Activity for v77
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v77 posted a comment on discussion General Discussion
I can run any .exe file on an ImDisk volume (Windows 11 21H2).
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I copied a large file (more than 1 GB) onto the ramdisk (no matter the name, let's say "Z:\test"), and then I used fsutil sparse setFlag Z:\test 1 fsutil sparse setRange Z:\test 0 536870912 The first 512 MB was set to 0, and I retrieved a free space of 512 MB.
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Strange... I just did a few tests on a dynamic ramdisk with the "fsutil sparse" commands, and everything works fine. I can convert a file to a sparse file and set a region to 0 (with the region properly unallocated). So I assume an incompatibility from the driver (don't expect a fix). But this has nothing to do with sparse files.
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Did you format as NTFS?
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By the way, the GUI now allows to start a script just after the ramdisk creation. As it run as a service at system startup, you could have your ramdisk ready sooner. About the options of the command line utility "imdisk.exe", I would recommend to enter "imdisk.exe" in a command prompt, without argument, to see the (very long) syntax help.
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The synchronization of all the ramdisks created with the synchronization option can be called from command line, with something like: "C:\Program Files\ImDisk\ImDiskTk-svc.exe" SYNC Of course, it requires administratives privileges. With that, you can either create a shortcut to manually start it from the desktop or the taskbar, or create a scheduled task to start it periodically.
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Yes sorry, it seems I missed some parts of your first message. Perhaps a last thing to test if you want: try a dynamic ramdisk with AWE (see in Advanced tab). As the memory allocation method is very different, it might help to locate the issue.
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I am now testing exFAT. No crash to report. I will continue the test for a few days. Another thing you could try: use a drive letter other than A or B. It would be surprising, but it is not impossible that there is something with that.
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Thanks. The last change in RamDyn.exe is more than 3 years old and it is used by a lot of people. Another point that is surprising: this is a user mode process, so it should be impossible to make Windows crash. The worst thing that could happen is to make the driver wait infinitely, which can lead to a freeze of the system. However... As you are using exFAT, RamDyn uses a special cleanup function to release the memory no longer used by deleted files. I am pretty sure that if you use NTFS (which not...
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It's the first report of this type and given all your informations, I really don't see from what it could come. It seems to be an issue with write requests, but if it comes from the software, it should be more common. You should try a static ramdisk. If the problem is solved, this means that it comes from "RamDyn" (the executable used for memory allocations). Otherwise, there is a good probability that there is a hardware issue.
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As long as you don't have any issue, use the first option. It can be very slightly faster for file opening because the path is direct. If you have issues with some installation programs or with Windows Update, try the second option (junction). Some issues can persist though.
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Strange... I just did a test with all your informations (except the drive size), and no problem for me. Anyway, there are 2 differences between the GUI and the service that runs at system startup: - The GUI reports copy errors, not the service. - The GUI runs under the "Admin" user while the service runs under the "System" user. In both cases, copy of data is done through the xcopy command. If an error is reported, it can prevent the data synchronization at system shutdown. So, according to what...
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The recommended version of Windows is now Windows 7. It is not impossible to install it on Vista or XP, but: - The driver will not install on Vista x64. Up to now, this was possible because an old version was included. Now, Vista's users are extremely rare so keeping these files in the package can be reconsidered. - DiscUtilsDevio and the DiscUtils library (required for image file formats such as VDI, VHD, VMDK) will not work. Other limitations might come in the future. Therefore, the last fully...
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What's wrong? SourceForge sends the messages directly to your email box. I need a valid email address from you so that I can discuss the details to fix and the future translations to add. No need to publish your email here, just use SourceForge to send me something. Why didn't you use the link I gave? I will not go further with such a communication issue.
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There is no MSI installer for ImDisk Toolkit. The installation of this tool is extremely specific. I don't even know if it is possible to create a clean MSI file for that. Perhaps a solution would be to create a MSI file that "installs" all the files from the CAB file in a temporary folder, and then run "config.exe /fullsilent", as it seems you can specify something to run with the MSI file. By the way, did you check all the available installation switches? Try "install.bat /?", or "config.exe /?"...
