System Imaging Tool W7

[mjf]

I don't think it maters if the recovery environment is 32 bit. See SIW2's comments (post #85) and my experience with Macrium pe (32 bit) on the Hiren's CD.
Yesterday I restored my complete x64 system (50GB) using the latest x64 Macrium imaging (image made 23 Jan 11) with the Hiren's Macrium pe.

Fundamentally Hiren's has a mini XP license and I assume use the Bartpe.
I am unsure about the legality of this "license"

 

[kado897]

I don't think it maters if the recovery environment is 32 bit. See SIW2's comments (post #85) and my experience with Macrium pe (32 bit) on the Hiren's CD.
Yesterday I restored my complete x64 system (50GB) using the latest x64 Macrium imaging (image made 23 Jan 11) with the Hiren's Macrium pe.

Fundamentally Hiren's has a mini XP license and I assume use the Bartpe.

That's not what I was concerned with. I don't know whether you can mix and match x86 and x64 programs in a PE environment.

 

[SIW2]

Great Kado - yes you can use dism to mount if you like - just thought most would find Gimagex easier - it's free and it runs straight off in windows 7 - no need to install anything.

You can't run a 64 bit coded app. in 32 bit pe.

You can't run a 32 bit coded app. in 64 bit pe - unless you put in a large syswow directory and all the relevant reg entries - pointless, really - just use 32 pe instead. ( I admit, I have built a 64 bit pe3 with syswow and can run most things in there fine - it's a lot of effort and there is no practical advantage - it's also bigger and heavier on the ram )

That's why 32 bit pe is much more useful - virtually every app. you will want to use is 32 bit coded and they work fine - even if your installed windows is 64 bit.

 

[mjf]

So I probably wouldn't bother with a customized 64 bit pe. Of course use the 64 bit repair disk for it's intended purpose which includes of course 64 bit windows images. Then use a customized 32 bit pe to run x86 apps. and will cater for Macrium.
I wonder if any of my licensed x86 apps would run from a pe environment.

 

[kado897]

Great Kado - yes you can use dism to mount if you like - just thought most would find Gimagex easier - it's free and it runs straight off in windows 7 - no need to install anything.

You can't run a 64 bit coded app. in 32 bit pe.

You can't run a 32 bit coded app. in 64 bit pe - unless you put in a large syswow directory and all the relevant reg entries - pointless, really - just use 32 pe instead. ( I admit, I have built a 64 bit pe3 with syswow and can run most things in there fine - it's a lot of effort and there is no practical advantage - it's also bigger and heavier on the ram )

That's why 32 bit pe is much more useful - virtually every app. you will want to use is 32 bit coded and they work fine - even if your installed windows is 64 bit.

I did try Gimagex and it complained that I needed the WAIK to run it. Maybe it's not in home premium. Dismgui doesn't need installing either.

 

[SIW2]

Which apps. do you have in mind?

I wonder if any of my licensed x86 apps would run from a pe environment.

 

[SIW2]

That's odd, I haven't got waik on my 7 installtions, and Gimagex runs fine.

It also runs fine in pe - just chuck the 32 bit Gimagex in your pe system32 folder , fire it up by typing Gimagex at the macrium command prompt.

Great Kado - yes you can use dism to mount if you like - just thought most would find Gimagex easier - it's free and it runs straight off in windows 7 - no need to install anything.

You can't run a 64 bit coded app. in 32 bit pe.

You can't run a 32 bit coded app. in 64 bit pe - unless you put in a large syswow directory and all the relevant reg entries - pointless, really - just use 32 pe instead. ( I admit, I have built a 64 bit pe3 with syswow and can run most things in there fine - it's a lot of effort and there is no practical advantage - it's also bigger and heavier on the ram )

That's why 32 bit pe is much more useful - virtually every app. you will want to use is 32 bit coded and they work fine - even if your installed windows is 64 bit.

I did try Gimagex and it complained that I needed the WAIK to run it. Maybe it's not in home premium. Dismgui doesn't need installing either.

 

[Cr00zng]

Great Kado - yes you can use dism to mount if you like - just thought most would find Gimagex easier - it's free and it runs straight off in windows 7 - no need to install anything.

You can't run a 64 bit coded app. in 32 bit pe.

You can't run a 32 bit coded app. in 64 bit pe - unless you put in a large syswow directory and all the relevant reg entries - pointless, really - just use 32 pe instead. ( I admit, I have built a 64 bit pe3 with syswow and can run most things in there fine - it's a lot of effort and there is no practical advantage - it's also bigger and heavier on the ram )

That's why 32 bit pe is much more useful - virtually every app. you will want to use is 32 bit coded and they work fine - even if your installed windows is 64 bit.

You know, this is getting to be more than a short project....

Finally I resolved the issue with my system, worked with the "wim" via DISM from my 64-bit OS, created a bootable USB stick, added the necessary Macrium files (thanks kado..), and booted the darn thing. It did boot, but "reflectpe.exe" did not run; instead the program complained about missing some subsystem. Now I know why, thanks SIW...

On the flip side, and since I have the bootable USB stick, just need to get a 32-bit rescue disk. I have a laptop with Windows 7 Enterprise 32-bit, that should work, right?

 

[SIW2]

Yes , add 32 bit macrium files to 32 bit pe

 

[Cr00zng]

Yeah, that works:



The USB loads faster than the CD, but the boot image is still reminiscent of Vista . Oh well, as long as it works...
Thanks guys for the feedback...

