- Normal RAM boot (boot.wim loaded into RAM)
- Flat boot (WinPE extracted to a volume - non-RAM boot)
- Wimboot (similar to flat boot (see above) - but using pointer files)
I prepared the core file (boot.wim) using (shameless plug) the
I also decided to use WinPE 3.1 for comparison purposes - as wimboot isn't supported I just tested the RAM and flat boot methods. WinPE 3.1 was also built with MistyPE - using the same settings and including the same programs as I used in my WinPE 5.1 build. boot.wim was 144 MB.
The results below in regards to RAM usage were obtained via task manager - no programs were running and WinPE had just finished booting -
- WinPE: 5.1 (Method: RAM boot)
- Total RAM: 3992 MB
- Cached RAM: 94 MB
- Available RAM: 3635 MB
- Free RAM: 3543 MB
- RAM in use: 449 MB
- Size on Disk: N/A (before first run)
- Size on Disk: N/A (after first run)
- Pagefile size: N/A (after first run)
- WinPE: 3.1 (Method: RAM boot)
- Total RAM: 3992 MB
- Cached RAM: 53 MB
- Available RAM: 3607 MB
- Free RAM: 3558 MB
- RAM in use: 434 MB
- Size on Disk: N/A (before first run)
- Size on Disk: N/A (after first run)
- Pagefile size: N/A (after first run)
- WinPE: 5.1 (Method: Flat Boot)
- Total RAM: 3992 MB
- Cached RAM: 94 MB
- Available RAM: 3833 MB
- Free RAM: 3741 MB
- RAM in use: 251 MB
- Size on Disk: 668 MB (before first run)
- Size on Disk: 2.03 GB (after first run)
- Pagefile size: 1.37 GB (after first run)
- WinPE: 3.1 (Method: Flat Boot)
- Total RAM: 3992 MB
- Cached RAM: 50 MB
- Available RAM: 3752 MB
- Free RAM: 3707 MB
- RAM in use: 285 MB
- Size on Disk: 0.99 GB (before first run)
- Size on Disk: 1.00 GB (after first run)
- Pagefile size: N/A (after first run)
- WinPE: 5.1 (Method: WimBoot)
- Total RAM: 3992 MB
- Cached RAM: 92 MB
- Available RAM: 3829 MB
- Free RAM: 3739 MB
- RAM in use: 253 MB
- Size on Disk: 112 MB (before first run)
- Size on Disk: 1.49 GB (after first run)
- Pagefile size: 1.37 GB (after first run)
- WinPE Version: 5.1 in RAM - RAM in use: 449 MB
- WinPE Version: 3.1 in RAM - RAM in use: 434 MB
- WinPE Version: 5.1 Flat boot - RAM in use: 251 MB
- WinPE Version: 3.1 Flat boot - RAM in use: 285 MB
- WinPE Version: 5.1 WimBoot - RAM in use: 253 MB
Interestingly in the Flat Boot deployment WinPE 5.1 used less RAM than WinPE 3.1 - possibly because of the use of a pagefile which was created on first run. WinPE 3.1 did not create a pagefile. WinPE 5.1 WimBoot and WinPE 5.1 Flat Boot RAM usage was almost identical.
I used the default RAM disk size for both WinPE versions tested - 512 MB in WinPE 5.1 and 32 MB in WinPE 3.1. RAM disk usage will almost certainly start to reduce the amount of available RAM. In low RAM systems Flat Boot and WimBoot deployments are therefore recommended.
Also note that despite the WinPE 5.1 boot.wim being significantly larger then WinPE 3.1 boot.wim (53 MB / 37% larger) - once extracted from boot.wim and applied to a volume it used less space on disk (668 MB as opposed to 0.99 GB)
Strangely I find myself wanting a low spec/RAM system to test this further. If anyone has a system with 256MB RAM please can you try running WinPE 3.1/5.1 (RAM Disk and Flat boot methods) and report back.
I'm also curious about the following -
Again, does anyone have the hardware to test this? If yes, will you?The point that needs to be checked/verified is the hardware compatibility of the various PE releases, I have no idea if PE 4.0/5.0/5.1 have some (or none) of the (IMHO senseless) architecture/hardware limitations of the corresponding "main OS", i.e. PAE, NX and SSE2:
http://windows.micro...-is-pae-nx-sse2
It would be very useful to determine the minimum RAM requirements for different systems.
Regards,
Misty