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Did you receive my message? If not, please send me a message. You can use SourceForge with this link: https://sourceforge.net/u/w77/profile/send_message
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Just updated. But it should not have been an issue because even if there is an old version of the language file somewhere, this file is divided into several independent sections, so as long as a tool is not updated, the related section does not need to be updated.
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Fixed (along with another bug). Please check the new version. Thanks again for the report.
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You should be able to post new topics... The button is on the left side. About your question, you just have to go in the Windows Start menu, ImDisk->General Settings, and you will see what you are looking for.
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Thanks for the report. I reproduced the issue. I usually test the synchronization tool with a folder. And with a folder, there is no problem with the file removal. This only occurs when the synchronization is done into an image file. I will investigate. The code you mention is a security added in the case where the synchronization begins and the data are not yet fully copied. This is an important fix because the issue can occur if you have a lot of data and shut down the system right after the boot....
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A new option in RamDiskUI allows to run commands after volume creation. A command file can be specified directly, or an executable. The command runs in session 0 ("System" user), both with the GUI and at system startup, which means that no window will be displayed. It is executed immediately after volume format and copy of data (if any). As the TEMP environment variables can be changed by RamDiskUI, the uninstaller now has an option to reset them to their default values. "install.bat" also checks...
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Yes of course. As long as a path to a valid folder is written in the first field of the Data tab, all the files of this folder will be copied to the ramdisk once it is created. No need to check an option.
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What are you talking about? There is nothing to sync at startup, because data have just been copied. And at shutdown, it seems you missed the purpose of the Archive attribute... This attribute, cleared for each copied file in the ramdisk at startup, is set by the system for any change done in a file. This way, the synchronization tool of ImDisk Toolkit only copies changed files at shutdown, unless you uncheck the related option.
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The parameters are stored in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, so in any case administrative privileges are required to select another script. So if the script has proper access rights, it should not need to add something else. I think I'll try to run it under session 0 ("System" user) even with the GUI, in order to keep exact same privileges at startup. But this means that no window will be displayed. Besides, it also means that you will be able to limit the access rights of the script to "System" user for even...
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I am thinking about the privileges given to the script or executable. By default, the GUI gives administrative privileges, and the service used at system startup gives the privileges of "System" user. And at startup, there is no window displayed. We also have to consider that at system startup, there may be no logged user. Are these conditions acceptable?
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I see 2 possibilities: - An antivirus issue. - Your TEMP folder is not valid. You can check it in a command prompt with: echo %TEMP%
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Could be interesting indeed. I'll see what I can do.
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Yes, this has nothing to do with the file system. But at the end, the same issues than a file system would appear: empty blocks in the middle, and how to remove them. It's not impossible, but this is far too much work for this kind of tool. An alternative would be to do something similar to VDI/VHD/VMDK image files: something that grows regularly but not shrinks. But this is doing half the work. And it's still a lot of work.
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If we compress an encrypted image file, the compression rate would be almost null. It would be best to compress data before the encryption. To achieve that, the best is probably to use the NTFS compression.
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There would be a big difference with dynamic ramdisks: we don't have to handle the location of a memory block. We only have to allocate it. With an image file, we would end up with the good old issue of fragmentation.
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Yes, I confirm. The behavior occurs no matter the file system, but only on ImDisk volumes. It's pretty strange that the information is still available at the root... I just tried on an USB stick: even at the root, dimensions are not displayed. Anyway, you can fix that, by changing the following registry value (for instance with regedit): HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\QuickTip You have to add "System.Image.Dimensions" in the value, where you want it to be displayed. Don't forget the semicolon. For instance,...
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In fact, it's even worse: there is no Temp folder in this configuration. The problem is it's very difficult to determine all possible situations and what the user had in mind... A solution could be to add an option in the uninstaller to set the TEMP variables to their default values. I will add that in the next release.
