonko



#23 synchronicity

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Posted 12 September 2014 - 10:26 PM

A lot of customers have been having strange issues around WIMLIB and I hope to get their feedback on whether WIMGAPI can work around their issues.

 

And I hope to get good bug reports (e.g., more than just a screenshot), so that I can actually add appropriate bug-fixes or workarounds to wimlib.


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#24 simonking

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Posted 24 October 2014 - 10:31 AM

I have just uploaded ZIPmagic 12.64.

 

This version introduces a fifth compression grade right in the middle of MaxSpace and MaxSpeed.

 

It also standardizes on the WIMLIB engine, which has now been fortified with the capability to ignore non-fatal errors.

 

A lot of users reported issues with temporary files during capture, or inability to set pointer data during restore. These were necessitating fallbacks to the WIMGAPI engine, and resulted in the quad-mode switching engine design that enabled users to choose engines individually for backup and restore.

 

While the quad-mode engine switching capability is still in place, WIMLIB is now the default engine for both backups and restores - please don't hesitate to let me know if there's any issues using the latest version.



#25 simonking

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Posted 02 November 2014 - 11:15 AM

Synchronicity was able to fix WIMLIB's "unable to set pointer data" error. It turns out that this error was simply a bug condition in Windows; retrying the same API call(s) when this error occurred resulted in a healing of the error. ZIPmagic 12.66 was uploaded with this fix.

 

ZIPmagic 12.65 had modified the installer routine and some parts of the archiver components of the software, to ensure compliance with the Certified for Windows logo program.

 

ZIPmagic 12.66, fortified by Synchronicity's fixes to WIMLIB, and the default WIMLIB engine with the option to ignore non-fatal errors; as well as the installer routine/archiver component updates for logo compliance, is currently in testing at Microsoft!

 

Thanks very much to everyone who has been supportive here of ZIPmagic's success and growth. Expect to see ZIPmagic in the Windows Store soon - 5 days is the official ETA, but given the sophistication of ZIPmagic's archiver and disk compression suite, could be longer.

 

We're not resting on our laurels here at ZIPmagic. I would also invite anyone interested to try out the ZIPmagic Unicode beta:

 

www.zipmagic.co/unicode-zipmagic.exe

 

One thing that all the ZIPmagic flakkers never noticed is that the archiving components of ZIPmagic never supported Unicode, due to the ANSI plug-in framework and API inherited from MimarSinan. It has been a major undertaking overhauling these, and with ZIPmagic's focus on the disk compression suite over the years, it has been a long time in the making.

 

There's still some bugs in the beta URL above, but I believe it is "beta-ready" at this time. I have had to drop some plug-ins (at least initially), including those of major contention (open source items); even though my changes to upgrade the plug-in framework and API to Unicode have retained backwards compatibility with legacy ANSI plug-ins. This was to ensure that the resultant product would be Unicode across the board.

 

Maybe it is because all of the ZIPmagic flakkers never touched the product with so much as a stick, that the Unicode issues did not get any flak. However my own user base has never so much as complained about the Unicode issues either. I don't know if anyone uses Unicode archives at all! My friends in Asia certainly seem to do. And their feedback was primarily that they'd rather have full Unicode support across the product, rather than a patchwork of plug-ins, some of which do support Unicode and some of which do not.

 

So anyways; with that purist design philosophy, the plug-ins shipping with the Unicode version number only two, and open source updates are currently disabled. Based on valuable user feedback, such as your own, the Unicode version will mature.

 

Thanks again to all for your overwhelming support in making ZIPmagic a success.






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