Questions regarding boot-time disk fixes in 4.3

4 posts · Closed

WildByDesign
8 Nov 2021

Hi,

I just have a couple of questions regarding the boot-time disk fixes from the recent 4.3 release.

Fixed: Boot-time disks did full image update instead of differential.

Could this issue have caused longer shutdowns?

Was it a full image update anytime a boot-time disk was saved?

I am due to purchase a new licence and I'm trying to determine if I should do it now or wait a bit. There are a lot of good fixes in this release, so I am tempted to purchase sooner rather than later.

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what all was involved with the Windows 11 support?

Thank you for your time. Your team has some of the best support around.

-Dave

Andrew SoftPerfect
9 Nov 2021

It could have led to longer shutdown times. When you pressed Save to Image button, that saving operation was correctly differential, without causing any delays. But a regular shutdown/reboot erroneously caused the entire image file to be written. That was a bug in our product, which is now fixed.

Regarding Windows 11 support, there were no major changes in the product in that regard. After all, Windows 11 is basically Windows 10 with a refreshed UI and a wrecked taskbar. ;-)
We did some testing to ensure that the RAM Disk performs well on the new system, and re-built the drivers with a newer compiler to prevent potential issues, as there might be some minor internal differences in Windows 11.

WildByDesign
9 Nov 2021

Thank you for the quick and thorough response. I went ahead and placed my upgrade order right now. But I do have a question though.

Do I need to recreate my boot-disk image at all to take advantage of this fix?
Or is simply installing the update (4.3) enough to fix the issue?

Also, thank you for the Windows 11 details as well. Especially, I am thankful that your dev team has always provided updated kernel-drivers and that you take care to do the Microsoft Windows cross-signing of the drivers as well. Your team does things the proper way and I am grateful for that.

Andrew SoftPerfect
10 Nov 2021

There is no need to recreate the disk or image to take advantage of differential saving. After installing the new version, simply open the disk's properties and click OK. It will prompt if you want to re-mount the disk to apply the changes. Choose not to and then reboot the system. This will update the configuration stored in the registry so that differential writing will now be used.

If you create or re-create a new RAM disk with the new version, it will always be using differential writing. For already created RAM disks, please force the update of registry settings as described above.

By the way, thanks for your feedback about the driver signatures. Obviously very few people notice it, and it's not just a so-called attestation signature. We have to pass Windows Hardware Lab Kit (HLK) testing to ensure the product is stable. This is required to get an advanced signature that will work on Windows Servers with Secure Boot.

This topic is closed. It has had no new posts for over a year, so the software versions it talks about may be out of date. Start a new topic in RAM Disk if you have a similar question.