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ImDiskRemoveMountPoint does not dismount the volume. It only removes the drive letter (or the directory "reparse point"). The API to use is ImDiskRemoveDevice. This function is used by ProxyCrypt when it has to dismount a volume. Before ImDiskRemoveDevice, you may have to use ImDiskSetAPIFlags with IMDISK_API_FORCE_DISMOUNT. If it is called in a system shutdown, it would take to much time to send notifications to all applications; this can be avoided with the flag IMDISK_API_NO_BROADCAST_NOTIFY.
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You should avoid to put an ImDisk utility inside an ImDisk volume. This case requires to unmount each volume in the correct order, and it's currently impossible to do that programmatically. Besides, I don't see the point to keep RamDyn in an encrypted volume. RamDyn is a legitimate software that writes nothing on the hard drive. If the system still hangs with RamDyn on C:, then there is another issue. As I said, I will check a few things but it does not mean I will be able to do something. Microsoft...
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ProxyCrypt always dismounts the volume at shutdown. This is required because if the system kills the process with the volume open, Windows could try to send requests to the volume, and these requests would not be processed, which leads to a system freeze. The technique used is very common and reliable (processing WM_ENDSESSION in an invisible window). For now, it perfectly works for me on my Windows 11. But of course, there could still be a bug somewhere. I will check that again.
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It's because of the cluster size. Each file system has a minimal volume size, which depends on the cluster size. But it's for FAT32 that this requirement is the higher.
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This message is not a warning, it's an error, and you actually lost data. Well, I could add a warning sooner, for instance if the amount of free ram is below a parameter given by the user... If RamDyn uses much more RAM than the space of the data, it usually means that the drive is very fragmented and the size of the memory blocks is too high. I suggest to reduce this parameter: RamDisk Configuration Tool -> Advanced -> Dynamic RamDisk Parameters -> Size of Allocated Memory Blocks Or in command line,...
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Thanks! As I thought, no big difference... On a very old hardware, it could be something to consider, but nowadays...
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OK, I did just that, with Power management set on High Performance on an Asus VivoBook (10th Gen Core i3 - 8 GB of DDR4 RAM @ 2667MHz); I had to set the FAT disk at 4095 MB because that's the limit, apparently. Top row, left to right: FAT 32 - FAT Bottom row, left to right: NTFS - exFAT (couldn't insert the image directly in this reply, sorry) Edit: fixed
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The truth may be not so obvious... Of course, file creation and removal should be slower on NTFS, but most of the time, operations are just reading or writing data in a file. And for that, older file systems are not necessarily faster. Why not benchmark them? https://crystalmark.info/en/software/crystaldiskmark/ Be careful to have the same parameters, especially the cluster size. Feel free to publish your results.
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So, if I understand, you don't want to just mount an image file, you want to create a ramdisk. In this case, sorry but you can't use a special file format such as VHD/VDI/VMDK. There might be a solution, but it's not simple. Here is the idea: - First create a ramdisk. If you want to use the command line, you can use imdisk.exe for a static ramdisk, or RamDyn.exe for a dynamic one. - Copy your VHD file (the file itself) onto the ramdisk. - Finally, mount the copied VHD file with DiscUtilsDevio.ex...
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No, compressed image files are not handled. However, an alternative could be to use a dynamically sized image file format, such as VDI, VHD or VMDK. I don't know which tool can do the conversion, but it's worth a try.
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Syntax
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ImDisk only creates simple volumes that don't involve the disk manager (there is no physical drive behind, not even emulated). This can create incompatibilities with some softwares and API. It's not something that can be fixed. Now, a bit of sarcasm: I find funny that a software designed to explore and open files has difficulties to open its own files. Perhaps you can try to submit the bug to the author of Explorer++? I doubt that changing the way he opens the config file is a big issue...
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RamDyn.exe creates dynamically allocated ramdisks. Imdisk.exe does everything but that (it can also mount images files without creating ramdisk). RamDyn was originally designed to work with the GUI. So for additional informations, check out RamDiskUI.exe : Advanced -> Dynamic RamDisk Parameters. There are tooltips for each field. reboot.pro : we just have to wait...