 

[SIW2]

Not sure what you mean by

the boot image is still reminiscent of Vista

/.

Perhaps you would prefer a different screen res. 1024x768 will probably look a lot better.

 

[kado897]

That's odd, I haven't got waik on my 7 installtions, and Gimagex runs fine.

It also runs fine in pe - just chuck the 32 bit Gimagex in your pe system32 folder , fire it up by typing Gimagex at the macrium command prompt.

Great Kado - yes you can use dism to mount if you like - just thought most would find Gimagex easier - it's free and it runs straight off in windows 7 - no need to install anything.

You can't run a 64 bit coded app. in 32 bit pe.

You can't run a 32 bit coded app. in 64 bit pe - unless you put in a large syswow directory and all the relevant reg entries - pointless, really - just use 32 pe instead. ( I admit, I have built a 64 bit pe3 with syswow and can run most things in there fine - it's a lot of effort and there is no practical advantage - it's also bigger and heavier on the ram )

That's why 32 bit pe is much more useful - virtually every app. you will want to use is 32 bit coded and they work fine - even if your installed windows is 64 bit.

I did try Gimagex and it complained that I needed the WAIK to run it. Maybe it's not in home premium. Dismgui doesn't need installing either.

Mmm yes you are right it does work. Perhaps I should not have read the help first which says that you do.


Update: Wingapi.dll the help talks about being in the WAIK seems to be a part of windows 7 and is in the PE3 as well.

 

[Cr00zng]

Not sure what you mean by

the boot image is still reminiscent of Vista

/.

Perhaps you would prefer a different screen res. 1024x768 will probably look a lot better.

During the boot up process, such as the loading status bar and its color, it looks like Vista type of loading and not Windows 7.

It is from a 1024x768 screen resolution, re-sized in Photoshop and lowered the color from 32 to 16-bits to make it a small picture size for the forum.

Since it is a USB stick, theoretically I could just install the ATI driver for running the rescue disc in 1920x1080 resolution. The chances are that the answer is no, maybe some of the subsystem isn't in place for the install.Hopefully, I'll never have to use it anyway...

 

[GeneO]

I've had nothing but trouble with the later versions of Acronis TIH. Their product seems to be going downhill, each version seems worse and has more issues and good features from previous versions dropped, new useless features added and a more confusing GUI interface each release. This is sad to me since when I first got it, back in version 9 I think, it was pretty good. I

The only part of Acronis that has remained good is the disk cloning. I use that frequently and it is reliable. I just cloned my system disk onto a new one last night. So I just use the free Western Digital version for that.

Apart from that I use Synctoy for data backups and Windows 7 for an image backup.

 

[SIW2]

lol Croozng - i meant if you set winpe 3 screen resolution to a higher value it is more attractive than the default 800x600. You can use an xml file to set it during boot.

Nothing to do with your uploaded screnshot.

Odd you get the Vista loading bars - doesn't happen to me.

 

[SIW2]

To get back on topic - you can type bmrui at macrium command prompt to start up win sys img gui - peculiarly, it only works if you made the image in 32 bit o/s.

If you type wbadmin.exe instead - you can restore win sys img irrespective of the bit version it was created under.

 

[Cr00zng]

lol Croozng - i meant if you set winpe 3 screen resolution to a higher value it is more attractive than the default 800x600. You can use an xml file to set it during boot.

Nothing to do with your uploaded screnshot.

Odd you get the Vista loading bars - doesn't happen to me.

Oh, I didn't even realize that the default is 800x600; the pictures that I've taken with the camera were huge...

Here are some of the lousy images for the Vista loading bars:



Now, this is really lousy image since it was going by so fast:



Notice the greenish-yellow Vista color...

 

[Cr00zng]

To get back on topic - you can type bmrui at macrium command prompt to start up win sys img gui - peculiarly, it only works if you made the image in 32 bit o/s.

If you type wbadmin.exe instead - you can restore win sys img irrespective of the bit version it was created under.

The background image is the same resolution and color depth as the original was, 1024x768 24-bit; it is actually the same size as well, 2.25MBs. And yes, I created it in a 64-bit environment, including Photoshop...

I've searched for the xml file to change the resolution of the rescue desktop, but I didn't find any. Where do you adjust the screen resolution for the desktop?

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

You could mount the wim you already made, put init.xml in yourmountfolder\Users\Default\Documents

View attachment init.zip

Replace starnet.cmd ( in yourmountfolder\windows\system32 ) with this one

View attachment startnet.zip

To adjust res after you booted up you can put this in system32 , then call it up from macrium command prompt by typing:

autodisplay

View attachment AutoDisplay.zip

When it pops up, put a dot in the res. you want and click the middle button at the bottom to Apply.

 

[Cr00zng]

Hi,

You could mount the wim you already made, put init.xml in yourmountfolder\Users\Default\Documents

View attachment 135737

Replace starnet.cmd ( in yourmountfolder\windows\system32 ) with this one

View attachment 135738

To adjust res after you booted up you can put this in system32 , then call it up from macrium command prompt by typing:

autodisplay

View attachment 135739

When it pops up, put a dot in the res. you want and click the middle button at the bottom to Apply.

Thanks SIW for your help...

The autodisplay command worked and set the resolution via this command to the max at 1400x1050 32-bit color:



On the other hand starting WinPE with resolution 1024x768 did not work, despite all files had been loaded:



The picture was taken after the "autodisplay" adjusted the resolution.

This is fine as it is and your help is greatly appreciated, thanks again...