Feature REQUESTS

[n8chavez]

Here's an odd issue. It's not a bug, but something quirky. There seems to be a difference in PE/RE builds. When you use the option to add HBS to the boot menu it creates a c:\boot option, just like pretty much every other imaging apps. However, when you initiate a restore within Windows it creates an .iso and uses that as a temporary PE. My question is, why? Why not use the same PE instance that the boot entry uses? It seems needlessly redundant to use two variation of the same PE.

[admin]

Here's an odd issue.  It's not a bug, but something quirky.  There seems to be a difference in PE/RE builds.  When you use the option to add HBS to the boot menu it creates a c:\boot option, just like pretty much every other imaging apps.  However, when you initiate a restore within Windows it creates an .iso and uses that as a temporary PE.  My question is, why?  Why not use the same PE instance that the boot entry uses?  It seems needlessly redundant to use two variation of the same PE.

Why do you think HBS does not use the same WinPE instance? In fact they use the same WinPE instance.

[n8chavez]

Because they don't. Every time I try to restore an image within Windows, thus forcing it to reboot, HBS creates an .iso and uses that. If I delete that file I get prompted that I need to create the iso. The timestamp on that .iso is the same as when I try to restore from within Windows.

[admin]

Because they don't.  Every time I try to restore an image within Windows, thus forcing it to reboot, HBS creates an .iso and uses that.  If I delete that file I get prompted that I need to create the iso.  The timestamp on that .iso is the same as when I try to restore from within Windows.

I'm sorry that in order to ensure that the restore can be completed successfully, HBS always re-extracts the WIM file from the ISO file. Why do you have to delete ISO file?

[n8chavez]

The better question is, why take up needless space. In fact you just said that HBS does not use c:\boot, but extracts a .win from a created .iso. That's a waste.

[admin]

The better question is, why take up needless space.    In fact you just said that HBS does not use c:\boot, but extracts a .win from a created .iso.  That's a waste.

The Windows boot loader cannot boot WinPE directly from an ISO file, so the WIM and SDI files must be extracted from the ISO file in order to boot WinPE. The premise of your question is that the customer has added HBS to the boot menu, but if the customer has not added HBS to the boot menu, where are we going to store WinPE? In addition, if we don't keep the ISO file, the program will have to recreate the ISO file when the customer creates the emergency disk, which is a time-consuming process. Of course we can store the WIM and SDI files in the C:\boot folder in any case, and then use the WIM and SDI files stored in C:\boot to regenerate the ISO when needed, but to be honest we think it's safer to store the files in the installation directory of our own program. 

Your suggestion is good, but as you think we need to make a lot of changes to the process of adding boot menu and creating WinPE, however we have more important things to accomplish, so I hope you can understand.

[n8chavez]

That makes since. It's just that, of the dozen or so imaging apps I've used, I've never had one behave this way. The way it works now, you're asking users to use 1gb+ more space simply because there are essentially 2 PEs. Maybe, I'm the only one, but to me that's odd. Just have both functions use the same PE. The fact that you're asking the HBS to extract a wim from an iso every time you initiate a hot restore baffles me. What HBS user is not going to add the boot menu? My guess is maybe a single person, maybe.

Basically, store the iso used to extract the wim on hot restore to prevent recreating an emergency disk, so as to not use the bootloader wim (which is possible). To me that doesn't make sense.

[admin]

That makes since.  It's just that, of the dozen or so imaging apps I've used, I've never had one behave this way.  The way it works now, you're asking users to use 1gb+ more space simply because there are essentially 2 PEs.  Maybe, I'm the only one, but to me that's odd.  Just have both functions use the same PE.  The fact that you're asking the HBS to extract a wim from an iso every time you initiate a hot restore baffles me.  What HBS user is not going to add the boot menu?  My guess is maybe a single person, maybe.

Basically, store the iso used to extract the wim on hot restore to prevent recreating an emergency disk, so as to not use the bootloader wim (which is possible).  To me that doesn't make sense.

Thank you for your suggestion, and we understand your concerns, so we'll improve it in due course.