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This can now be done with the RamDisk Configuration tool. "Set TEMP Variables..." -> "Use a Junction"
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This bug was supposed to be fixed several years ago... When you start the RamDisk Configuration Tool, do you have a message such as "Warning: cannot find imdisk.cpl"? In the General Settings panel, do you have a drive checked in "Hide the following drives in Explorer:"? If everything is OK, in an elevated command prompt (you also can try in a non-elevated one), try a command such as: "C:\Program Files\ImDisk\RamDiskUI.exe" NOTIF T:
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Your command works. But as said in the GUI, after the privilege granted in the group policy, a logout is required for this change to take effect. If it still does not work, try to add the Administrators group instead of your current user.
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Select your file with the "..." button, and then select "Partition 1" in the window "Select partition in disk image". It should now display 253824 Blocks as size and 128 Blocks as offset.
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Don't know if something has been changed in imdisk.exe, but for me this command works with the driver 2.1.1: imdisk -a -f boot.VHD -m Z: -b auto
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OK, thanks for testing. RamDiskUI calls the UAC through an internal call to the context menu. There must be something wrong in your configuration about that. This technique has the advantage to call the UAC only when it is required. This technique is rather common, is documented and still work on Windows 11: https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/win32/api/shellapi/nf-shellapi-shellexecutew#runas I could try to avoid that, but it will require some time and I am not sure to get all I want.
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The last parameter is missing. As said in the syntax help, even for 0 argument to pass to imdisk.exe, you must add "". About the missing GUI, I see 2 cases that could explain that: - Something has modified the context menu of .exe files. When you right-click on a .exe file, do you still have "Run as administrator"? In an elevated command prompt, in the installation folder, try the following command: RamDiskUI.exe UAC 0 - An antivirus is interfering. Did you try to disable it?
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You should read again the syntax help. For instance, "1000k": there is a non-numeric character, so this is the name of an image file. You set "-1" as CleanRatio, which means you want to use the TRIM commands. In this case, the next parameter is PhysicalMemory, which should be 0 or 1. And finally, you need to ensure you have the proper privilege in the group policy (which can be done with RamDiskUI): https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/security/threat-protection/security-policy-settings/lock-pages-in-memory...
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You should read again the syntax help. For instance, "1000k": there is a non-numeric character, so this is the name of an image file. You set "-1" as CleanRatio, which means you want to use the TRIM commands. In this case, the next parameter is PhysicalMemory, which should be 0 or 1. And finally, you need to ensure you have the proper privilege in the group policy (which can be done with RamDiskUI): https://docs.microsoft.com/windows/security/threat-protection/security-policy-settings/lock-pages-in-memory...
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Sorry for the late answer. Currently, if ImDisk Toolkit is not installed, and even if you saved the registry values, there is no way in silent mode to tell the installer to not create the shortcuts. So you have to remove them after the installation with a script. I will add command line switches in the next release.
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So simple... It seems I didn't search enough. Thanks a lot! Of course it will be added in the next release.
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Even without AWE, it is unlikely that your ramdisk is written to the page file if the ramdisk content is actively used. AWE is a bit slower because it requires extra system calls.
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I just checked in a virtual machine and I saw no issue. However, since some times, I too have difficulties with the shutdown of Win 10. But even by uninstalling ImDisk (so no ProxyCrypt nor ramdisk), the issue remains. So, even if it seems to work for you by unmounting the ImDisk volumes, I think we likely have the same bug. Perhaps the Nvidia graphic driver (if you have a Nvidia card)? Or a virus?
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If you already have a mounted volume on this drive letter, you can use, before MountImg.exe (assuming you have administrative privileges): imdisk.exe -D -m G: And if nothing is mounted, no problem, imdisk.exe will just return an error.
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The full package now embeds the imdisk driver 2.1.1. This driver is only signed by a SHA-256 certificate. Windows Vista 64-bit and unpatched Windows 7 64-bit require digitally signed drivers but are not able to load drivers that are signed this way. In these cases, the driver will not load, and ProxyCrypt will display an error message with a link to download the driver 2.0.10. Note that there is no update for Vista 64-bit to fix this issue. On this system, you have to retrieve the driver 2.0.10 (with...
