60 replies to this topic

[w2b]

Hi guys,

I'm very happy to present you the new USB boot tool for Windows 7 family (NT6.x) called

WiNToBootic can:

- make bootable NTFS USB Flash or Hard Disk Drive
- burn/extract any ISO type image, CD/DVD or Folder containing boot image of Win7-family OS (Vista, 7, 8, Server 2008, Server 2012, PE 2.x, PE 3.x)

[UPDATE]: Version 2.0 released! Check this out!

Changelog:
NEW Design
NEW Convenient Notifications
NEW Support of USB HDD
NEW Support of boot disk creation from CD/DVD or Folder
NEW Multithreading support
Performance Optimization
Fixes and Enhancements
DISABLED Command Line Mode


www.wintobootic.com


Hope it will be very useful for you. Please post your feedback here or send me email (contact on the official site).

Best regards,
w2b

Edited by w2b, 17 July 2012 - 09:54 PM.

[pecd.net]

good tool and nice look, but what i really miss is commandline support....

i would like it to have two modes, one completely invisible and one where the user sees the nice gui but can not do much (maybe only abort...)

Also for me it is always important what license is used...can this tool be redistributed with projects?

[w2b]

good tool and nice look, but what i really miss is commandline support....

i would like it to have two modes, one completely invisible and one where the user sees the nice gui but can not do much (maybe only abort...)

Also for me it is always important what license is used...can this tool be redistributed with projects?

Thanks for your feedback! I thought about command line already... but didnt do it in version 1.0. I will collect some more feedback and think it will be implement in next version.
I understand, you want use it for automation, but why do you need a "no interaction" mode? and how do you want to get result? exitcode? console? write to file?

[pecd.net]

In most cases a mode that shows the gui will be OK, but if i choose a tool i like to choose one that can be used in all scenarios, so i would prefer to have

• manual (interactive) mode,
• automatic mode that shows feedback
• automazic mode that is invisibel

I prefer feedback in form of exitcodes (works fine and easy with Winbuilder)

One more request: if you can, add a mode where WiNToBootic can also write the grub bootsector. This way it can also be used to create Mutltiboot USB sticks that use grub...this should be easy to add as an option...

[w2b]

In most cases a mode that shows the gui will be OK, but if i choose a tool i like to choose one that can be used in all scenarios, so i would prefer to have

• manual (interactive) mode,
• automatic mode that shows feedback
• automazic mode that is invisibel

I prefer feedback in form of exitcodes (works fine and easy with Winbuilder)

One more request: if you can, add a mode where WiNToBootic can also write the grub bootsector. This way it can also be used to create Mutltiboot USB sticks that use grub...this should be easy to add as an option...

cmd - Ok. Lets see.

GRUB is not an option
1st - there are many other good tools
2nd - the utility is specialized for NTFS and Windows NT6.x+ based live systems
3rd - does grub works with NTFS? don't think so, and also NTFS for multiboot is not good idea.

Thanks & BR
w2b

[pecd.net]

3rd - does grub works with NTFS? don't think so, and also NTFS for multiboot is not good idea.

Yes it does as far as i know, and why is it no good idea?

[Wonko the Sane]

grub (legacy) is one thing.
grub4dos is another. <- yes, this works allright with NTFS
grub 2 is yet another.

Obviously NTFS is not a good idea to boot anything that doesn't support NTFS natively (as system volume) (like Linux, DOS, Win9x, Sun, etc.), but then again since grub4dos allows easily to boot from images, directly mapped or --mem mapped, and since the "target" machine (capable of running a 6.x NT OS or a PE 2.x/3.x) will have plenty of RAM, it would be anyway a nice option.

Of course there is not one need in the world to write the grub4dos MBR, all that is needed is to add an entry to grldr.mbr to the \boot\BCD (besides obviously copying to the stick grldr.mbr, grldr and menu.lst)


Wonko

[pecd.net]

i mainly use it to boot live cds either from the ntfs volume or as ISO boot and everything works fine...

[w2b]

Yes it does as far as i know, and why is it no good idea?

Wonko said same what I'm thinking about...

"Obviously NTFS is not a good idea to boot anything that doesn't support NTFS natively (as system volume) (like Linux, DOS, Win9x, Sun, etc.)"

because ... for me it's not only about using things stored on mapped ISO but also things stored natively on a NTFS pendrive. e.g. huge files... (not supported by FAT32)

Obviously NTFS is not a good idea to boot anything that doesn't support NTFS natively (as system volume) (like Linux, DOS, Win9x, Sun, etc.), but then again since grub4dos allows easily to boot from images, directly mapped or --mem mapped, and since the "target" machine (capable of running a 6.x NT OS or a PE 2.x/3.x) will have plenty of RAM, it would be anyway a nice option.

i mainly use it to boot live cds either from the ntfs volume or as ISO boot and everything works fine...

