There's a new command line parameter in this new build:
ZIPmagic WinRE Update Utility (www.zipmagic.co)
Copyright© 2014-2015 Simon King. All rights reserved.
Usage: zipmagicwinre.exe <filename> [-x] [-u [-d]]
<filename>: Path to WIM file, deleted if found
x: Find and extract WIM from WinRE partition
u: Update WIM (image index 1) with WIMGAPI libraries and WoF driver
d: Delete winpeshl.ini from WIM (image index 1), requires -u
The -d option does something seemingly pointless; it removes the file \windows\system32\winpeshl.ini from the extracted WIM. Why? Its kind of a long story:
There have recently been some reports that DoubleSpace actually causes a net loss of storage on some 16 GB WIMBoot tablets; these reports are easily understood considering the WIMBoot recovery partition on these systems are separate, and DoubleSpace does not remove these partitions after compressing the disk. As such, I am adding support to DoubleSpace to recognize and remove such partitions after processing is complete; including extending the main partition to reclaim that space.
Now, to test, I got my hands on such a tablet. I use Macrium Reflect (Free Edition) to image and restore the tablets I work on to their default factory state, which is vital given the kind of work I do. [Unfortunately the recovery media created on pre-WIMBoot'ed tablets does not work accurately to restore them to their base state; Microsoft's recovery software assumes (mistakenly) that the WIMBoot partition has been left untouched during a recovery operation. See the paragraph above for an explanation of why this recovery software wouldn't work in my case.]
Regretfully, the micro sized, 16 GB, WIMBoot'ing tablet I am using does not come with a keyboard dock (unlike the, for example, Asus T100 users who reported this issue). After booting into Macrium Reflect Free Edition from my USB thumb drive using an OTG cable, I found out that touch input does not work either. Also, connecting a USB keyboard or mouse through an OTG cable did not work as well - the devices were simply not working. This resulted in the nasty situation of being in an WinPE desktop without any opportunity to interact with the device!
I knew from testing DoubleSpace on the tablet that it was responsive to user input. I also noticed that Macrium Reflect may consume a third-party WIM when creating a recovery USB drive. Unfortunately, their build processes always failed when I tried to use the WIM extracted using my tool in this post. In analyzing their logs, I noticed the process was choking apparently because the recovery WIM file already had \windows\system32\winpeshl.ini inside it (tested with their most recent build at the time of this writing).
We've now arrived at the happy-ending part of the story. The new "-d" switch simply removes this file, allowing Macrium Reflect to successfully build the recovery WIM. After which, booting into Macrium Reflect Free Edition from the USB thumb drive results in working touch input. Yaaay!
Now I can get back to improving DoubleSpace for this significant scenario. All this work just to delete a partition when users could just as well delete it themselves, you ask? Well, DoubleSpace is meant to be a single-click tool, so yes, it has been time well spent
And I hope any users in my position, unable to control their tablets after booting into a custom WIM, would also benefit from this enhancement - saving the hassle of manually having to configure their tablet drivers for their custom WIMs.
Enjoy, rebooters!