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The full package now embeds the imdisk driver 2.1.1. This driver is only signed by a SHA-256 certificate. Windows Vista 64-bit and unpatched Windows 7 64-bit require digitally signed drivers but are not able to load drivers that are signed this way. In these cases, the driver will not load, and ProxyCrypt will display an error message with a link to download the driver 2.0.10. Note that there is no update for Vista 64-bit to fix this issue. On this system, you have to retrieve the driver 2.0.10 (with...
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This version includes the driver 2.1.1. Besides a bug fix in awealloc, the main change is the auto-elevation of the control panel (imdisk.cpl). In particular, this avoids a risk of data loss when a volume is dismounted without admin privileges (because write buffers may be not flushed). This new driver is now signed with a SHA256 certificate (and no longer with SHA1 certificate). That means it cannot run on Windows Vista x64 and unpatched Windows 7 x64. To maintain support of these systems, at least...
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In doubt, just use VirusTotal: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/786f8dd8c7bf6f569091049a4f958d59da9e5bfb82e979ca4167e519a101877b
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The driver produces drives that are not necessarily ramdisks. And it's not always possible to know whether the volume will be a ramdisk or not (in case of a use of a proxy). However, it is possible to know whether a volume belongs to Imdisk or not, with something like: DWORD version, data_size; HANDLE h = CreateFile("\\\\.\\R:", 0, FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL); BOOL is_imdisk = DeviceIoControl(h, IOCTL_IMDISK_QUERY_VERSION, NULL, 0, &version,...
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config.exe demande les droits admin en utilisant l'équivalent du menu contextuel. C'est une technique peu courante mais qui permet de ne pas demander les droits si ce n'est pas nécessaire, ou d'avoir une partie sans droits admin. Donc si les données relatives à ça sont supprimées du registre, ça peut effectivement poser problème. Le plus souvent, un programme demande les droits admin grâce à un "manifeste". C'est des propriétés ajoutées à la fin de l'exécutable qui indiquent toutes sortes de choses...
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Vous auriez dû créer un nouveau topic... Une "application associée" ? Il n'y a rien d'associé avec un .exe, Windows est supposé le lancer directement. Ce genre de bazar est typique d'un antivirus...
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Firefox is my main browser. Just made a few checks and yes, it seems the "open with" dialog box does no longer work. I don't use it often... A workaround can be to start Firefox with a .bat file such as: set TMP=R:\Temp set TEMP=R:\Temp start "" /b "%ProgramW6432%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
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This new version brings important changes and fixes. As some users noticed, using a junction on the C: drive pointing to the Temp folder of a ramdisk is enough to fix some MSI installers. I recently had the opportunity to check that. A junction is like a symbolic link, that is, a shortcut created at the file system level. An example is "C:\Documents and Settings" that points to "C:\Users" (Vista and later). As creating a junction may be difficult for some beginners, RamDiskUI now allows creating...
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I said that xcopy can return 1 in case of empty folders, but in fact it's only what the documentation says. I just checked and the return value is 0. And like you, 4 with insufficient space, and 1 if it is killed by the Task Manager. In case where the process is killed during shutdown, it seems someone already looked at that. So it seems that we can rely on the exit code. The rest will be easy.
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An administrator may want to have these shortcuts only for himself and not for other users... That could be an option to add.
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But if exit code is 1, it is not supposed to be an issue because a user can want to copy only empty folders. And there is no documentation about the value 1 returned in case where the xcopy process is terminated by Windows. We need something more robust than that. In fact, the use of xcopy is not a good idea... But when I wrote that, the synchronization service did not exist.
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The exit code can be set to anything if the process is killed. So we cannot rely on this. Maybe with the return value of WaitForSingleObject, but I find no documentation about that. Anyway, the next release will not be right away, because I am in the middle of an important change in RamDiskUI.
