Sorry I'm so late answering you, but I needed to totally reinstall my Windows 7 computer (but it had nothing with these tests af ImDisk to do).
You did not even try to create a 14 GB without using awealloc in your second test run
Yes you are quite right, I did a big mistake in my second test, and I'm surprised that you saw that so quick and easy. Well actually not, because I'm having around 15 years of IT-Programmer experience writing silent install and uninstall scripts for ordinary user programs, but no experience about drivers, and I guess that you have the same or more experience about writing drivers.
But this is my first experience about testing drivers, and the only information I knew about until now, was that drivers is installed and uninstalled using rundll32.exe with a .inf file, and that I can find new versions of drivers identified by the ven and and dev information from Device Manager
And when I'm running a test, I always doublecheck what I'm doing and seing, so when my command line script shows me, that a ImDisk drive is mounted or unmounted, I check it in ImDisk.cpl and Explorer.exe, and when a service is started or stopped, I check it using services.msc, but I couldn't find any way to check the awealloc driver being started or stopped, so ...
Never stop a driver that is in use in Windows. Never.
... maybe that's the two reasons why my 1. test got messed up, and I want you to know, that I'm very very pleased to learn from your excellent driver experience.
So I have made 2 new test to find out how my Windows 7 64 bit, can use awealloc or imdisk, and I've created them, so you can compare with my 2 earlier test above. And I think that I have all possible options covered.
But you actually don't need to examine them below, because the 2 tests has 100 % identical results, and I can now tell you that my earlier remarks about difference in the 2 install methods was wrong. There isn't any difference at all.
So now I only need to test my Windows 7 32 bit computer, but I believe it would be the same result as my Windows XP SP2 computer, where I can't use awealloc, and that's a shame
So now I can (as you already have told me several times
) conclude about Windows 7 64 bit:When the awealloc service is started:
When mounting a virtual disk using -f .awealloc, the disk size is restricted to the free physical RAM, and the used disk size minimizes the free physical RAM with the same size as mounted.
When mounting a virtual disk without using -f .awealloc, the disk size is not restricted to the free physical RAM, and the used disk size does not minimizes the free physical RAM with the same size as mounted, but only with a few dozens of KB even if mounting 14 GB.
When the awealloc service is not started:
It's not possible to mount a virtual disk using -f .awealloc
When mounting a virtual disk without using -f .awealloc, the disk size is not restricted to the free physical RAM, and the used disk size does not minimizes the free physical RAM with the same size as mounted, but only with a few dozens of KB even if mounting 14 GB.
Here is my test #3:
@echo.
@echo Install imdisk manually only using IndiskInst.exe and receiving the 7z msgbox about installation OK
@echo.
pause
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 14G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 6G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 14G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 6G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
net start awealloc
@echo.
ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 14G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 6G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 14G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 6G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
@echo.
wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
@echo.
imdisk -d -m R:
@echo.
@echo Uninstall imdisk manually using control panel, and reboot you computer, otherwise you can't install again
@echo.
pause
Exit
Here is my translated results of test #3
Install imdisk manually only using IndiskInst.exe and receiving the 7z msgbox about installation OK
C:>pause
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6826856 8368980
C:>ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 14G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
Creating device...
Created device 0: R: -> VM image
Formatting disk...
Filesystemtype is RAW.
The new filsystemtype is NTFS.
Expressformatting 14336 MB
The disk device is not conneted. All open handles to this disk device is now not valid.
Creating system structures.
The formatting is now finished
14,0 GB total disk size.
13,9 GB free to use
Notifying applications...
Done.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6734588 8368980
C:>imdisk -d -m R:
Notifying applications...
Flushing file buffers...
Locking volume...
Dismounting filesystem...
Removing device...
Removing mountpoint...
Done.
C:>ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 6G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
Creating device...
Created device 0: R: -> VM image
Formatting disk...
Filesystemtype is RAW.
The new filsystemtype is NTFS.
Expressformatting 6144 MB
The disk device is not conneted. All open handles to this disk device is now not valid.
Creating system structures.
The formatting is now finished
6,0 GB total disk size.
6,0 GB free to use
Notifying applications...
Done.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6766604 8368980
C:>imdisk -d -m R:
Notifying applications...
Flushing file buffers...
Locking volume...
Dismounting filesystem...
Removing device...
Removing mountpoint...
Done.
C:>imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 14G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
Creating device...
Error creating virtual disk: The specified file is not found.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6824440 8368980
C:>imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 6G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
Creating device...
Error creating virtual disk: The specified file is not found.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6824532 8368980
C:>net start awealloc
The AWE Memory Allocation Driver service is started.
C:>ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 14G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
Creating device...
Created device 0: R: -> VM image
Formatting disk...
Filsystemtype is RAW.
The new filsystemtype is NTFS.
Expressformatting 14336 MB
The disk device is not conneted. All open handles to this disk device is now not valid.
Creating system structures.
The formatting is now finished
14,0 GB total disk size.
13,9 GB free to use
Notifying applications...
Done.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6733704 8368980
C:>imdisk -d -m R:
Notifying applications...
Flushing file buffers...
Locking volume...
Dismounting filesystem...
Removing device...
Removing mountpoint...
Done.
C:>ImDisk -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 6G -p "/FS:NTFS /q /y"
Creating device...
Created device 0: R: -> VM image
Formatting disk...
Filsystemtype is RAW.
The new filsystemtype is NTFS.
Expressformatting 6144 MB
The disk device is not conneted. All open handles to this disk device is now not valid.
Creating system structures.
The formatting is now finished
6,0 GB total disk size.
6,0 GB free to use
Notifying applications...
Done.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6766296 8368980
C:>imdisk -d -m R:
Notifying applications...
Flushing file buffers...
Locking volume...
Dismounting filesystem...
Removing device...
Removing mountpoint...
Done.
C:>imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 14G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
Creating device...
Error creating virtual disk:
There is not enough memory when using this command.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
6988516 8368980
C:>imdisk -a -f .awealloc -s 6G -m R: -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"
Creating device...
Created device 0: R: -> .awealloc
Formatting disk...
Filesystemtype is RAW.
The new filsystemtype is NTFS.
Expressformatting 6144 MB
The disk device is not conneted. All open handles to this disk device is now not valid.
Creating system structures.
The formatting is now finished
6,0 GB total disk size.
6,0 GB free to use
Notifying applications...
Done.
C:>wmic os get TotalVisibleMemorySize,FreePhysicalMemory
FreePhysicalMemory TotalVisibleMemorySize
696684 8368980
C:>imdisk -d -m R:
Notifying applications...
Flushing file buffers...
Locking volume...
Dismounting filesystem...
Removing device...
Removing mountpoint...
Done.
Uninstall imdisk manually using control panel, and reboot you computer, otherwise you can't install again
C:>pause
C:>Exit
Well I don't need to post my test #4 to you, because it shows exactly the same, except:
@echo.
@echo Install imdisk manually using your install.cmd with among others - rundll32 setupapi.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 .imdisk.inf
pause
Edited by TrywareDk, 30 July 2012 - 03:37 PM.