Guys, but if it's already there and you can use it (probably creating it with GrubInst_GUI or Yumi) then why reinventing the wheel again? Only because of NTFS? Just try to understand the needs exactly...

Thanks,
w2b

Edited by w2b, 13 July 2011 - 01:00 PM.

[Wonko the Sane]

I guess there is some misunderstanding going on.

Don't take it the "wrong way" , but actually the (though nice looking ) "WiNToBootic" is in itself a re-invention of the wheel, and sorry to say so, completely UNlike "ultimative" (which BTW actually should be "ultimate" ), it actually offers a very limited number of options (actually only one, "Quick Format").
For it a more appropriate set of adjectives would be:

• simplest
• very limited
• single scoped

So, if the goal is that of making a simple, straighforward, user friendly and nice looking app to ONLY do something very specific, you got your goal (though I presume that sooner or later you will start getting reports from people that cannot boot the stick on one PC or the other )

If you want to make it a feature-filled tool, unless you find some new needed things that RMPREPUSB (or any of the other tools) cannot do (and that is *needed*) it would be re-inventing a worse wheel.

Adding to it command line seems to me like one of those unneeded things, since the beauty of your program is it's nice looks and simplicity.

I posted about grub4dos and it's complete NTFS compatibility only in order to disambiguate about grub/grub4dos (a personal battle that I fight since a few years), and to re-state (another personal battle ) how there is no need to have grub4dos as "main" bootloader with it's MBR installed, as it can be easily used as a secondary one, directly chainloaded by the normal NT OS bootmanager, be it NLTLDR or BOOTMGR.

The idea of infecting your nice app with featuritis is entirely pecd.net's responsability.

Your comparison table misses quite a bunch of tools, some are listed here:
http://reboot.pro/9460/
and you can add to the above list:
http://reboot.pro/forum/100/
http://reboot.pro/forum/126/
http://reboot.pro/10821/
http://reboot.pro/14908/


Wonko

[w2b]

So, if the goal is that of making a simple, straighforward, user friendly and nice looking app to ONLY do something very specific, you got your goal (though I presume that sooner or later you will start getting reports from people that cannot boot the stick on one PC or the other )

Thanks for your reply.

Exactly, this is the case!
WiNToBootic -> Windows NT (6.x) to Boot Disk :-) It's only for NT6.x family OS and will just work!

"Ultimative" NTFS boot maker not because of "feature filled" but because of "It just works!" and there is no other tool with goals/scope you're mentioned

-> simplest
-> NTFS only
-> NT6.x only
-> ISO Joliet&UDF support


p.s.

I like RMPartUSB & Make_USB. But if I look on screenshots:

1) RMPartUSB doesn't work with ISO at all
2) Make_USB: "installing xp from usb", but what about installing NT6.x and simultaneously support of Joliet & UDF?!
[ADDED]: there is no support of Joliet/UDF ISO with NT6.x

Edited by w2b, 13 July 2011 - 02:38 PM.

[Wonko the Sane]

WiNToBootic -> Windows NT (6.x) to Boot Disk :-) It's only for NT6.x family OS and will just work!

Let me doubt it , not because of your (of your program's) fault, but because of the queer ways BIOS programmers write their code .
On relatively new machines it will undoubtedly work , but I wouldn't be so sure on slightly older ones and probably also on a few "current" or "recent" notebooks.

"Ultimative" not because of "feature filled" but because of "It just works!" and there is no other tool with goals/scope you're mentioned

Still, you owe me 20 bucks

Spoiler

Or are you from Germany?

English->ultimate
http://dictionary.re...owse/ultimative
German->ultimative
http://www.germandic...nglish/ultimate

Be aware that you may need to pay an additional fee to register it under a w2b™, like:
http://reboot.pro/10373/page__st__53


Wonko

[wimb]

I like RMPartUSB & Make_USB. But if I look on screenshots:

Probably you missed the recent development of BOOT_USB.exe
mentioned by Wonko the Sane http://reboot.pro/14908/
and which is a modern version replacing Make_USB.exe

See also here
http://reboot.pro/14...post__p__132844

unpacking the 7 PE ISO file is not needed and not desired by me.
I prefer to use BOOT_USB.exe where I can use the 7 PE ISO Boot Image file unchanged and can boot direct from Grub4dos Menu.