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Yes, I had this idea. :) But if RamDiskUI is stopped, it will never set this flag to "finished". Even if I prevent the shutdown like in the synchronization service, there is still the risk to have xcopy killed. It will not be simple...
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RamDiskUI waits for xcopy, not for attrib. It's not an issue because attrib does not involve a risk of data deletion. The shutdown process can kill xcopy, and even RamDiskUI because, even if it acts as a service, it is not currently configured to delay the shutdown. Don't worry, I will find something.
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Well, yes, theoretically this could happen if you try to shutdown the system very early. Of course, this is a major issue. It will be fixed in the next release. Thanks for the report. For now, the only workaround would be to check whether the RamDiskUI.exe process is still running before shutting down the system. This can be done in a script with a command such as tasklist | find "RamDiskUI.exe" || shutdown (the use of "shutdown" depends on whether you have administrative privileges or not)
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The installer recreates all the ramdisks of a previous installation, if the proper registry values are present. You can retrieve these values with the "General Settings" panel. It will create a .reg file. Then, in a new installation, first restore these values, and then start the ImDisk Toolkit installer. The values can be restored with a command such as reg import imdisk.reg (here, "imdisk.reg" is the file you previously created with the "General Settings" panel).
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Very interesting project. About the speed, you should not expect too much about that. Various things make that difficult and this is a challenge for 3D engines too. I will take a closer look as soon as I have some time.
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There is no restriction by the software itself. So for instance, if you use a 64-bit system with NTFS, you can create a 1TB ramdisk.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_sequences_in_C#Table_of_escape_sequences
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There is an issue with your software. With 7-Zip, you can see and extract the files of this folder without password (empty or not).
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I just checked and there is no password at all for this folder. Only ProxyCrypt32*.exe are encrypted. I use a script to create the releases so there should be no mistake.
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Never tried. There is currently no asm, so it should be possible. More importantly, you will very likely get less performances. Everything is optimized for GCC, which nowadays produces a code almost as fast than the Intel compiler. On this kind of software, you can easily get huge differences on this point.
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I confirm the issue. On XP SP3, copying a small file (a few KB) to this volume succeeds, but a file of several MB fails. I can see in the task manager that DiscUtilsDevio does nothing, everything seems frozen. The issue does not occur on Windows Vista, 7 and 10. On 8.1, I get other issues... I cannot open the file to check its partitions. This will be something to fix for Olof...
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As said, it's not ProxyCrypt that produces the sound but the console (conhost.exe). So you can open the volume mixer, then open a console and make a sound with the console by using either ProxyCrypt (with a password error) or the Ctrl-G trick. Then you should see a volume control for the console.
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Can you try this? The sound produced by the "bell character" depends on the Windows version and the "sound scheme". According to my tests: - Windows XP and Vista do nothing (but who cares? :)) - Windows 7 produces a small and typical sound, no matter the sound scheme - Windows 8 and 10 produce a sound depending on the sound scheme So it seems to me good enough and will not bother the users who have selected "No Sound" in their sound scheme (except for Windows 7 users), so it removes the need for...
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I just remembered something: playing a sound registers the volume for the program and its name/location in the registry. I don't like that, it terribly lacks discretion for a tool like that. A workaround could be to use one of the oldest ways to play a sound: using the "bell" character (because it is played by the console). You can check whether your console will play this sound by typing Ctrl-G and then Enter. But on Windows 10, if you have disabled the system sounds, you may get nothing.
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It's very easy to do (provided that the system is configured to play a sound for error events). But could you explain why you need that? When we type the password, we are supposed to watch what is going on... :)
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Lowercase does not work. I will add that in the next release.
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Lowercase don't work. I will add that in the next release.
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This command line does exactly the same thing than at system shutdown. So, if it goes faster, this is either because you already used the command, or there are less files to copy, or the file caching is different when the system is shutting down. There is a registry value (HKLM\SOFTWARE\ImDisk\SyncFlags) that represents the options you checked in the GUI. But it can be named differently if there are several ramdisks defined. If you don't want the synchronization done by the service at shutdown, the...
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