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=24424

In this way I can combine many ISO files (also Linux e.g. PartedMagic) or IMG or VHD files.

[Wonko the Sane]

OT, but not much, I would like to understand the stressing on Joliet/UDF ISO.

AFAIK a .iso (in the sense of a dd-like image of a physical CD or DVD) is "a .iso" and what is in it is pretty much "OS agnostic", it will either work (if the OS/loader/whatever supports the format) or it won't (if the OS/loader/whatever doesn't support it)..

Or maybe I am missing something?

Can you detail what the utility actually does with the ISO 9660 and ISO 13346 .iso's that other utilities do not do?


Wonko

[w2b]

Or are you from Germany?

no not german but my engl. is not perfect ))

Edited by w2b, 13 July 2011 - 08:51 PM.

[w2b]

ISO 9660 and ISO 13346 .iso's that other utilities do not do?

ISO has internal file system/structure. Those (13346 & 9660) are different.
All Win7-family Installation images I have ever seen were in ISO 13346. WinPE2x/3x is normally in ISO 9660.

[w2b]

Probably you missed the recent development of BOOT_USB.exe
mentioned by Wonko the Sane http://reboot.pro/14908/
and which is a modern version replacing Make_USB.exe

See also here
http://reboot.pro/14...post__p__132844

All right, then I will think about adding IMG & VHD support :-)
Make_USB - is very good, I like it very much! But I also like "single-exe-file-tools" ))

[Wonko the Sane]

ISO has internal file system/structure. Those (13346 & 9660) are different.
All Win7-family Installation images I have ever seen were in ISO 13346. WinPE2x/3x is normally in ISO 9660.

Sure, but the actual internals of the .iso should not make ANY difference, or, if you prefer, all utiities I know of should be able to cope with both, or, again I cannot see what is the "added" feature in coping with both "13346 & 9660" that WiNToBootic has that other utilities miss.


Wonko

[w2b]

all utiities

Even not. There are no utilities supporting the same stuff in one tool as W2B (NTFS, NT6 bootloader, two ISO standards). It's easy to see in the comparison table. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Except make_usb, but I not really knew it before.

[Wonko the Sane]

Sorry if I seem tough (maybe because I am tough ).

Can you DESCRIBE what the utility actually does?

(I have no Windows 7 handy, nor a suitable stick/PC to try the thingy ).

IF the tool (just a gues on my side):

• partitions the stick in one single partition
• formats it with NTFS
• copies to it the original Windows 7 .iso (or PE 2.x/3.x iso) and/or extracts to it some of the files from the original Windows 7 .iso (or PE 2.x/3.x iso)
• modifies (if needed) the \boot\BCD

It does what other utilities can do (though - as you rightly state - not in a single, easy "package").

What I don't get is the support for the two type of .iso, if you could describe what the tool does with the one and/or the other, maybe I could understand what is the advantage of your app in this specific part ONLY.


Wonko

[w2b]

I suggest pls check this out by yourself. Why it's really better than other.
Otherwise we're drifting in the discussion why this, why that.

It's all about convenience and simplicity, and not about having 1000 different tools as self-extracting packages to do one "simple" task: create bootable ntfs usb with nt6 based OS.

Generally it's the same like "if somebody never used OS X he will not understand why it's better than Windows no matter how many arguments you have".

kr, w2b

[linuxbaby]

Nice tool, thank you.

[Wonko the Sane]

Can you DESCRIBE what the utility actually does?

(I have no Windows 7 handy, nor a suitable stick/PC to try the thingy ).

I suggest pls check this out by yourself. Why it's really better than other.

Perfect , I do enjoy a lot conversations between deaf people.

Otherwise we're drifting in the discussion why this, why that.

We are not drifting anywhere, I asked you a very simple question (I presume) giving you also the background for it and the actual reason why I needed to ask it to you.
You decided NOT to answer it.
This is anyway fine of course, it is freedom , but please avoid suggesting the obvious , do you really think that if I was in a condition to test your app I would not have done so? (beside the fact that I clearly stated WHY I was not in the condition to do so )

As a retaliation , I will then also state the obvious:
there is no clear explanation (apart the lousy comparison table) WHY and IN WHAT WiNToBootic is in anyway "better" than any other app regarding the two ISO standards 9660 and 13346 commonly used in .iso images.


Wonko

[w2b]

Version 1.1 available

[TheHive]

Seeing the chart on youre site makes this program seem good to have. Thanks!
Will take a look at Wimb program also. Both seem very usefull.